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Published: July 29th 2009
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On Monday we got a minibus to Halong City on the north east coast of Vietnam where we would spend a night before heading out to Cat Ba Island, through Halong Bay. Halong City itself is not a particularly nice city and merely serves as a stop off point and base camp for any day tours through the bay and the various islands in it. We arrived in Halong City at around midday and had a very nice simple Vietnamese lunch before catching a few hours sleep in the room. In the evening various groups split up and me, Amy, Arelene, Doug and Renee walked along the beach and the pier before browsing the tackiest night market in the history of shopping.
The next morning we had breakfast before jumping on a bus to the pier about half an hour away. When we got there we boarded a rustic looking boat that felt like it should have had pirates aboard and set out into Halong Bay.
Halong Bay is a World Heritage listed site and consists of nearly 2,000 limestone karsts that dramatically protrude from the water just off the north east coast of Vietnam. Halong Bay literally translates
as the bay of the descending dragons. Local legend has it that when the Vietnamese were fighting off Chinese invaders a family of dragons appeared from the sky and swooped down to spit out jewels and jade to help the locals defend their land. The jewels and jade landed in the water and turned to thousands of limestone islands that dotted the bay and formed a protective wall against the Chinese invaders. Two of the largest islands, Cat Ba and Tuần Châu have permanent inhabitants and our plan was to sail through the bay on the way to Cat Ba where we would stay for a few nights but first up was a stop at Driftwood Island which has the largest cave of all the islands.
After about an hour on the boat we arrived at Driftwood Island and docked in the picturesque bay before disembarking. We walked up some steps to the entrance of the cave where Thuan told us about the history of the cave. There are three main chambers inside the enormous cave and many of the stalagmites and stalactites have been given names according to the shapes that they form. Some, like the family of
elephants, were very obvious and looked a lot like what they were supposed to be but others required a lot of imagination and eye squinting! Then Thuan led us to the part of the cave that is known as "The Entrance to Heaven". It was through this tiny gap in the rocks that a local man first discovered the caves and it is now blocked so that the delicate formations can not be damaged. My one gripe about the very beautiful caves was that there was a lot of fake coloured lighting that covered the walls and actually took away from some of the natural beauty. Having said that, it was still a very attractive location and we spend nearly an hour looking around and taking pictures.
After looking around the obligatory souvenier stalls (and buying some delicious raw sugar cane sticks for the remaining boat trip) we got back on the boat and headed back out into the bay. It was on this second leg of the trip that the scenery got really spectacular. For nearly two hours we drifted through the emerald green water alongside the towering limestone karsts in awe. There are few places on our
trip so far that have been quite as beautiful as Halong Bay and I had to stop myself taking hundreds of pictures. Every time we rounded a corner I thought the new view was even better than the last and we sat on the top deck trying to take it all in.
Eventually, and almost regretfully, we arrived at Cat Ba and got a bus to the main town on the island. Cat Ba was surprisingly large (140 square km) and it took us a good half an hour on the bus before we pulled up outside our hotel. The next few days we spent just relaxing on the island. The main town was not actually all that nice and seemed to have a lot of karaoke bars and massage parlours (usually a front for "personal services") but it did have a couple of lovely beaches and some good bars. We spent a lot of time on the main beach which was quite narrow but did have an excellent bar and nice warm water. The island seemed to have more domestic tourists than foreign tourists and our white bodies seemed to create a little bit of havoc on the
sand. The first time I took my shirt off I think they thought the others had brought their pet monkey along!
Most evenings on Cat Ba were spent in the excellent Blue Note Bar just a road away from our hotel. We made friends with the really cool guy behind the bar called Villmar and usually stayed until closing, necking shots of rice wine and the excellent and cheap cocktails. On our last night on the island Thuan took me, Amy, Amy Ward, Doug and Renee to eat dog at a local restaurant. We walked for about 45 minutes up a painfully steep hill in the humid evening heat, asking various locals for directions along the way. We finally made it to the restaurant and were greeted with a rather scary looking sign that had a snarling dog on it. Undaunted we entered and took our seats under much scrutiny from the locals who were clearly not used to seeing foreigners in the cafe. We ordered a plate of stewed dog meat along with the traditional sides of noodles, lime, chilli, lemongrass and coriander which you are meant to eat all in one mouthful. The smell in the restaurant
was fairly offputting and it seems that, like various game meats, dog doesn't have a particularly pleasant aroma. However, unlike game, which tastes heavenly, dog tastes just like it smells. The meat is very fatty and when you do actually get some flesh, as opposed to greasy fat, it has a very weird texture, almost like liver but without the good taste. We ate as much as we could before politely pushing aside our plates and giving up. By this point it had started raining heavily outside so we sat in the restaurant chatting and hoping that the rain would die off. Suddenly there was an enormous crash as lightning struck either the building we were in or something very close. The lights in the whole surrounding area went off instantly and we were plunged into darkness. A lady came round with candles while we got our nerves under control and after about 15 minutes the lights finally came back on. Very scary! When we looked outside we saw that various bins and other random paraphenalia that usually line the SE Asian streets had been knocked over. We donned some very suave looking rain macs that Thuan managed to produce
from somewhere and started our long trek back to the Blue Note Bar in the driving rain and intense winds. All in all a very bizarre encounter!
On Friday we packed up and got a local bus to a terrifying looking jetty on the less attractive side of the island. It looked more like a tiny dockyard and had a few suspicious looking guards loitering around as if they were waiting for a large drugs shipment and a crane lifting mud up from one patch and simply dumping on another in seemingly pointless transfer of dirt. At the edge of the water was a large speedboat that somehow managed to take all of our luggage and bodies and stay afloat. Somewhat tentatively we set off across the waves towards Haiphong City, Vietnam's third largest city and only a short way south of Halong Bay. After about an hour we arrived back at the mainland and got taxis to our hotel. The rest of the day Amy relaxed in the room while I ventured out to explore the city. It seemed quite upmarket but very untouristy and it was quite fun to walk through a large metropolitan area of Vietnam
without all of the tourist distractions. In the evening a large group of us took a walk to find some cakes and wine in the town for a mini-party in the hotel and I got to take a moto through the busy night time traffic which was very cool.
The next morning we all boarded a bus back to Hanoi for our last day together...
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Diane Hill
non-member comment
Beautiful!
Wow Halong Bay looks amazing! Dead jealous - especially of the boat trips!! I'm impressed you managed to stomach dog, it sounds disgusting. Lots of Love to you both xx