Ha Long Bay

Just a few photos of our day trip to Ha Long Bay, which is a few hours northeast of Hanoi. The bay is famous for its limestone karsts -- literally thousands of the rocky formations (shown in the picture on the left) jut out of its waters.

We spent a day on a tour boat weaving our way around the karsts, which are huge and tower over everything. It's always hard to capture the scale of things with a camera, but if you notice the boat in the middle of the two large karsts -- right in the center of the photograph -- that boat is a small rowboat with a man standing inside. That should give you a better idea of how big these things were. (Yes, its there. Tiny, but there). The huge scale of the karsts, combined with the slight bit of misty fog that covered the bay, really made it seem almost other worldly.

In addition to the majestic scenery, I also really loved the small boats laden with fresh tropical fruit that sidled up to us in hopes to sell their wares.

I bought a fresh coconut from this lady in homage to my good friend Kate (who downed countless of these on our adventures in Guatemala and Costa Rica). In order to enjoy the juice inside the coconut, the woman hacked a small hole into the top of the coconut with a large knife and placed a straw in the new opening for me. Now that's a tropical cocktail. Yum.