Day 10: Halong Bay and back to Hanoi

I wake up early to check out the sunrise, but it seems a little cloudy. After a while, it clears up and the sun is brilliant over the water. We enjoy coffee and pastries on the top deck of the ship while the scenery goes by.

We go for a tour of a fishing village in the bay. A fleet of women in row boats wait to ferry us around the floating village.

The local convenient store boat.

We have lunch before we disembark and head back to Hanoi.

We get back to Hanoi and have a few hours to spare before our flight to Danang in the evening. We have another stroll through town and our last dinner in Hanoi.

We walk by Ly Thai Tho park, a large open area dominated by the statue of Emperor Ly Thai Tho. It's a lazy Sunday afternoon with lots of families out and about, teenagers jamming on guitars in the corner and people enjoying the day.

The Hanoi Opera House was built by French colonialist between 1901 to 1911.

For dinner we go to Quan An Ngon. It feels like a buffet restaurant with a massive dining area, but you still order from a menu. Little kitchenettes line the perimeter of the dining room to mimic food stalls so you can get a look of the dishes and how they're prepared. We try crab rice noodles soup with snails, Hanoi crispy shrimp pan cakes and shrimp and pork rice rolls. The food's not bad, but I think I preferred our food stall wandering in the old quarter.

© Amy Lee 2013