I Heart Halong Bay

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After an overnight stop off at Ninh Binh (which I think sounds amusingly similar to Nimbin), we headed off to Halong Bay. Now, my guidebook might be 12 years old, but it says that the days of pirates in these parts weren't entirely over, so I was looking forward to the odd chance of spotting one, hiding in the grottoes of the many rock formations that stick out in this beautiful bay. And apparently when they're not off doing their pirate business, they sell coral that they find to tourists. Random, huh?

Well, our boat was pretty much the coolest thing I had ever seen, and the view, magnificant. So I was happy to sit and read up on how they make junks (the traditional boats sailing around the bay) and other random facts (including those about pirates), then going down to the deck to watch the world go by. Ignoring the rubbish floating in the water, it was definitely a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

What was also great about it was that we didn't have too many stops to ruin the chilled out atmosphere. We stopped at the cluster of the largest caves in the area, which kind of reminded me of the Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains (but then again, every goodlooking cave does). But when you actually find out about the caves they become considerably cooler. Firstly, they were used by the fishing families in the area to hide during typhoons, because they believed if they ever went on land they would make the sea gods angry, and there wouldn't be any fish. Makes sense to me.

Then there was a pool of fresh water in one of the caves. It is called the perfume pool because, at least before the smell of tourists overides it, the water has a lovely fragrant smell, from the flowers and herbs it runs through before making it down into the cave. There were also some pretty interesting formations, including one that looked uncannily like a couple standing on a balcony, and one that looked like a turtle.

There was a bit of a climb out of the caves which brought an amazing view of the bay. And people selling lightup spinning tops. Thank god, I was worried I wouldn't be able to find any while in Halong Bay....

After the cave visit, we chugged along to the place that we were anchoring down for the night. At this point, we were approached by a rowing boat filled with biscuits and wine for sale. Nice. We went for a swim, and some of us were also jumping off the second storey of the boat a couple of times, which was incredibly fun.

And then: Ahoy! Pirates! OK, they might have just been a bunch of Vietnamese people rowing along in a boat, but this was quite late at night, and what other feasible explanation could there be other than they were off pillaging and plundering? I went down to say hello, and they were quite friendly, they even offered me a piece of their giant mandarin. And by giant mandarin, I mean it was almost the size of a soccer ball. I didn't like the taste of it (possibly because I don't really like the taste of mandarins), so I threw it in the water, as we'd been warned that any foodstuffs would attract rats.

I would like to say here, while I remember, for anyone planning to go to Vietnam: I swear the Halida beer tastes more like wine than beer. Try it (but you'll probably only do so once).

So yeh, that was Halong Bay.

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Photos

Halong Bay
After the climb from the caves. A pretty good view.

Out the boat window
Kind of the typical view cruising along. The colours were a bit brighter in real life though.

Junks
That's what they look like folks. If you want to know how the sails are made, I'm the one to ask.

Comments

[moonriver]

I like this boat
It's a wonderful trip.I don't know how the Junks are made too.It very great boat.I think there have no this boat in the present.