portrait

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Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

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The previous post in this series is here..

After our vegetarian lunch in Hanoi, we started off towards Ha Long Bay. It was a long drive and our attempts at telling our driver to keep his eyes on the road failed miserably. So we just braced ourselves for a potential accident and tried to look outside the window as much as possible to the side! Apparently the norm here per driver given the traffic. We even called the guy who ran the service and that person said we were with the safest driver in his fleet!

This was a local Electric Vehicle which had some ADAS. So that gave us some consolation even though I didn’t trust the ADAS in this type of traffic. Enough of the car stories..

On the way we saw the west lake and the Pagoda in it. There was no time to visit this Pagoda but we had spent a lot of time in the morning at another temple with the turtles. We prayed en route to the higher powers in that Pagoda to make it to Ha Long.

We made it to Halong bay in 2 hours. The place was empty. No tourists on the waterfront. Apparently the boats had all left for the all day tour of the rock formations and would return around sunset. So we had the place to ourselves. Walked around, took pictures, saw the Dolphin palace which was impressive and we decided to go to the beach side. It was a 20 minute ride and we spent a good 45 minutes in the beach taking pictures and just enjoying the relatively empty beach.

Ha Long bay is really beautiful with the unique rock formations. The views were the same from most places though. We were reasonably sure that our decision to see this from the shore instead of an all day boat ride was a good one given our time constraints. Here are the pics.. yoga first..

At this point we decided not to wait for the sunset. It would take us a lot more than 2 hours in evening traffic to get back. We had not even checked in to our hotel and we wanted to see the night market and old quarter by night. So we told our driver that we can start back with no breaks. He was also happy as we had started early that morning from the airport and it was a long day for him as well. More photos..

it was a good call. We drove past a glorious sunset towards Hanoi and were dropped off at hour hotel a little close to 6:30 PM. We had made it back in exactly 2 hours.

A video highlight of our visit to Ha Long bay

We checked into our room and ventured out towards the market.. that in the next post!

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Positano in the Amalfi Coast - Vertical village

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The previous post in this series is here..

After Jr.’s scaring us with her health the previous night post kayaking into the sunset, we tried to get her back in shape with EmergenC, tylenol etc. and by morning she was in better shape.

We had one last breakfast at the Angelino Hotel, said bye to the staff. Loaded our luggage and started driving to Positano. It was a tense drive on windy roads along the coast. Once we reached Positano we found a paid parking garage and walked the entire vertical village up and down a few times.

Thoroughly enjoyed the churches, the lanes, the cute shops, and had a fabulous pasta lunch.

The gallery of photos , mostly in portrait format..

A video highlights reel..

Then we walked back in the hot sun to the car. It was already close to 2 PM when we started. The original plan was to go sleep in Naples close to the airport and catch the early morning flight out. Given the heat and need for some chai, we skipped the gelato plan and drove straight to Naples.

Positano was amazing. It felt like an action replay of Sorrento at placed but the vertical village has its own charm! Do not miss visiting Positano if you go on a trip to the Sorrento area.

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Kayaking into the sunset - an amazing experience in Sorrento

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The previous post in this series is here..

We were to drive to the starting point for the Kayaking and be there before 5PM. We ended up in a wrong parking lot somewhere in the middle of the hillside. Finally after calling the Kayak place we found a parking lot below at the sea level. Turned out we were not the last ones to arrive. This was booked through Viator. So we know it will be good.

We were asked to change in a small change room, leave everything there, given life vests, a hanging cover for our phones, paddles and when the entire group of 14 was ready, there were three guides who joined us. Once our vests were checked, we got a lesson on paddling and off we went. San and me in one kayak with her insisting that she will be in the front (which meant I got to direct the kayak.. you cannot have your cake and eat it too!) and the kids in another double kayak.

We kayaked along the coast line into a grotto. It was a thrilling experience. Once there, folks who wanted to swim there were allowed 20 minutes. There is a path from the grotto to go up the hill to a villa and see the sunset from there. San and me raced up. I thought I could make it to the villas front doors, but there wasn’t enough time. So we ran to the other side, got some pics and raced back.

San had a narrow escape as she fell when trying to get back on the kayak (it was unfortunately captured on video like a drishti parigaram) but recovered okay.

When we made it back and changed, Jr. was really sick. She was miserable. So we ate at the restaurant that was new (same owners as kayak place) and it was made fresh. Loved the pasta here. Then with wet clothes it was a race back to the hotel. By the time we reached the hotel the kid was really miserable. We had two more days of travel left. So we focussed on getting her better and went to bed early. When we got to the hotel I realized that my hard earned new challenge shirt was gone!

We had to take the next days plans depending on how things turned out in the morning..

A video highlight reel

In a way it was good we missed our original appointment and went to kayak at sunset. It was fantastic.

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.