{"id":4340,"date":"2025-12-26T12:18:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T20:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/?p=4340"},"modified":"2026-07-30T08:33:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T15:33:52","slug":"lan-ha-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/2025\/12\/26\/lan-ha-bay","title":{"rendered":"Lan Ha Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Halong means descending dragon. Lan Ha means orchid. Beautiful names for an area with over two thousand islands. I&#8217;m glad we got another night here to see a few more of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While most of boat departed for a morning on Titov Island, we had leisurely breakfast and then got a smaller vessel to a less crowded area. First we kayaked to a small cave, and were the first people in today. Apparently it used to host weddings and parties, and there\u2019s still a concrete dance floor sitting below the stalactites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024356729\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024356729_1af3ff9b5e_z.jpg\" alt=\"Secluded Beach\" width=\"640\" height=\"455\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Enjoying a more secluded beach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then we departed for a long cruise among the karst islands, eventually stopping to swim in an unspoiled bay. I jumped off the top of the boat, and was pleasantly surprised that the water wasn&#8217;t too cold and seemed cleaner than before on the busier beaches. The ban on single use plastics does seem like it&#8217;s helping, but there&#8217;s still more work to be done to preserve these areas for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024296538\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024296538_e98006b9c7.jpg\" alt=\"Swimming in Lan Ha bay\" width=\"334\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the way back we refreshed with a coconut drink &#8220;for the gram&#8221; and relaxed in the sunshine. We stopped at a pearl farm on way back, where Ruth got some nice earrings, and then returned to main ship for another night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jlevinger\/55024100526\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55024100526_29b37e2e0b_z.jpg\" alt=\"Halong Cruise Sunset\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Sunset in Halong Bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Halong means descending dragon. Lan Ha means orchid. Beautiful names for an area with over two thousand islands. I&#8217;m glad we got another night here to see a few more of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vietnam"],"geo":{"latitude":20.7892113,"longitude":107.1034088,"description":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4340"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4391,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340\/revisions\/4391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}