day 13. 世界遺産『ハロン湾・カットバー群島』 14日間ベトナム縦断・統一鉄道の旅
Good morning. This is the 13th day of crossing Vietnam. It is now about 2.5 hours from Hanoi to Halong Bay, a famous world heritage site. This way is Halong Bay. Halong Bay seems to be famous for pearl farming. It’s like, “Buy pearls, buy pearls, buy pearls. That’s a lot of tourists.
I don’t know if they’re coming from Hanoi for a night or a day, but basically a lot of people come to Halong Bay on these tours. The bus I was on was full of Indians and Chinese, not a single Japanese. So now we are going to this Halong Bay.
We’ve entered what looks like a waiting area for the cruise. I guess we are going to be on one of those cruises. Some kind of atmosphere over there. Looking forward to it. There are a lot of cruise ships. No, I don’t see it. It’s a cruise called Cozy at the end.
This is it. Cozy bay cruise Something about the atmosphere over there is already there. That’s a nice touch. The weather is bad again. I didn’t think it would be this bad… It’s been about 20 minutes since we left Halong Bay.
These two small islands, or rather rocks, seem to be the symbol of Halong Bay. I think if you search for Halong Bay, these two little rocks will come up a lot. But this area is amazing. I heard that all these mountains are made of limestone, not so different from this Jinglin limestone.
I guess that’s why the landscape looks like Jinglin. The world really does look like a Chinese ink and wash painting. I think it’s even better when it’s a bit cloudy like this. If I ask for a Japanese cruise, it will cost me almost $300, well, $256 or so.
It was like you couldn’t go alone, you had to sign up with 2 or more people. So even if you sign up for one person, you have to pay for two people, and that was a little too expensive, so I signed up for a local tour.
The local tours are led by guides who speak English and Vietnamese and start at around 40 USD. What’s different is that the boat for this trip is basically different.
I went up a little bit and got one that was about 60 to 70 USD, but then you can have a better ship or a better bus with a limo bus. I also had a buffet lunch a little while ago and there were some differences, like the contents were a little bit better.
It’s definitely a little different. I had a buffet lunch with some kind of steamed oysters and that’s about it. I think it would be fun either way, but it’s a little hard to do if you’re single. Local tours are cheaper. Well, I guess it’s about 2 hours. I’m going to enjoy the cruise.
For some reason, the background music on board is old Japanese enka. Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki (Winter landscape of the Tsugaru Strait) For some reason, Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki has been playing for a while. I guess that means the atmosphere is right. The scenery is a bit different from Trang An, where I was yesterday.
The trees aren’t as thick as yesterday because this is the ocean. Yesterday Trang An was really like a lake in the jungle. But really, Halong Bay is just amazingly popular worldwide. This view has been around for a long time.
The limo bus I was on had a lot of Indians and Chinese, but as I sat at my seat on this cruise and talked to the people around me, there were also people from the U.S. and Vietnamese,
The person in front of me was Filipino, the person behind me was Italian, and so on. I still feel like they come from all over the world. The scenery is certainly more spectacular. This is an amazing natural heritage because it goes all the way to the other side and so on.
I think it has to be like that to become a world heritage site as a natural heritage site. I have never been to Shiretoko, a World Heritage Site in Japan, but I wonder if it is as big as this. I would like to visit many places like this.
I think there are a lot of hard travelers when I talk to people around me. There were people who said that after Vietnam they would go to Laos, then to Thailand and then to Myanmar. It’s still fun to talk to these people and others like them.
I think we all have one thing in common, which is travel, so we talked a lot about how we went there and there and how we liked it there and how we wouldn’t recommend it there. But if you’re talking about the places I can and can’t recommend, Halong Bay is good.
This cruise is just a cruise, so it’s not like it’s going to be very exciting or anything like that. I’m just looking at this beautiful view and drinking coffee…I feel like it’s a little refreshing. Looks like we are at the cave.
