Our Hạ Long Bay Cruise: The Last Day
By Lauren Gerzina & Justin Hayes
Pearls, New/Old Friends, and an International Feast
Our last day on the Ha Long Bay cruise started again with a buffet breakfast. There was also another chance to go kayaking, but we decided to take it easy and avoid the uncomfortable kayak seats to take our time with breakfast and packing up our stuff.
We had to check out of our rooms by 9:30am and meet in the dining room for a “brunch” buffet. We had a chance to talk to some of our cruise mates, including a group of nine people from San Diego, many of whom we had talked to throughout the cruise. There was a (quite sarcastic) man, originally from South Africa – who Justin thought resembled the character John Hammond from Jurassic Park – and his super nice wife who gave us some great tips about Cambodia and talked with Lauren extensively about diving. In fact, several in the San Diego group were divers and asked Lauren for recommendations, including whether she would recommend traveling to the Maldives. They were all very fun and very nice. It's been quite fulfilling in general getting to know people from around the world, where they’ve been, where they recommend going, and what has inspired them to travel.
Around 10:45am or so, we boarded our tender to head back to the docks. We got off, grabbed our luggage and said goodbye to everyone. We did not, however, have a private transfer back to Ha Noi. We were on a bus that fit 6 passengers and rode with an Australian couple and an Indian couple from different cruise lines. I don’t think either of us felt very talkative, so we didn’t really chat them up very much.
We learned that if, a few days, we took the bus instead of the private car to the boat, then we would have stopped at a Ha Long Bay Pearl Farm Shop. We were told by one of the cruise directors not to purchase pearls on any of the excursions because you could never tell if they were real but that pearls at this shop were authentic, so Lauren, unbeknownst to her that we were riding back with others, asked our bus driver if we could stop there.
Alas, the bus driver didn’t speak any English, so we ended up stopping at the pearl shop and looked around a bit. Lauren found a pearl bracelet that she really liked, so now it is her honeymoon bracelet!
As we made it to Ha Noi, we messaged our Aussie friends – Pip and Elle, who we met at the Mezcal Bar in Hoi An – about seeing a Vietnamese Water Puppetry play at the Than Long Theatre that evening. They had also gone on a Ha Long Bay cruise and were returning to the city that afternoon.
We arrived at our new Airbnb in the city – this one was closer to the French Quarter and in the same building as a dental office (although we didn’t have to go past any patients or dentists to get to the elevator as there was a lobby.) The apartment was much more spacious and had a small kitchen and a Washer/Dryer combo. We immediately put on a load of clothes as we were both running extremely low. We then relaxed for a bit and got ready to head to the show. Oh, apparently Justin missed the part in the reviews which said that there was active construction going on next to our building so taking any sort of nap was off the table.
When we all arrived at the theatre, however, we learned that the play was sold out for the evening except for the latest show, but we were all feeling pretty tired from cruising/traveling, so we didn’t want to stay out that late and purchased tickets for the next day.
Instead, we went to a restaurant Justin had found researching gluten-free places in Ha Noi (Pip is also gluten-free) called the Ha Noi Social Club. It was a very hip restaurant with three levels (and A/C) with an eclectic menu of drinks and food. Justin got a kombucha cocktail and Lauren got a regular kombucha. The girls had dark rum mojitos. To illustrate the wide range of menu items, Lauren had pumpkin and feta salad with balsamic, Justin had a Thai-style rice noodle dish with shrimp and bok choy, Pip had a South American black bean bowl, and Elle had goulash. Quite the international feast, indeed!
After dinner, it was time to head back to the Airbnb, and luckily the construction had ceased so we got a relatively decent night’s sleep.
