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Published: November 15th 2023
Today was all about the weather. We woke to another hot and humid Hanoi morning. The plan was to drive to Ha Long Bay, about 3 hours away, spend the afternoon and night cruising around the bay and doing some kayaking, swimming and cocktail drinking – my idea of heaven! The only thing that would have improved it would be to throw in a geocache or two.
Sadly as we got close to Ha Long the heavens had other ideas and opened up, throwing very heavy, yet surprisingly warm, rain down on the coach. We stopped for a quick leg-stretch and comfort break at a pearl outlet, and after a quick pee Susan and I went into the retail part of building. Susan had given me strict instructions before we travelled not to let her buy anything, and of course I reminded her of this. I, however, hadn’t given Susan any similar instruction, and I bought a lovely necklace made from mother of pearl. To be fair, I had already failed in carrying out Susan’s instructions – she had gone shopping with the other Bee in the group (Brenda) and returned with a pair of light and airy trousers. I
must try harder!
We boarded the coach ready for the second part of the journey to Ha Long, getting a brief warm soaking in the couple of seconds between the building and the coach, to hear from Mr T that a monsoon was expected in Ha Long Bay that evening, and by instructions from the local government we wouldn’t be able to stay on the boat overnight.
The plan now was that we would board the boat, have lunch, some time to drink cocktails should we wish to, take a walk up some steps to a visit a cave on one of the limestone hills in the bay, eat dinner, disembark from the boat and stay the night in the hotel. So that’s what we did.
The journey from the terminal to the tender was in pouring rain, but those of us not wearing wet weather gear were given a lovely large red poncho to protect us. Sadly, once we had boarded the Garden Bay Legend we had to give them back.
The boat was lovely, with clean, comfortable, well appointed cabins, and beautiful en suites. We were allowed to access and use the cabin while
we were aboard, and both of us were quite disappointed that were weren’t going to be sleeping there.
Lunch was a delicious spread of pumpkin soup, followed by various fish, meats and vegetables which just seemed to keep on coming, and finishing with a fruit plate. Susan and I shared a bottle of rather drinkable Sauvignon Blanc, Roisin and Ian sitting across the table from us had a bottle of Chardonnay, and Paula and Kerrie next to me had a fun bucket of Long Island Iced Tea. The waiting staff were lovely and very attentive, making sure our glasses were refilled appropriately.
After lunch those who chose to went on the tender to a hill with a cave in it – Sung Sot cave, translating as Surprise Cave. Those who went on the walk really enjoyed it an came back with photos of lovely views of the bay. We stayed on the boat with a few others drinking happy hour cocktails, and from a personal point of view, trying to get some of the blog written! I had tried to get permission to jump into the sea from the boat for a bit of a swimble, but sadly
my request was denied by the skipper.
Ha Long Bay is a beautiful place. A large bay dotted with hundreds of rounded limestone hills, some with a covering of greenery, others looking rockier. There was a plethora of small pleasure and larger cruise-type crafts visiting the bay, even on this grey misty day. While I have seen many photos of the area, I can only imagine how stunning it would have been if the sun had been out! Thankfully the wind wasn’t too troublesome while we were on the water.
Dinner, only 3 hours after lunch, was another huge spread of delicious food, starting with oysters, and followed by yet more fish, meat and vegetables. We were absolutely stuffed!
Before we left, we needed to pay for our drinks, which were priced on the menu in US dollars. Totalling them and converting the amount to Dong seemed quite a task for the young man in charge of the bar, but finally we got the correct amount, Susan paid by card and I gave her my share in local currency, a mere 195000 Dong.
I’ve been using my money converter quite a lot. One Dong is approximately
0.00003 GBP, or 1,500,000 Dong being about £50. It’s quite something to get your head around being a Dong multi-millionaire, and paying around 250,000 Dong for a cocktail.
We were taken back to shore and delivered to our hotel for the night, the Saigon Halong Hotel, a modern 4-star hotel with a pool, which several of us took advantage of before turning in for the night, having not been able to swim off the boat.
After a bit of a restless night, and frustratingly being woken by the alarm mid-dream, we headed up the 14th floor for breakfast and to admire the view over the bay from the top of the hotel. Once sated, we met up in the massive marble-floored lobby ready for our coach journey to Nihm Bihn.
The journey took us through more rural settings, the roadside dotted with farmland, paddy fields, small towns, and graveyards. The land is very flat, and quite wet in places, perfect for growing rice! The rounded limestone hills that Vietnam is famous for are often visible on the horizon, fading into the mist.
The graveyards appear to be randomly placed, and contain elaborate tombs, some large and
brightly painted, others smaller and stone coloured. Mr T told us about what happens at a Vietnamese funeral. They commonly last between three and six days, the mourners wear white, and the funeral attendants wear orange. Cremation is rare, and the bodies are buried in a place identified by the person who has died before they die, although obviously that’s not possible if it’s an accidental death. Between 3 and 5 years after the death a ‘witch’ (Mr T’s word – probably medium) the dead person is asked whether they wish to remain where they are, or be moved to a smaller grave. If they wish to be moved, the body is exhumed, the bones are cleaned and reburied in a smaller grave. If they don’t wish to be moved they remain where they are. This means that there are random tombs scattered around the fields and on wetland; we saw many of these on our journey.
We stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch, and were served yet another massive and delicious meal. Coffee seems to be served with condensed milk as a default, but normal cows milk is provided if requested.
