Goodbye Jenny...thank you for making the travel arrangements to Halong.
We arrived to Royal Lotus Resort and when getting out of the air conditioned vehicle, it felt like someone just opened an oven door. The ride from Hanoi was slow, almost 4 hours and the driver kept to the speed limit for the entire trip. He spoke no english and therefore we could not tell him to go faster. He is a smoker and therefore he needed a few smoke breaks. It was such a relief when we arrived to this beautiful resort. Our room has an ocean view, but disappointing that there is no beach nearby. However the resort is beautiful- two pools surrounded by lush vegetation. The staff are friendly and at times there appeared to be more staff than guests.
Soon after arrival we headed out to explore the town and find somewhere to eat lunch. There is lots building construction underway and most of the architecture is not what I expected. The buildings following a European colonial design. And many of the finished buildings are empty. Sound familiar? Yes, because of the Asian influence. And the Chinese and Koreans come to this area in bus-loads. We had lunch at the Happy Land restaurant, which, due to its size, caters to large groups, and during our lunch there were a few Asian bus-loads of tourists. These are noisy groups when they arrive, but once the food arrived, the restaurant went silent.
Even though the town of Halong is surrounded by many high-rise buildings, there are backstreets to explore that are more traditional Vietnamese. The local market is one of the more traditional areas. The meat selling area is not as pleasant (because of a he smell), and there are plenty of vegetable and fruit vendors. Some fruit looking alien-like, never seen before.
But many buildings sitting empty
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