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Published: February 15th 2007
Halong Bay: Mountains, Boats and Tons of Food
Bus Rides Can be Horrible After being in a small van for 5 hours the day before we were not really excited about our four hour trip to Halong Bay. I was praying that our transportation would be more bus than van but I was disappointed when we left at 7:45am. The four hours were spent listening to iPods, napping and watching the countryside (rice paddies and lots of wandering cows, chickens and water buffalo) pass. The one thing this country could really use is a better long distance highway system. Despite a relatively short distance, the trip seemed to take forever because of slow speeds and congestion.
When we arrived in Halong Bay we were surprised to see the number of people there prepared to leave on boats. While we hadn’t seen many tourists in Hanoi, there were easily a thousand people waiting to board ships. With close to 500 boats available for tourist trips, the Halong Bay area is swamped with tourists. They can do this without overrunning other boats due to the fact that Halong Bay is a little over 1000 sq miles
of space.
After navigating the chaos and hubbub of the docks we were aboard our ship ready for departure. Our fellow travelers consisted of a Japanese family and four American women. With hours ahead of us on the boat we had no problems getting to know everyone with the exception of the Japanese family who spoke almost no English.
The Halong Bay Caves Our first destination for the day was a system of caves which had been discovered by a fisherman in 1901. The caves weren’t opened for tourists until 1998 after some infrastructure was added and the archaeologists had their time in the cave.
The cave system itself is very impressive with almost a half a mile of paths through huge sculpted areas. We were told that the caves had been formed before the mountains rose out of the sea. Underground water flows ate away at the limestone and created the beauty and then, when the time was right, the mountains pushed themselves out of the sea revealing the cave openings.
Much like the prominent cave systems in the US, the Vietnamese have built sidewalks throughout the caves and added lights of
many colors in order to make everything more enjoyable for the tourist experience. I was very impressed by the whole thing and can understand why the caves are a major destination.
Lunch and Mountain Pictures Once we had gotten our fill of he caves we all headed back to the ship in order to have lunch. The first floor of the boat acts as the galley where everyone eats together. Once we were all seated the crew came by and gave us the hard sell on bottles of wine, which we turned down because we don’t really like to drink in the middle of the day.
After drinks were doled out to everyone who wanted them, the food started arriving. While the food on our cruise was slightly better than average in most cases, it is served in quantity. Our full lunch consisted of almost 10 courses which ranged from steamed crab, grilled prawns and stir fried pork to fruit for desert. Tasty.
Just when you thought you were done another couple of dishes arrived. The lunch (and other meals here) are by far the biggest meals we’ve had since our trip began in
November. It felt horrible to waste the food but there just wasn’t any possible way to finish everything.
As lunch neared completion we set out for one of the limestone mountains which has a beach and an observation post on top. Kel had a bit of a headache so stayed at the bottom but I trekked up the 430 stairs in order to get some good pics of the area. Despite being in decent shape I was wiped out by time I reached the summit. Would I say the pics were worth the climb…I’ll let you be the judge of the pictures and leave my opinion out of it.
Dinner and New Friends After hitting the island we went to the bay where we would drop anchor for the evening. We all enjoyed resting and getting some reading done while we waited for dinner. Kel and I chatted some with some of our group. Three ladies on board were French teachers from just outside Chicago. We talked about our trip and all sorts of fun stuff while we waited for our final meal of the day.
Just like lunch, dinner was way more than
we could handle. By half way through the 10 courses I was pretty much done. I tried everything at least once but just couldn’t stomach eating any more food.
After dinner we chatted with our new Chicago friends until bed time at about 10pm. Due to the early hours and days travels we were all pretty exhausted and looking forward to some sleep.
Leaving Others Behind We were the only people on our boat to opt for an extra day in the bay area. Thus, after breakfast, we transferred to a day boat while everyone else headed back to the docks for the ride back to Hanoi. We really lucked out when it came to our second day. Since no one else had opted to do the longer time frame we had a full boat to ourselves (five staff people for the two of us).
The second day in Halong Bay involves traveling further into the bay away from the majority of other boats. After leaving our night ship we never saw another tourist boat the whole day. It was really cool because we felt like we had the whole bay to ourselves. While
you intuitively know that hundreds of thousands of other travelers have been exactly where you are, it still feels like you are in unexplored county because you are so alone.
Lunch, Floating Villages, and a Museum Our first stop of the day was at one of the closer floating villages in order to pick up some fish for lunch. The ship’s cook bought some fish which are in the prawn family but look a bit more like large clawed centipedes. We were both excited to try something new.
After picking up food for lunch we set off for the largest floating village in Halong Bay. Set within a cove surrounded by mountains, over 600 people live in floating houses that are lashed together. Each house is only one single brightly covered room that sleeps the whole family. Surprisingly a lot of these houses had dogs as pets. As we passed by houses, dogs would run out and bark and run from one floating pontoon to the next in order to chase our boat.
Our guide told us that these people live completely off of fishing. They eat some of what they catch, sell the
rest and rarely set foot on dry land. Their children are excellent swimmers who learn to swim and row before they learn to read.
At the cultural museum we got a chance to see pictures and read about traditional weddings, different styles of fishing and see a bunch of objects associated with this form of living. It was small yet very informative and gave us great insight into what life is like living in the middle of Halong Bay.
After the museum we ate yet another huge lunch. The shrimp like centipedes were really good. They are a little tough to eat but their meat was incredibly sweet and similar to lobster crossed with shrimp. The rest of the meal was excellent but it was kinda lonely having a dining room to just the two of us. On the other hand, it was Valentines day which added to the romance and made us glad we had decided to stay the extra day.
More Caves and New Boat Mates After lunch we headed close to the ocean where there was a big cave that could only be reached at low tide. We got into a
smaller row boat and our guide took us through a series of caves and inland lakes. Within the caves the water was crystal clear. You could see all of the coral and rocks on the bottom.
While in the area we got to observe some of the locals pulling up oysters. It looked like incredibly tough work as these people walked through the freezing cold water prying oysters off the rocks using a crow bar type apparatus. Our guide told us that the locals can’t even find enough to sell them. They come out and pick what they can find and then eat them for supper.
After an hour in the caves we set out back to the boat to go meet up with our new boat mates on our original cabin boat. We traveled for close to an hour and a half to get back to the more touristy/populated part of Halong Bay. While we traveled Kel read a book and I napped on the deck. My nap was great until Kel snuck up on me and got picture of me sleeping. (grin from Kel here)
Now we are back on the boat with our new
dinner mats and ship mates. We haven’t had the time to get to know everyone yet but hope that there are some people we can be friendly with. Tomorrow we head back to Hanoi and get ready for our trip to Hoi An near Danang.
Hope you are all having a great Valentine’s Day. We miss you all and wish you the best!
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Beth Shadur
non-member comment
amazing mountain forms!
Hi guys. wanted to tell you how amazing it is to see and hear of your travels. What beautiful pictures. Have a great time, and Happy Valentine's Day.