Halong Bay

Well, as promised, I'm back in Hanoi after an almost three day trip to Halong Bay in northeastern Vietnam and so it's time for an update. Above is a picture taken of the bay (though not by me or anyone that I know. It's something I saw though, so I thought it was good to give y'all an idea of what it looks like). It's winter so it was overcast (sometimes foggy) all three days that we were there. Today it was even downright cold, but that doesn't really reduce the beauty of the place. I've always maintained that I like fog, it makes things mysterious, and this was no exception.

We left for the bay on Monday morning, and after a threeish hour trip out there, we took a boat out to tour the bay. It was a good boat trip, as we managed to make friends with a couple of Koreans as well as the apprentice tour guide on our trip. It was his first trip, and so he was more than happy to help (though he couldn't really speak English, which was a detail). I actually found myself in somewhat of a laowai overload. I haven't seen so many westernerns in the same place in ages! Right now they're actually still more of a "they" than a "we" in my head, but I guess that's what living in China/Taiwan for too long has done to me.

Anyway, Halong Bay is an ocean bay with many small rocky islets jutting out of the water at sharp angles. It's a fairly old place (geologically speaking), and so the water has had it's fair share of time to erode away many of the rocks. Thus, our first stop on Halong Bay was "Surprising Cave." It was one of the biggest caves I've ever been in, and the patterns that the water left on the roof of the cave were simply spectacular. It was named "Surprising Cave" by French explorers, and in what I would consider typically French humour, I believe the reason for this to be a rather giant phallus in the middle of the biggest of the three attached caves...but maybe we can be generous and say that it was simply because of sheer grandeur of the caves.

After that it was off to Catba Island which is known for its beauty and even has a national park on it. However, we did not step foot on the island that evening. Instead, there, we rendez-voused with another ship on which we spent the night. That was an adventure in and of itself, as we were aboard with two French-Canadian women (with whom Marie-Liesse and I obviously started a conversation for as to speak French. Though I must admit that I had trouble understanding them sometimes because of their crazy Canadian accent!) who had paid way to much for a trip out to the bay, and were not getting the tour they had expected. They were making somewhat of a fuss about the accommodations (which were not at all what they had been promised) and so I proposed getting a bottle of wine to settle everybody down. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect as it was not opened before us, and what was supposed to be a Bordeaux was most certainly not. At $12 a bottle, we found that we couldn't let it pass, so we told them (Chesa used her Vietnamese phrase book to write words down) that it was horrible and that we wouldn't pay for it. In the end, we didn't, but only because a Slovenian (or maybe Slovakian, I never had a chance to actually talk with her) paid for it because she said she was embarrassed, although she did not understand the situation at all and shouldn't have gotten involved!

In any case, after a night on the boat, which I would imagine in the summer would have been quite lovely and would have involved swimming and star gazing, but in the winter involved drinking a little bit and going to bed, we spent the next day back on Catba Island. We took a kind of short hike in the national forest in the morning, and went kayaking in the afternoon. The kayaking was super fun! Although I have been canoeing often, it was my first time kayaking. Chesa and I were together, and at one point fought hard against the current to pass through a little opening/cave in the rocks into a small inlet. It took us like five tries, but the effort expended was quite worth it as the inlet was so peaceful and full of interesting coral. We also explored briefly another island on foot, which we renamed Cheffa Island.

Today it was mainly getting back to Hanoi that took most of our time. All in all it was a good trip, but I wonder if we could have done it better without having bought a tour. We did learn a couple of good lessons though, and kayaking around the bay I will certainly remember.

As for my Vietnam experience in general, I think I forgot to mention in my previous posts that I was surprised at how related Vietnam is to China. I suppose that if you live under their rule for 1000 years you learn a thing or two... The languages, although there are more tones in Vietnamese than in Chinese are even quite similar. Whereas we just went to Halong Bay in Vietnamese, it would be XiaLong in Chinese. Whereas we are currently staying in Hanoi in Vietnamese, the name actually comes from the Chinese HeNei meaning inside the river. Who knew?

I might also add that on Sunday night we went to see a special art form here in northern Vietnam known as water puppets. I'll put up pictures later, but I must tell you it was the most spectacular puppet show that I've ever seen. I still don't quite understand the mechanics of it!