Vietnam: The Amazing Cave

Now, I don't know about you, but when someone describes an attraction as "The Amazing Cave", I'm a little skeptical. It's a bit like someone telling you they're really funny. So, we didn't have our hopes too high as we visited the Amazing Cave as part of our Ha Long Bay boat tour.

I'm happy to say that while a bit tourist hokey, it was actually a little bit amazing.

You can see the great view and the number of boats. What was amazing was how many tourists they managed to squeeze into the cave!

The hokey part for us was the use of colored lights. The cave was beautiful, but the colored lights diminished it. And, our tour guide kept telling these boring and elaborate stories about the different rock formations that were clearly made up for the tourists and had no historical relevance. At one point she told this long and rambling tale about a guy trying to peek at some angels bathing, blah, blah, blah. And at the end she points to a shadow on the cave wall and tells us that it is his silhouette, captured for all time because of his naughtiness.  Seriously? That shadow is because you've lit up the place like a Vegas casino. Turn off the light and viola! no shadow and no story. We both decided that  when I retire, I could be a tour guide in "The Amazing Cave" and embellish stories to my heart's content.

Eventually, we got a little ahead of her so we could just take photos and enjoy the cave.

A last Amazing view from the Amazing cave.