Ha Long Bay, Vietnam (November 28, 2025)
Deciding which cover to use for this blog post was difficult. So many beautiful pictures today — some with me in them, some just the natural beauty of Ha Long Bay, a few sunset pictures, some in the cave, and some in a kayak. Okay, so that you have a good sense of the incredible day I had, here’s a picture summary:
What’s not included in the photo gallery above is the swimming on the beach. Yes, I did that too, but without my phone. And … what’s that? You want to know about the giant red penis picture in the gallery above? I understand. It’s hard not to notice. The red light was added for dramatic effect, but this is actually a naturally forming stalactite in what is called the “surprise” cave. And no, that’s not the surprise (despite many people claiming to the contrary).
To tell the story of the “surprise” in the cave, I need to go back to how it was first discovered. French colonists saw monkeys “disappear” into the mountain and thought there might be a cave (and were hoping for precious minerals). So they followed the monkeys into the cave, who, as you can imagine, got frightened and went deeper into the second chamber of the cave (where the colonists followed).
Yes, it’s crazy to me too that anyone would follow monkey’s in a cave — especially frightened ones who might feel threatened and start biting and clawing their way to safety, but as the story goes, the monkeys went into the third chamber which turned out to be HUGE. That’s the surprise; that buried beneath all this rock was a massive cave you could hold a rock concert inside of. No exageration. It’s THAT big.
I know I’m going a bit out of order here, so let me backup. After the epic day I had in Ninh Binh (see related post), I wanted to keep the day trip party going with what most people say is a highlight of their time in Hanoi — Ha Long Bay. It’s a 2 hour bus ride (via luxury bus) to transfer to a cruise ship where you have a full buffet lunch. As I was “single” for this trip, I was grouped with 5 other singles for our group table of 6.
Singles selfie aboard the Ha Long Bay lunch buffet cruise
Our first stop was a temple with around 400 steps to get to the top. Our guide, Jason, suggested that we head straight there and make that our first priority as the steps get crowded as more ships doc. He was so right. We zoomed up the stairs with no one in front of us, but then snail stepped down with people who were really struggling with those stairs.
After this hike up (and slog down) the stairs, I was able to throw on my googles and swim inside the designated area for a good 30 minutes and felt energized. I then hustled back to the boat where we went to the “surprise” cave I shared above. But we were not done. We still had some kayaking to do … and see some monkeys in the wild!
So yes, kayaking was awesome, but seeing monkeys in the wild while kayaking was truly amazing. From the looks of it, some smart guide brought a few bananas to share and tossed them onto the islands. The monkeys loved getting the bonus food and spent their time eating while we all took pictures of them. It may not look like much from the pictures, but with our kayak we got up really close and checked thme out. Then I remembered how dumb I thought the French colonists were who cornered the monkeys in a cave and backed off a bit.
From there, we cruised back to where we started, but got to watch the sun go down. This truly was a sunset cruise. It was lovely.
Notice the contrast between the actual sunset and the pictures of me in front of them. Sure, a few have a glimmer of a sunset behind me, but nothing like what was really going on. Oh well. I got to enjoy the moment and admire the contrast between the setting sun and the large hills (small mountains) tucked into the ocean landscape. Even if I wasn’t able to sufficiently capture the moment, it sure was beautiful.
Overall, another great day trip. Even with a total of 4 hours on a bus (which makes for a bit of a long day), all the time on the boat cruising, hiking, swimming, cave exploring and then kayaking made the day feel full of activities and packed with adventure. My kind of day. Woo hoo!