We visited Chua Bai Dinh,
the largest Pagoda in Vietnam, the compound consisting of the original old temple and a newer larger temple. We took an electric bus from the car park to the entrance, then wandered around, led by Mr T. The site covers 5 square kilometres and includes a 90m tower along with several other Pagoda buildings. The main building has a long corridor around the exterior containing 502 big stone Buddha statues, all in different poses and with different facial expressions. Most were smiling, all have various blackened areas on them where people have rubbed them despite the ‘do not touch’ signs, from hands to feet to rounded bellies to nipples – maybe that’s why they’re smiling! The wall behind them has rows of small glass-fronted display cabinets all containing small golden Buddhas – thousands of them!
There is a wooden bell building containing 2 enormous bells, one above the other. The higher one is the smaller of the two at 36 tonnes, with the bottom one being 70 tonnes. There was a bell donger (clapper??) next to the top bell, and boy was it tempting to use it! It’s probably just as well that it was padlocked to a wooden
upright so it wasn’t usable!
The garden was full of lovely greenery, flowers, Croton plants and Banyan trees, as well as some water features and lovely tiled paths. We visited a couple of the temple buildings, beautifully decorated with enormous golden Buddha’s sitting and smiling at us and at the food left as offerings on the altars.
We carried on towards Ninh Binh, a small tourist town full of bars, restaurants and tourists! Thankfully, we were staying just outside the main town. Our bus was too big to drive down the final part of the road to the family run Tam Coc Valley Homestay Bungalows, so we decanted and walked a few hundred metres along a causeway between rice fields. We noticed groups of pretty pink ‘balls’ about 2mm in diameter attached to plant stems – intriguing! Google lens told us they are snails’ eggs. Who knew!?
The bungalows are gorgeous, bamboo-clad buildings, surrounded on three sides by limestone hills, and all en suite. Susan and I had 2 massive beds in our room which would easily sleep 3 people each! They were very comfortable too. There is a swimming pool at the bungalows, and four of
us jumped in and a had a dip while admiring our stunning surroundings.
There was another huge buffet dinner, some beers and ciders, and an early night. A few stayed up a bit later playing pool, and I think Mr T was a bit disappointed that no one wanted to do Karaoke; I was delighted!
After a good night’s sleep, despite being woken by a rooster several times - described by Holly as being like a snooze alarm - I had banana pancakes for breakfast, and we headed out into Ninh Binh for the day. Mr T was brave enough to take 16 middle aged plus women and one similar-aged man out on bikes! Some of us hadn’t ridden a bike for a long time, but we all coped well. Our first journey was a little under 5km, and we arrived at a boat station to enjoy a trip along the river and through 3 caves. The boats were rowed by local boat people using their feet rather than their hands to manoeuvre the oars.
Susan and I shared a boat, and had who I reckon was the most entertaining of all the boat people. Tim (we
think) was deaf with poor speech, but managed to communicate very well using gestures and sounds. He seemed to love his job, and spent quite a lot of the journey amusing us and people in the other boats.
The trip was in the Thung Nham area near a bird park. The waterway was edged with beautiful pink lillies and other greenery as well a few buildings. Interestingly, among all the pink flowers there was just one small group of white lillies. We went through two caves under the hills into the third cave, which was something very special! Tim gave us each a torch, and we spent quite a long time spotting stunning limestone rock formations, some sparkling in the light, others containing subtle and not so subtle colours of blue, yellow and pink. And there were bats! We spotted several small groups roosting on the roof of the cave. Some were disturbed by the light of the torch and took to their wings – a fabulous experience! Mr T said they were fruit bats.
Interestingly, even though the cave was dark throughout there was some green vegetation growing in a few places. I don’t know how it
grows without light, but will do my best to find out!
The total trip was around 75 minutes, and Tim was very keen that we give him money – he made that quite clear to us, despite the communication issues. We already had an envelope of money to give him as provided and instructed by Mr T, but we added another 20000 Dong which is what we think he communicated to us. Having checked how much that was as I’m writing this I wish we’d added more – he really was worth it!
After lunch (I had fresh spring rolls with shrimp) at the Linh Chi restaurant in town, we cycled to Lying Dragon Mountain, a very pleasant cycle along flat roads winding between rice fields. We stopped briefly for Mr T to tell us about rice growing. Once the rice is harvested ducks are put on the field to provide fertiliser, and they eat the pink snail eggs! Once they’ve done their job, water buffalo go on the field to provide more fertiliser and stomp it in to the ground; they eat the rice stalks. Once the buffalo have been their long enough they burn the remainder
of the rice stalks before sowing a new crop.
The top of Lying Dragon Mountain is accessed by walking up 450 stone steps of various depths and widths. It was a challenge, but we made it! Thankfully the weather has been cool today, so we weren’t too sweaty when we reached the top. What amazing panoramic views we had!
***And I found my first Geocache in Vietnam!***
With my short legs, I found descending the mountain was more tricky than ascending it, but we all got safely down, and I was very happy to join Susan drinking milk from a cold coconut – such a yummy drink.
After our cycle back to the bungalows, I jumped in the pool for a swimble and Susan grabbed herself a beer. Some of the group went for a massage in Ninh Binh and returned refreshed in time for a. beer before dinner.
Tonight we’re moving on to Hue by sleeper train to start the volunteering part of our adventure.
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