Halong Bay

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Halong Bay, Viet Nam

When we arrived in Halong Bay, the first of three Viet Nam ports we were to visit, the haze blurred the views of the huge limestone rocks jutting through the surface of the sea forming an almost surreal landscape. We glided slowly and quietly past literally hundreds of these tall rocks to our mooring spot in the shallow waters near the port. The tide was in and will need to be in when we leave later in the day in order to get through the channel and back to the deeper ocean. As the sun rose and burned off most of the haze, we were left with this breathtaking seascape so different from what we had seen before. It was similar to the Li River in China except this was grander and because the waters were larger, an even more spectacular sight.

Tour boats sidled up to our ship to load tourists for a cruise through the area and a closer view of this awesome sight. We hadn’t signed up for a tour, so we took our tender to the dock via a short tour of the bay. The beaches were sandy and the waters shallow, the sand went far out as the tide receded. As a result, the concrete pier is very long to allow boats to pull up in low tide. Once on shore, we found a shopper’s paradise. There must have been an area at least three blocks long and two blocks deep full of individual stalls with merchandise of all sorts, and at incredibly low prices to begin with, and even lower prices after the traditional bargaining. If only we had room to bring it home, we could have gotten many, many treasures. As it was, we tried to be prudent and kept our purchases to things easy to pack. Post cards, for example, were two packs of ten each for one dollar, and beautiful, small beaded purses were two for five. The only negative, if there was one, is that the vendors are very aggressive, and keep after you to buy from them.

After getting our fill of shopping, we found one of the many places to sit, have a Tiger beer, and just soak in the view of the bay and the city across the single span bridge from us. The weather was perfect, and we did enjoy our time there. However, when we returned to the ship, we met a veteran who said he just couldn’t go ashore as the memories were too vivid. He stayed on ship and read a book. This was as close to Hanoi as we would get.

Our departure was delayed about an hour as we had to wait for the tide to come in. The port held many cargo ships full of coal and other things bound to and from Hanoi and ports south. Our sail away was something memorable and we headed to Da Nang.

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