Awesome Weekend of Awesome

Last Thursday Melody sent me an email asking if I wanted to go to Ha long By, and stay for an evening on Cat ba Island. She mentioned that we would have a stop at the "amazing cave". Of course i said yes.

The weekend started Friday night when we went out of Tacos and Sangria at the really nice and accommodating place in the old quarter. We got there at around 7:30 and stayed until just past midnight, drinking Sangria and Beer...  Both of which we may have really gone to town on. The food and the company were both awesome and I will defiantly be stopping by again in the future.

On Saturday we gathered to meet the tour bus a bleary eyed but awake. On the way out of the City we picked up on of the volunteers - Thang, who we have met, and who is like our impromto tour guide / translator.. and all around awesome fellow. Of course by now he has relised that our group likes to have a good time, when ever there is a good time to be had - so all he brought with us was fermented rice wine what he picked up at a mountain village.


That is all he brought. No change of clothing... No nothing.. Just a big Jug of booze. Yes... It was going to be one of those kind of weekends.

Here he is at the dock in Ha long. You can tell he is ready for a party.

We picked up the rest of our group on the outskirts of town and headed off four the four hour ride to dock. The ride was long but bearable and we stopped at a little artisan school where they had some amazing embroidery for sale. Super cool.

Once we got to the dock, we hopped onto this Boat and we where off to see the amazing cave.

Now amazing cave (you should probably Google this for your self) is a giant natural cave. The first one we went into, you could probally fit a couple of houses in. The second... Well.. they turned it into a concert hall. To put it into perspective.. Have you seen the second matrix movie? Do you remember when all of Zion gathers to have the last big party before they go off to fight the robots? That big cave... is basically where i was.

I managed to get alot of good pictures, but they all kind of look wonky because of the weird lighting conditions they had in the cave. There was alot of multi colored florescent lighting going on that made it really hard to get the exposure settings right. Alot of the pictures turned out really cool - but they don't really give the massive feel that the place had. Seriously - These are all raw photos - with out any editing or really any playing with the settings on my camera - other then trying different levels of ISO and flash.

 After we finished with the cave, we headed back onto the boat for some more touring around. Around Three we stopped and tied the boat off to a rock and went swimming. This was pretty awesome since we where jumping off the boat into probably 20 degreeish salt water. It was.. extremely awesome.  As the sun was setting we continued on our way to Cat ba island. I managed to get a couple of amazing shots of the sun setting over the islands. Again there is no post production going on with any of these photos

Once we got to the Dock at catba, we met up with a taxi bus, and they took us up and around the mountains and along the coast to the city where we where staying. Of course, us still full of awesome from the day where ready to party it up a little along the way. The Drivers obliged us, and played some kick ass dance music all the way. I managed to grab this video of the scenery of the drive. The music you hear in the back ground is what they played when ever they took us out and around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNkKOO-BIOk
We got to the hotel and settled in. But as soon as the bus stopped i booked it down to the wharf to grab some shots of the incredable sunset.

and then it was time for dinner. Dinner was uneventful, other then the fact that these two street massage guys showed up and wondered if anyone would be interested. There where a few takers from our group and it was apparently extremely nice. 

Our guide asked us what we wanted to do for the rest of the evening, and we came back with.. "well what is there to do". He offered us a choice of bar hopping or squid fishing. Really... this isn't even a choice when you get right down it... I mean how often can you go squid fishing in Ha long bay... and off we go

We meet up with the Fisherman, and the load us up onto their boats and we head off into the bay. In order to squid fish, it has to be evening, and you have to be away from the lights.  It just so happens that that there was no moon that evening so it was perfect squid fishing time So we headed off a ways into the sea to catch us some squid.


About half way out Lindsey turns to me and Asks... "Are we seriously going squid fishing in ha long bay, in the middle of the night? " in a way that isn't really asking - why are we doing this, since she knows that it is awesome.. but she is really saying OMG this is a surreal experience how did we manage to be here at this point in time surrounded by this much awesome?

And yes. It really was awesome.

Once we got ourselves situated in what was apparently a good squid fishing place, we set up shop and started fishing. Thang, our buddy - of course brought his rice wine jug... and we started drinking while we where out there. He was extremely happy because as he said "this wine comes from the mountains. We are on the sea drinking it. We are at the place where the Ocean meets the sea." Awesome.

here are some snaps of us fishing and drinking the mountain wine.

The next day we headed out to the Old Cannon fort that was used by the Japanese during world war 2, and then later the Vietnamese.  This point basically over looked the whole bay area where we where staying - so i grabbed some more shots of the vista's before we headed back down to the beach.

I recorded this video while we where at the beach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAq5Z7RjuNk

We headed back to Ha noi later that afternoon on a sea taxi. It was kinda cramped and loud, but i popped in the ear buds and cranked the Trans Siberians Orchestra album:   Beethoven's last night, and enjoyed the sea spray.

That peaty much warped up the weekend.

Now you may have noiced that alot of my pictures don't have any people in them... Well that is because I am not particularly good at taking pictures of people.

But Lindsay Wolfson is, and she got alot of good ones: check out her blog here for some pics with people.

http://lindsaywolfson.tumblr.com/