Halong Bay

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After weighing up the numerous Halong Bay tours ranging from the $20 party boat (possibly without anywhere to sleep and with a higher potential of being a scam boat) to the highly priced $250 luxury (maybe) cruise, we opted for a middle of the range overnight boat trip. We had a 3.5 hour mini-bus trip to the bay in cloudy, then very rainy weather. Arriving at the bay was similar to arriving at a huge airport taxi rank (but with boats) where hundred's of tourists were being shepherded towards numerous junk-style boats. It was really pot luck which boat you ended up on, and who you would be spending your time with. Our junk-boat was quite rustic and we were fortunate enough to have an excellent international crowd on board with us - from Canada (although working in South Korea), Japan, Germany, USA, Russia and a lovely family from Vietnam who had moved to Australia 23 years ago.

We set sail, or rather the engines fired up, to start our journey to see the amazing topography of the bay. Our first destination was the one of the many large caves in Halong. The huge caves were truly spectacular with rock formations having been created over thousands of years. Some of these were an excellent hiding place for many pirates. It took the British Royal Navy, (sent from both Hong Kong and Singapore), to disperse the 50,000 pirate armada of hundreds of fighting boats after the Vietnamese and Chinese armies had failed. This re-opened the important trading routes again. Getting back on the boat was quite hairy as the steps were extremely slippery and several people were falling over, but thankfully our boat didn't suffer any injuries.

After the cave trip, there is normally an option to go swimming when the weather is good, however due to the rain the captain thought we wouldn't want to go but asked us anyway. Of course the answer was "YES" and the chance to go swimming in the beautiful Halong Bay is simply something not to miss - well that was Andy's viewpoint on the matter and luckily so did one other Canadian guy. So the captain took us all to a small beach cove to swim in. Soon after Andy & Tom were out swimming John (the other Canadian lad) joined them... then the 2 germans and finally the 2 Australian kids too. After a lovely swim it was time for a gorgeous lunch made from local sea foods and of course rice dishes too.

We sailed further to our anchor point in a small natural harbour for the night and most of the group went to bed early. We stayed up later with the Canadian lads exchanging travel stories and experiences. The funniest thing was the crew (and another crew from an adjoining boat) were all in a huddle around a table playing card games for money.

Next morning we had a great breakfast and made our way to the next destination for Kayaking around Halong. This was was an amazing experience and a very memorable time, we went through a cave tunnel which opened into a magnificent lake surrounded by rich greenery. We were also treated to a sighting of a family of native monkeys who came right to the waters edge to get a closer look at the odd looking animals in bright yellow floating vessels.

The mythology behind the bay say that the almost 2,000 limestones peaks were formed as a result of a 'descending dragon' which is the translation of 'Ha Long'. In 1994 the 1,550 sq km area, the largest marine karst in the world, was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We kept looking out for James Bond to appear from one of the peaks, but sadly it wasn't to be. Sadly on our trip there wasn't any wind and the sails of our junk-boat didn't go up. Even without James Bond, the whole Halong Bay trip was truely wonderful and left us in awe of the vastness and beauty of this natural Bay.

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Photos

Junk Boat.....
... and one of the many stunning peaks

Cave Tunnel...
...encountered on Kayaking trip.

Comments

[Betty]

http://desktopmemory.info
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