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Published: November 9th 2012
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Chan Thien My
The production facility for the victims of Agent Orange. In the background you can see the beautiful pictures in pure silk After our brief but very good experience in Hanoi, our trip went further east to the Unesco protected area, Halong Bay. We joined a daytrip from Hanoi as our transfer between the two destinations. First stop on the tour was a small production facility called Chan Chien My. It is a special place, because people working here, was born with different disabilities as a consequence of the American military’s operation “Agent Orange”. The Americans somehow got the “brilliant” idea of spreading out poison to make the leaves fall off the trees, in order to better see the enemy. Unfortunately it had some bad side effects. An estimated 3 million Vietnamese have been born with a disability as a consequence of “Agent Orange”. If this number is correct we don’t know. The Vietnamese are pretty good at propaganda. Under all circumstances this place made quite an impression on us. We watched young people, some of them with more than 10 years experience, sewing some fantastic pictures in pure silk with incredibly detail. A picture takes up to 3½ months to finish. The disabled are supported by the government and receive around USD 10 a month. Not enough to live (even) in Vietnam.
Halong Bay
Simply breathtaking So they need a job to make extra money. War is probably always a dirty game, but in our opinion, it is a crime, to use means that will affect a future generation. No matter if it is poison, landmines or nuclear weapons. This is not a criticism of USA, but a general opinion regarding all states using these means.
After this thought awakening visit, we continued our journey towards the fantastic natural wonder called Halong Bay. I (C) believe that some of the aerial scenes in the Bond movie “The man with the golden gun” were shot in Halong Bay and the land scenes in the Phang Nha area in Thailand. We have now visited both places. Phang Nha is fantastic, but Halong Bay is just so much more impressive. Halong Bay stretches over a very big area and consists of more than 2000 limestone jungle clad islands rising out of the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Halong translates as “where the dragon descends into the sea”. According to legend, an enormous dragon came down from the mountains. On its way, its flailing tail created a landscape of valleys and crevasses. When it finally plunged into
Halong Bay
A maze of limestone rocks the sea, the area filled with water, and only the pinnacles were left visible. Whether or not this story is true, we shan’t judge. But it is rather more exciting than listening to a geologist.
After visiting a fine cave, we were sailed to Cat Ba Island, which is the biggest island in the area. We spent a total of 8 days here. Our first stay was in a small family owned resort called Whisper Nature Bungalows. It is situated in a small village called Viethai Village. The trip to the resort was a small adventure in itself. From Cat Ba Town there was a 45 minute boat transfer in a labyrinth of a landscape of beautiful limestone rocks. We passed many floating villages, where fishermen live in their small houses with satellite TV and dogs!!! Upon arrival in the small port, we had to cycle around 5 kilometers through a fantastic landscape before arrival in the resort. We spent 6 days here. In brief we experienced nice sunny days of which we took advantage and climbed a small viewpoint about 200 vertical meters above the resort. The view from the top is astonishing. One of the best we
Cat Ba island
A scene from our bike ride have experienced. We climbed the cliff at all times of day to see the view in different light conditions. It was well worth the effort. We also experienced a typhoon which left us without power for around 18 hours. It gets very dark after 6 pm. We had so much rain that the small creek flooded and the water was rising very fast towards our room. So we had to be evacuated, wading through 10 centimeters of water in the dark to higher grounds. We moved to a small homestay in the village. It was a very interesting experience. It turned out that the man had fought against the Americans as a Vietcong during the war. Unfortunately they only spoke one or two words of English, but he proudly showed us his army hat and medals of Honor. He had walked all the way from the north of Vietnam down to Saigon. It is a distance of around 1800 kilometers. They were very hospitable and offered us a drink from a big glass bottle with mushrooms and other stuff, so we could have a good night sleep. And so we did. We can’t help reflecting, that this man would have
Cat Ba Island
View from our small "harbour" been a death enemy, if we had been American soldiers about 40 years ago. On the personal level, war is crazy. Of course there are values worth fighting for.
Sadly two local people lost their lives in the storm. We were lucky to be sheltered towards the wind and only saw a few broken trees the day after.
Our days went by with some hiking in the nearby jungle, a day of kayaking in the beautiful bay and the climbs to the viewpoint. We also enjoyed watching the many colorful butterflies and dragonflies. Inge fell in love with some small reddish birds that we have to sort out the name of. The resort was an experience in itself. There was an army of mosquitoes at dusk. They were joined by a zillion very noisy roosters. They shouldn’t make any noise before 6 am. Finally a big population of local dogs barking trough out the night made the concert perfect. We wonder why it is called “Whisper Nature Bungalow”! We had creatures in our roof. Maybe it was geckoes, birds, mice or rats. C witnessed a brief appearance of a rather big mouse (or small rat) on the interior
Viewpoint
The magnificent view from "our" viewpoint wall.
The food was plentiful and very good although chicken 5 days out of 6 was a bit much. Their pancakes were absolutely amazing, yummy. The last night we froze our behinds off. The typhoon had brought a cold wind. In the daytime it was like a really good Danish summer day. At night our guess is a drop in temperature to around 15 degrees. Rather cold without insulation and only a thin sheet. To conclude we were very happy with our stay, but this is probably not a place for everybody.
On day 7 we were picked up by a local fisherman and sailed to Cat Ba Town. We found a hotel room with air condition, TV and ocean view to a price of USD 10. That is really value for money. We rented a scooter and drove around the island, visiting the national park. Once again we saw a lot of limestone formations but now on land. Maybe the dragon didn’t reach this far? Otherwise we just witnessed island life. We were swimming from a great little beach and we treated ourselves with a visit to a Spa. 90 minutes hot stone massage for USD 14½
Viewpoint 2
Half an hours hike for the 200 meter vertical rise on "our" rock. definately worth the effort pr. person.
We can certainly recommend a visit to Halong Bay if you are in the region. Our choice would be to stay on Cat Ba island for a few days and arrange a sailing trip from there to visit the bays.
We hope that the photos will give a small impression of the grandiosity of this area.
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RK
non-member comment
Tak for det nye indlæg og fantastiske billeder. For en gangs skyld synes jeg landskabsbilleder er interessante.
Har på fornemmelsen at det bliver en dyr oplevelse for mig at I har været derude!!