The most beautiful spot in Vietnam

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After a slightly temperamental start Francesca and I were off from Hanoi to Hai Phong, the third biggest city in Vietnam and a stepping stone to Halong Bay. First I totally lost it with the moto drivers. We bargained and bargained about the fare to the bus station with some pretty rude drivers and finally came to some sort of conclusion. Then the guy said that he can't take my backpack in the front, I need to have it on my back. I asked why, he was the very first driver (after I had learned to demand that) not to take it. He said it's too dangerous and I said it's too dangerous for me to sit in the back with it. In the process he dropped my water bottle about three times on the ground and I eventually lost my temper and threw the bottle in the pavement (from there it unfortunately splashed on some totally innocent moto driver) and left swearing that I'll only use taxis for now. Bad behaviour, I know, but there culminated months of anger I had felt towards all South East Asian transport providers.

After Fracesca had spoken me out of using much more expensive taxi and two other motorbike drivers had promised to take us, the backpacks in the front, to the station we finally were on the move. I got to the station ok, just to notice that Francesca and her moto didn't follow. I got worried after a while, the journey wasn't that long and the bus was about to leave. After some ten minutes Francesca finally arrived driven by my motodriver - the motorbike she had been on had run out of gas! We rushed into the bus, bought the tickets and started to chat with an American woman who also was on the way to Hai Phong. Soon we found out that she and everybody else had paid 10.000 dong less of the bus ticket. Now it was Francesca's turn to be angry and she got our money back in no time. That's a very small scam in the scale of things but just shows that you might end up paying too much all the time if you don't keep yourself alert.

In Hai Phong we had another argument with the motodrivers, this time requiring a bit of the police attention, but I'm decided that I won't complain anymore so no further words about that. Anyway, we met Mathias again, and found a nice but a bit pricey hotel, so after a persistent negotiations with the reception they let all three of us stay in the same room. Poor Matthias needed to sleep on the floor, but he didn't complain. Anyway, that night wasn't so long as our wake up call to catch the Cat Ba (main town in Halong Bay) ferry was at five in the morning. I have always wondered how is it possible that no Vietnamese people seem to do any exercise. Now I was reveled that they actually are, but so early that I'm never awake to see it. At 5.30 am there were lots of people around jogging, doing Tai Chi or just stretching.

We bought some baguettes for breakfast and found the good seats on the roof of the slow boat. The baguette vendor had sneaked one old baguette in each bag (except for clever Francesca who had picked hers herself) and Mathias was sent down to change them. After that we happily munched our breads, read a while and then one after another fell asleep. When I woke up the scenery had totally changed I saw the first glimpse of the mysterious limestone cliffs rising from the sea. It was breathtakingly beautiful!

We had been hoping fingers tightly crossed for a good weather, but the first day started cloudy and the signs of coming rain. After checking into a hotel we had a proper breakfast and brainstorm for our Halong Bay agenda in the light of the weather conditions. We had been considering a trek in the Cat Ba National Park, but now Francesca didn't want to do it. Eventually it was decided that I would do it with two other people signed to the trek and Mathias and Francesca would rent a motorbike to go round the island.

So off I went with a Canadian couple, Peter and Chantelle. Peter had born in Halong Bay, though, his family were the boat people who immigrated to the western world in the end of seventies and early eighties. Halong Bay is one of the poorest areas in Vietnam and lots of people left particularly from there. Even these days the conditions are hard. Fortunately the government is supporting people who decide to stay there - if the residents want to build a new house they get about 50 % government funding for it.

The trek through the jungle should have been hard, 18 kilometres up and down the hills. Once again I was a bit disappointed - it was only 14 km out of which the last 5 km was totally flat road. In the beginning there were quite a few nice climbs though. Then rain started and made the terrain slippery and descending scarily slippery and dangerous. However, there was a reward, or actually two, in the end. First we had a really nice local lunch in the village which felt totally unspoilt by the tourism. Secondly, there was a boat waiting for us (there is no road from the end of the trail, the boat is the only way to get back to Cat Ba unless you want do the whole trek again). We sailed an hour in the beautiful Halong Bay scenery - a great pre-taste for the next days boat trip. In the evening I introduced the new friends to the old ones and we had all dinner together.

We had first planned only a one day trip on the boat, but when we heard that my photocopied passport wasn't a problem after all, spending the night on the boat started to temptate all three of us. So we decided to go for it. There are lots of different kind of vehicles cruising at Halong Bay area and we wanted to make sure that ours wasn't too full of people, uncomfortable, or whatever. And must say, we were very happy with our junk. Actually the boat was the same I had come back to Cat Ba on the previous day. There were only six of us, a Dutch couple and Israeli girl in addition to us, and two staff.

The weather still wasn't the best, but at least it was only cloudy, not raining. First we just cruised and appraised the scenery and took manically photos. Then we had a stop for kayaking which was fun but so hard for the arms with no practice for years. We stopped for a swim break on one of the islands. Most of the cliffs rise just directly up to the heights from the sea, but some of them have lovely sandy beaches (some of which man made though I have heard). After that we were kayaking a bit more and then Francesca and I (we shared a double kayak) noticed that we didn't have a clue from where we had come from. There are just far too many of those islands and from far away they look all the same and you can't see which are separate and which adjoined ones. There were even quite a few floating fishing villages around but we still couldn't remember which ones we had passed. Must say we were starting to get a bit worried, but then our boat honked a signal for us and we noticed we weren't that far after all and peddled to the boat as quickly as we could, filled with relief.

After that we cruised to a bay where we anchored and had a fantastic lunch which the crew had prepared for us. Afterwards we swam in the greenest water - and the sun appeared just like from the order! In the afternoon we saw another few hundred cliffs plus two caves (well, me just one as I was listening so intensively my new favourite song by Martin Stenmark that I couldn't be bothered to go and see the second one). In total, it has been calculated that there is about 2000 limestone cliffs in the area. It feels that there are much more though.

In the evening we put down the anchor again in a very quiet bay. After hearing all those stories about not so successful trips I was expecting about three more boats to arrive in the same bay, but we were lucky and got the area to ourselves. As a matter of fact, I didn't see that many other boats during the whole trip, and at night it really felt we were the only boat at the whole sea. The crew members served some great food again. Then I taught the others how to play my favourite card game and we couldn't stop playing until very late. We were all supposed to sleep in the cabin, but it was quite hot in there, so all except the Dutch decided to sleep on the deck. It was magnificent to fall asleep listening to the noises of the nature while the gentle waves were rocking the boat.

After the breakfast and morning swim we raised the sails. This time we saw quite a few other junks but it didn't matter as they looked quite amazing with their open red sails and we got good photos (except me, the battery of my camera had died). The sun appeared again to brighten our lunch break. After that it was time to head back for Cat Ba and start a return trip to Hanoi, from where Francesca and I would catch a night train to Sapa.

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Photos

Approaching Cat Ba
People live in these boats, farm fish in them, have restaurants...

Hugging trees
Seen at the jungle trek

My hiking friends
(the guide in the middle - luckily Peter speaks Vietnamese, otherwise the communication with him would have been pretty limited)

Comments

[Hanna]

Upeita maisemia!
Aivan ihania kuvia taas tekstin kera! Kiitos. Hauskaa, että olet päässyt melomaankin. Maisemat ovat kyllä vertaansa vailla siellä. Ehkäpä me täällä joskus verestämme melontamuistoja ja lähdetään taas reissuun. Saadaan kaikki muutkin kätemme kipeiksi! =) Hauskaa reissua, tää lähtee mökille pariksi päiväksi.