Another day in Ha Long Bay

We had an early start to the day with a pre-breakfast visit to the Sung Sot caves. These caves have formed in the karsts (limestone rock formations scattered throughout the bay). The Karsts are made of soluble stone (I.e., limestone) that are slowly dissolving over millennia. The caves we saw yesterday and today are a product of that process. The Sung Sat caves were “discovered” by the French in 1901 who named them the surprise caves because of their size and the shapes within. The caves have stalagmites (grow from the ground) and stalactites (growing from the ceiling) formations in the three large caverns. The government developed the caves for tourism after the 1990’s.

We returned to the boat to check out and have brunch. We then headed back to shore and a return trip to Hanoi. On the way back we stopped for a water puppet show at one of the villages. It was fantastic! The puppeteers stayed behind the curtain in chest high water and manipulated the puppets through long poles under water.

We returned to Hanoi for our next stop – the Hanoi Hilton. This prison was initially designed to house, torture and kill Vietnamese dissidents, including women, during the French Indochina war. It later housed American pilots captured during the Vietnam/American war, including John McCain. The exhibits were from a Vietnamese perspective and highlighted the resiliency of their people. Much like the visit we had to the Chu Chi Tunnels, this was an important and educational stop that depicted the horrors of war. I found it difficult to take pictures so you will just have to imagine dark, dank cells with horrible lighting and conditions.

We ended our day back at the hotel. After a brief relaxation followed by our ritual of happy hour, we headed off for supper. Our destination of choice was a 1 star Michelin restaurant (my first ever). The food was great but we had difficulty understanding the difference between quality of this restaurant compared to the others we have eaten in (the food here is fantastic in general and our tour company has made sure we eat well). We were amazed at the total bill which, for the two of us came to a whopping $60 cdn.