Blog #241 I talked about the Private label team heads out to Vietnam In this blog I want to talk about the Private label team visits Ha Long Bay

The next day we went to the factories Rob & Michael arranged for us. They were mostly casual shoes which was what we were looking for anyways. Question was, could they do the gel for Fitzwell? We met the factory manager and he was about 5 feet tall, maybe smaller. I felt like a giant next to him. Super nice guy though and he said they could do the gel for us.

He left the room for us to discuss internally what we wanted to do. Rob started with an “Uhhhhhh’ Then said, “I don’t know about you but I think a beer is in order”. We went through some of the details when the guy came back then they ordered a car for Rob & Michael to catch their flight out. Rob was bigger than the car but he managed to fit in. It was quite comical though. We went back to our hotel room to get ready for our next adventure, Ha Long Bay.

The name Hạ Long means “descending dragon”. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various shapes and sizes. According to local legend, when Vietnam had just started to develop into a country, they had to fight against invaders. To assist the Vietnamese in defending their country, the gods sent a family of dragons as protectors. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. Under magics, numerous rock mountains abruptly appeared on the sea, ahead of invaders’ ships; the forward ships struck the rocks and each other. After winning the battle, the dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth, and then decided to live in this bay.

In 2012, New 7 Wonders Foundation officially named Ha Long Bay as one of New Seven Natural Wonders of the world.

Ha Long Bay is also a member of the Club of the Most Beautiful Bays of the World. We took a van to the bay which was about an hour from our hotel. He gave us a lesson of the Vietnamese language along the way. We arrived at the shipyard where Richard had rented a boat for our journey. It was a total tourist trap in everything had a price. We all bought some Vietnamese hats for the boat ride as we would be in direct sun. During the boat ride some local farmers came along side our boat in a boat full of fruits and veggies. Other boats sold fish. It was really interesting.

The bay itself was breathtaking. We saw the dragon rocks which were famous which I talked about earlier. It looked like they were kissing. We went to a famous cave in which the Stalactites & Stalagmites were lit up. It really showed their beautiful colors. I learned that the way to remember the difference of the two is Stalactites are from the top and Stalagmites are from the ground. Remembering how to spell them correctly is a different story.

This trip was definitely a bucket list we could cross off, especially with the Ha Long Bay and the puppet show. The people here were very friendly but the living conditions were very poor. It made me think how truly lucky I am.

We flew back to Hong Kong and had the day to shop and also attend the Electronics show. It was massive and had many of the new technology items we would soon see in TV’s and such later on. I think we were all worn out from the long trip though so we made it an early day and had a nice dinner and turned in early.