Halong Bay Day 2 (part 1)

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Day two on our Halong Bay journey started off with a visit to the bathroom by Laura. Yes, hang in there, this story has a point and won't gross you out. Laura's early morning bathroom visit started off with the realization that we didn't have any running water. That meant no flushing, no tooth brushing and certainly no showering until running water was available. They had told us the night before that they would turn off the water and electricity overnight to save money, but we thought by this time the water would be on. Charles went up to investigate and ran into several other unhappy boaters and was told to check back later. Naturally, Laura was thrilled to hear this because it meant more time to sleep!

After water was restored and we were clean and ready to start the day (yet another shower over the toilet experience), our tour guide came by the cabins to announce that breakfast was served. The breakfast, as all indigenous breakfasts are in Southeast Asia, was funky. Not so tasty scrambled eggs, mediocre French bread, bland yogurt and not very strong coffee was the fare. Obviously this was their take on a typical Western breakfast. Laura proceeded to make the breakfast even worse by adding salt to her coffee. Yes, salt. There was a bowl of salt on the table instead of a salt shaker, so Laura grabbed a pinch, put it in her coffee and commented to everyone at the table how dreadful the coffee was. No one else at the table seemed to share her opinion and Laura finally discovered the mistake which prompted a hearty laugh by our morning companions.

Our tour guide announced that our final stop would be to an island filled with sea caves named Hang Đầu Gỗ (Wooden stakes Cave). We docked the boat then entered the cool, colorfully-lit cave. Oddly enough, one of the caverns had a very unusually shaped stalactite (or would that be stalagmite?) which prompted our tour guide to blush as he re-told the myth regarding this rocky appendage's history and gave our companions a good laugh. We ignored the Freudian implications and slowly walked through the enormous cave to look over the rest of the awe-inspiring sights. Another interesting item was some long-lasting French graffiti, going back to when the cave was first discovered in the early 1900s.

Sadly enough, our trip to the beautiful Halong Bay had come to an end. And it was too damn cold to ever make use of our hard-bargained cartoon bathing towels.

The boat took us back to Bai Chay where we walked over to a restaurant and had our last meal together. This was pretty good Vietnamese food -- alas, the good feeling was spoiled when Charles captured on video a rat roaming around the buffet table (luckily we didn't partake of any buffet treats).

We boarded the bus which took the exhausted travelers back to Hanoi. On our way back down the very busy two-lane highway we saw our first traffic accident. Well, the results of an accident at least. Someone in a left lane had tried to make a quick u-turn it seemed and ended up getting wiped out (at least their car was) in oncoming traffic. With the insane driving we witnessed in all these countries so far it was only inevitable.

We could not help but notice how modernization was overtaking the agricultural landscape in this region. Factory after factory was in operation or under construction. We can only assume that all the talk is true -- Vietnam is fast becoming an economic threat to China. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out within the next ten years or so.

The day is continued in the next post...