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Published: December 21st 2008
Hello everyone : )
It’s been about a week since the last update as we’ve been dashing around Vietnam with the aim of getting to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) for Christmas. Anyhow, I’ll carry on from where Dave left off - we gladly left Hanoi for a three day tour of Halong Bay.
Halong Bay is a UNESCO world heritage site that covers an area of 1500km² comprising of just under two thousand limestone karsts (or ‘big rocks that jut out of the water’ to you and me). We were looking forward to getting away from the ‘you buy something??’ calls so booked a tour and were picked up early on the first morning to make the 4 hour journey to Halong City, which acts as a port for Halong Bay.
We boarded our ‘Chinese junk’ at around midday with three other couples (two from England and one from Switzerland) and sat up on the top deck watching the hundreds of identical boats try and manoeuvre their way out of the dock. It was a floating traffic jam. Typical Vietnam.
Eventually we broke free and settled down for a huge lunch with the others. The bay
is an amazing place that we would recommend to anyone. At the moment there is a restriction on the number of boats that operate in the area that restricts it to 500. Sounds like a lot but over such a large area it mostly feels like you have the place to yourselves.
After lunch we cruised through the bay for a couple of hours so took the opportunity to sunbathe and natter. We then arrived at “the surprising cave” which we expected to be surprisingly rubbish, but was actually pretty good (think James Bond villain hideout, if he had a thing for lighting from Ikea). We walked up lots of steps, of course, as we always do and listened attentively to our brilliant guide, Dang, who spoke phenomenal English with a vocabulary that included such words as ‘geological’, ‘headhunt’ and ‘shuttlecock’. He had earlier told us how one word - Ma - in Vietnamese has six meanings depending on how you pronounce it. It can mean ghost, Mother, hole and three others that I can’t remember. Lucky for us many locals speak English so we need not humiliate ourselves nor offend the Vietnamese people too often.
Fully recovered
from the astonishment of the Surprising Cave we made our way back to the boat and then to a different island to what would be an impossibly hard climb up millions of steps to a viewpoint. I’m told it was a good view but to be honest I was too busy trying to regain control of my lungs to notice.
Last but not least we went kayaking around the bay. The sun was setting as we got into the water so we paddled like Billy-o (as my Brother would say) to try and get to a good place to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, it turns out we’re pretty crap at kayaking and needed to concentrate fully on not hitting into rocks and other people, so by the time we did get where we wanted the sun had already long gone. Still, we spent about an hour splashing about and managed to work up a rhythm eventually. It was good fun and even better exercise.
That evening the 8 of us ate dinner together and sat around chatting with our guide. We learnt loads about Vietnamese culture and heard lots of funny stories from Dang’s experiences with various tour
groups. We all turned in about 10pm, shattered by the day’s activities, and slept in a wooden, but still pretty nice, cabin with the boat anchored alongside a few others.
Our other companions had only booked a 2 day tour of the bay, (whereas we’d booked a 3 day one), so our group tour soon became a private tour! We said goodbye to everyone and boarded a private boat (with a crew of 5!) to take us to Cat Ba Island, where we were to trek through a National Park. We were told when we booked the tour that the trek wasn’t very hard, juts a little bit up and down… Wrong!! In places it was really rocky and steep! I slipped quite early on and Dave fell down a bit later. It was quite funny (at least Dave falling over was funny) but hard going. During the trek we stopped off to visit an elderly couple who live in a hut on the island in complete isolation. They farm fish (I threw some raw food in for the little guys) and grow fruit and vegetables for themselves and to sell to make money. When we arrived they provided
us with some fresh orange juice, oranges and some green tea. Most importantly though, they also had a lovely little dog - picture attached.
After our trek we went back to the boat for lunch (although I think the chef must’ve got confused and thought he was cooking for 20, not 2) and then after a little rest got into some more kayaks to go to a private beach. Our guide expertly lead the way, cutting a straight line between the boat and the beach. Dave and I clumsily zig-zagged our way along - Dave often having to quite literally ‘stick his oar in’ to the water to turn the kayak as we would frequently find ourselves heading in the wrong direction. It’s so tiring too, we had to take it in turns to rest as neither of us could manage to do it for more than a few minutes at once! We got to the beach and spent a little while swimming in the bay, looking for pretty shells (we sound so old) and watching teeny tiny crabs dig their homes by rolling the sand into a ball and pushing it out of the hole they would make.
After many attempts (you had to sit quietly otherwise they would hide in their holes) Dang managed to grab a little crab for us to see close up. All in all the beach was probably the highlight of the tour. It was great to have it all to just 3 of us, especially seeing how nice the surrounding scenery was.
We then got back in our kayaks and paddled (slowly) back to the boat. We were so tired by the time we got back, but didn’t have too long to relax before we docked again at Cat Ba Island where we were to stay in a hotel for the night. The tour included a lift to the hotel - each on the back of a motorbike. Now, when we had first arrived in Hanoi there had been loads of random people on street corners with motorbikes offering us lifts (for a price) to places. At the time we’d though “are you crazy!? I’m not getting on the back of some random bloke’s dirty looking motorbike! We don’t have a death wish!”, however once we’d travelled on the bike to the hotel, we realised that it was good fun and
very stable - the best way to travel! We then headed up to our room and arranged to meet Dang for a drink later on. Dave went to visit the local beach (which he tells me was good but dark) while I watched an awful film called something like ‘Treasure Raiders’. It revolved around a Russian muscley man that kept saying “wodka” (see, you can portray being Russian by just adding a few w’s at the start of words). If anyone has seen it please let me know how it ended. I turned it off in favour of staring at a blank TV screen but now yearn to know the outcome.
We met Dang for a drink and then went to have some food at a cheap, horrid little restaurant. The food didn’t go to waste though - the cat in the photos seemed to enjoy my meal, before settling down for a nap on my lap.
The next day was just spent getting back to Hanoi (which took forever) but we met some nice people from Holland (more lovely Dutch people - they’re everywhere!) so spent the boat part of the journey chatting and sunbathing again. It’s
a hard life.
Only 4 days to go until Christmas Day (I know that because I just opened my advent calendar). Hope everyone is enjoying the festive period. If you're lucky you might just get another blog on Christmas Eve (sorry, but that'll be the only present you'll get..). Bet you can't wait!!
Love Helen and Dave xxx
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Chris Wakefield
non-member comment
Happy Christmas
Hi, Just a quick note to say Happy Christmas. Sounds like you are having an amazing time. Chris