Three days ago we drove to Halong City and boarded a traditional junk  with 2 other couples. It wasn’t very big and below deck there was enough room for 3 cabins, a very small kitchen, a dining table and a couch for lounging. On the top there was another dining  table and a sun deck. We did a loop around the various islands of Bai Tu Long Bay and occasionally did some kayaking and had supper in a huge cave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also had a chance to tour around a fishing village. It was very neat because all their houses and structures float on the water.  They have a Styrofoam base and the rest is made out of wood and bamboo. There is no heating in the houses so it gets extremely cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. In each fishing village there are about 20 floating houses and a primary school for the young kids. When they become an adult they can choose to stay in the village or head to the mainland and study for university.

Now we are back in Hanoi and we saw some more tourist attractions like the History Museum and the Hoa Lo Prison, where the French colonists kept Vietnamese political prisoners during the 1900s. They used to torture the prisoners and threw them into a cell for 30-60 days with no sunlight or food if they misbehaved. Eventually they were forced to eat their feces because they became so hungry. Around 1930, 36 prisoners escaped through sewage drains. Only 10 made it out alive. From 1966-73, the Hoa Lo prison also housed American pilots, who sarcastically named it the Hanoi Hilton.

- Kiva