Halong Bay...

Friday, January 4, 2008

Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site that consists of a huge bay dotted with over 2,000 mostly uninhabited limestone cliffs. As we mentioned in the previous posts, we chose the Kangaroo Cafe's overnight tour based upon a recommendation from a fellow traveler in Kampot (here is a review of the tour from 2002). As it turned out there are over 500 licensed boat tours available, something which has driven the prices down. However, we were warned online about a lot of -- what else is new? -- scams and terrible tours to avoid. Having to worry about crap like that is one of the biggest pains when it comes to travel -- you just want things to go right and deal with honest people. Fortunately we lucked out and chose this Australian ex-pat's business.

We got to the cafe around 8, had breakfast there, waited around a bit with our fellow travelers, then boarded an A/C bus for the 2 hour journey to the Bay. Along the way our Vietnamese guide gave us info about the tour and about Vietnamese history in general. Upon reaching the dock area we realized for the first time how incredibly popular this site was -- as far as the eye could see there were hundreds, maybe thousands of people all clamoring about, being forced to wait in lines to get on their designated boat. As the dock wasn't very big we were led to a "junk" that we had to climb aboard and walk through, then jump on another junk, walk through it, repeat this procedure 3 or 4 times until we had reached our vessel! Glad we were all fairly limber. Can't imagine anyone out of shape or over the age of 60 doing this so we are fortunate to be jumping on and off boats while still relatively young!

Once aboard and finally on our journey we started to get to know our fellow passengers, mostly from the U.S. or Western Europe. Shane, describing himself as "trouble" was a firejumper from Boise, Idaho; Steven Bailey (travel writer) and his wife Jill Witts (photographer) were finishing up a book on Macau and were from upstate Michigan; Arnold and Brigitte from Amsterdam; a Norweigian couple we hardly got to know because the woman was throwing up a lot; a young Australian couple who had just gotten back from a less-than-great trip to Sapa; and a very cool Welsh veterinarian whose name we can't recall. This turned out to be a pretty friendly group of people and we enjoyed getting to know them over the next day and a half.

Once the boat was on its way out to sea the crew served a tasty Vietnamese lunch of various seafood and stir fry dishes. Everyone on the boat was ready to have a drink and relax but, alas, all we ended up with was beer because there were no mixed drinks and wine was only sold by the bottle!

It's hard to put into words how spectacular the scenery was. We had seen some of it in the Catherine Deneuve film, "Indochine" and were impressed; seeing it in person, however, is another matter entirely. As this was the off season (for Northern Vietnam) the skies were cloudy, which added to the mystique.

Our first stop was an island (whose name we can't recall!) where we got off and hiked to the very top where there was a viewing platform. Luckily, the sun came out for a few minutes just as we reached the top and everyone started snapping photos like crazy. We hiked down and boarded our boat which continued up the Bay until reaching its mooring point.

Charles, Laura and Shane were having a conversation about why we came to Vietnam. Shane was telling an interesting story about his dad having fought during the war and how Shane wanted to visit the village battlefields and bring his dad back to these locations the following year. Unfortunately, an insistent female crew member came around and tried to sell pearl jewelry from a display case. She did not seem to mind interrupting us and would not leave until she could show us what she was offering. The only problem was no one on board was the slightest bit interested! Alas, we let her give us a dog and pony show out of politeness, then resumed the conversation the moment she left.

We hung out on the deck, shot the breeze with the rest of our companions and gazed at the beautiful scenery until dark. Then the crew put out dinner and we ate a tasty Vietnamese meal. The only downside to this was that alcohol was not part of the fee. If you wanted to drink, you had to pay extra. Usually, that wouldn't be a problem but on this junk, the prices were insane -- $35 USD for a crappy bottle of wine you could get for $7 USD at any market! Most of us chose the slightly better deal -- beer for $4 USD a can. Someone was raking it in...

At dinner several of us at our table started craving Western-style desserts -- candy bars, Oreos, etc. Earlier in the day a boat merchant had tried to sell us some packaged cookies -- alas, she was ignored rudely by us all! We tried to rectify this sad situation but to no avail -- it was dark and no more boat merchants would be coming by. Someone mentioned the idea of sending out S.O.S. signals to the shore -- surely one of the boaters would have sympathy for our decadent plight! This idea was rejected by all. There was simply no help to be had...

Exhausted, Charles and Laura finally hit the cabin ... the bed being the most comfortable we had slept in in over a week!

The cruelest irony happened after we retired -- it seems that passengers at the second table finally broke out their stash of Oreos after most of us had already gone to bed!