Encountering Cambodia and Vietnam - Ha Long Bay, Wednesday 2016 March 9
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Published: July 30th 2017
Ocean Pearl
Seems like and exotic homeI woke to the dulcet tones of distant diesel engines on other boats and the scrapes of hard chairs on the hardwood floor above my head.
I braved the shower, which was the entire bathroom. The water only came out in a trickle, so only the toilet lid and the floor got wet. On Elizabeth’s advice, I threw a towel on the tile floor to avoid slipping. The water was hot enough, varying from warm to cold but not startlingly so. After going up onto the deck, I rushed down again for my camera. The sun was shining! Or at least, it was bright amongst the clouds and threw lovely shadows across the water from the mountains. In fact, when we glimpsed the actual sun, it seemed to have a bite out of it. A solar eclipse? One more thing to Google at home. (Indeed, it was an eclipse, and we were looking with unprotected eyes!)
For breakfast I delighted Thuy by having two (small) bowls of chicken soup with glass noodles. Better nutrition than eating a delicious Vietnamese baguette with jam and much easier to digest. Thuy insisted I was Vietnamese in another life! The others ordered scrambled
eggs, of course made from the freshest eggs, with deep yellow yolks.
At 8:30 we got into the tender to motor to the dock with the kayaks. This time we got into a small, flat-bottom boat to be paddled into a grotto. Passing in through a low hole, the boat brought us into an almost perfectly round formation defined by high sandstone, tree-covered cliffs. When we were silent, birdsong rang out; some people saw birds and nests, but I did not. The cliffs were all undercut but by wave action, leaving sculptural rock hanging over the water.
Thankfully, that was not the whole of our tour. The tender took us over to the wonderful Sung Sot Cave system that had been curated into a tourist attraction with stone walkways and coloured spot lights that highlighted certain formations of stalactites. I felt filled with the awe of nature as we walked high into the cave and marvelled at the magnificent of the great hollows.
At the end of our cave visit, Thuy bargained with a fisherwoman for odd (to us) shrimps about six inches long with almost prehistoric heads and claws. They wiggled and jumped madly in the
sieve basket, which floated on the water to keep the fish alive, thus fresh. These same shrimp appeared cooked as our first course at lunch. Sweet and rich!
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Shortly after lunch we got into the tender for a short distance to another cave system. Much less developed, it had about a hundred rough stone steps into a small system dramatically lit in an orange glow, revealing what water can do to rock.
After another interlude on the cruise boat, we again got into the tender, this time to see a floating fishing village and pearl farm. Given the number of tourists at the floating dock, I think the villagers probably make more from tourism than fishing. Thuy informed us that the government had given them permanent houses on the mainland, where they do live. Since they want to keep their fishing businesses, they manage their time between the two places. Thirty-two families work in the fishing village, and we presumed the people who rowed the small boats were villagers. Groups of four to six of us got into small flat-bottomed boats; Ming joined our boat and took over the rowing from a standing position. She was really
Tour boats
Village visit in traditional transportation strong! After a time, she surrendered one oar to the boat woman, and they rowed together the rest of the way in a sitting position.
The fishing houses were in groups of five to six, roped together and roped to the rock of nearby islands. Rectangular like a child’s drawing, they looked fairly new, painted in bright yellow, blue or green. When we got close we could see that they had porches where fishing and household items were stored, and they floated on empty drums. We were rowed past them towards an arch in the rock; as we got closer we could see the water action eating away at the rock, not in a spectacular fashion but in an insidious one. At one spot the slight surf penetrated deep into the rock through a crack. One day in a thousand years, the weakening will cause the base to fail, bringing down the arch.
Now we are back on the cruise boat, actually relaxing, anticipating happy hour. We are quietly moving through the thousands of islands. In the late afternoon mist and the clouds the mountain islands faded into shades of lighter and lighter blue until they disappeared.
Spring Roll lesson
Why I leave this to experts! Evidently, the captain received permission for our second night (only one over-night permit is issued at a time), and he has pulled up the anchor with a loud rattle that sounded under the length of the boat.
During happy hour, the chef came out to teach us how to make spring rolls. He had a large tin pan with piles of sticky rice, glass noodles, shredded carrot, finely chopped mushroom, and shredded jicama. To this he added an egg and mixed it all together with his (gloved) hands. Rice paper was moistened by placing it on a damp towel. He took a small fistful of the mixture and neatly placed it near one edge of the rice paper, made one fold to contain it, rolled it over, folded the sides in and creased them and rolled it up firmly. After we had each clumsily tried, proficient Janetta helped him make enough rolls for all of us. In half the batch, a shrimp was added to each roll. He then twice-fried them in a small frying pan. They were delicious!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
The awe of nature
Well stated....and that is something we seek in our travels. Hate those showers that don't have any power but they are rampant in SE Asia. We always love the cooking lessons.