It was like we were going to walk through the cave and have an adventure, That one, oh there must be some kind of amazing cave. I wonder what’s going on. I’m kind of looking forward to this. This is the rock. The trees are incredibly overgrown. It’s still an amazing rock when you land.
It’s starting to rain. Looks like this is going to be a tough climb. I climbed the stairs for what seemed like an eternity. It’s beautiful when you look at it like this. Beautiful. Looks like an amazing limestone cave. It looks like a movie. This is amazing.
I didn’t know there was such a limestone rain inside Halong Bay. I heard that they are all limestone, so maybe they are susceptible to this. This is a pretty big limestone cave. It’s really huge. One by one. This is worth watching.
I thought Halong Bay was amazing on the outside, but I had no idea there was so much to see on the inside. I was surprised to see the inside. It is an amazing sight. The pattern on top is wavy because the sea level used to be up to this ceiling.
I heard that the waves used to touch this ceiling and that’s why it has a smooth pattern like this. But this is amazing. Wild monkeys inhabited the island, how do they live on an island in the ocean… You can kayak with monkeys and rocky mountains in this cave.
We stopped at a place called Ti Top Island. I heard it’s common to get off at this place called Ti Top Island after the cave and kayaking. That Ti Top guy is a Soviet cosmonaut.
I thought it had nothing to do with this island, but this man visited this island with Ho Chi Minh in 1962, and after that the island became famous as a tourist spot, so it was called Ti Top Island.
It’s below 20 degrees Celsius and drizzling, but this seems to be the place where people go for a swim when it’s warm. But people from cold countries go to the beach even though it is raining in this temperature. It’s a completely different feeling. It really feels like an island for beaches here.
I’ve heard there’s a viewpoint up there, so I’d like to climb this mountain for a bit. I climbed to the top. It’s a tough climb because I’ve been climbing for almost 10 minutes. Oh, this is beautiful. This is incredibly beautiful. I knew it would be.
It really is a world like an ink and wash painting. It’s raining a bit now, so it looks a bit like this. The sea is a bit choppy. Still, I thought both Trang An and Ha Long, the World Heritage sites, were for young people.
There were so many climbs and descents that many older folks gave up halfway. You should come if you can enjoy this. But it’s not that hard. Soon our Halong Bay cruise will be over as we return to the port where we started.
We got up at 8:00 in the morning to come here and it’s worth it. I thought this was an amazing place to see, even though it took 2.5 hours to get here and 2.5 hours to get back. I arrived at the port.
I think we were on the boat for about 3.5 or 4 hours. We are back from Halong Bay and are now at Noi Bai International Airport. It’s very crowded. It’s all people. I am now boarding JL752, JAL flight back to Narita Airport.
I will be leaving at 23:55, taking 4 hours and 45 minutes to arrive at Narita Airport at 6:40. I just arrived at the airport 2 hours ago after a day trip from Halong Bay. This is how I would like to end this 13th day of traveling through Vietnam. That was fun.
I’m going to get some souvenirs and stuff if the duty free shop is still open and then I’m going home. Thank you very much.
レイオフされたので、年末年始に統一鉄道を使ってベトナムを縦断してきました。
ベトナムには、国土を南北を縦断する鉄道があります。
正式名称は『南北線』ですが、ベトナムはかつて南北に分断されていた歴史があるので、『統一鉄道』という呼称で親しまれています。
最南端のサイゴン駅（ホーチミン）からハノイ駅まで、1726㎞を寝台列車に乗って旅しました。
１３日目は首都ハノイから東に約１７０キロ移動して、世界遺産の「ハロン湾＝カットバー群島」を見に行きます。ハロン湾は昨日に訪問した別の世界遺産、チャンアンの地質と同類で、中国の桂林と同質の石灰岩台地によってできています。世界で最も美しい湾の一つとして有名なだけあって、アクセスが悪いのにかなりの観光客数でした。でも日本人には一人も会わなかったなぁ。
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