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17 July: Halong Bay

We woke up and still it was raining, during the night both Leanne and I had awakened to showers of rain from the typhoon crossing the south china sea. We packed all we needed into our two small bags and walked down to breakfast. Leanne tried to find out from the owners brother regarding the rain and its influence on the boat trip, naturally he had no clue what rain was. He could however take us to a hotel a few meters away where we had the choice of Vietnamese (soup), American (omelet) or continental (bread) breakfast, we chose the American with coffee and juice, not bad at all.

After breakfast we stored our larger bags in their wire mesh behind a counter in the foyer and waited for the tour operator to collect us. He arrived at 08h15 with a Australian barman who was touring Vietnam for 2 weeks. We spoke some time about working abroad also about his tours and work in the UK and Brazil, before we were collected by the bus. The rain was still persisting and continued for the first 3 hours of our trip to Halong Bay by bus.

All together we were about 20 people on the bus, two families from the Netherlands, two Germans, two Vietnamese, two South Africans, two Americans and one Ozie & Englishman. We however lost the two Vietnamese within the first hour's drive. The woman was pregnant and was either experiencing morning sickness or motion sickness, never the less she got sick, the bus pulled over and we left them on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Much to the surprise of most westerners.

We had driven for 2 hours and it was now time for a pit stop, naturally one with ample souvenirs on sale. Everyone headed for the toilets first, but then there was another 20 minutes to kill and most wandered around the shop followed by sales assistants wanting to sell you something. At last the bus was on its way again, only 1 &frac12; hours remained until we reached Halong City. The first 2 hours drive is known as the "Ascending dragon" after which it it known as the "descending dragon". The first part the mountains start low and gradually become loftier, before declining from its highest point to Halong Bay. The mountains are limestone tops with spiky points representing the scales of a dragon, legend also has it that a huge dragon lived in the Halong bay area. It rained the whole time to Halong bay, at some times very hard, the funny thing was that our tour guide who spoke quite well, suddenly didn't understand what rain was when asked.

The road to Halong bay was especially beautiful, with vast rice paddies and villagers harvesting the rice. They worked incredibly systematically and accurately, they would work from one corner up in a direction making perfect squares and leaving heaps of rice bundles at precise intervals.

Arriving in Halong bay the rain subsided a little with only light drizzles falling. We waited for our guide under cover of the entrance to the harbor, after which we were shown to our boat. The picture is quite bizarre, hundreds of tourists waiting to leave and apparently 600 boats parked at the jetty ready to take passengers daily on a Halong bay tour. Getting out was another process, we bumped and shoved our way out with the boat and for 15 minutes it felt as if we were going nowhere, but then we left and headed out the harbour. Almost immediately we were given a lunch consisting of prawns, rice with chicken, clams, fish cakes and vegetables. We were shown to our tables draped with white linen and chair tiebacks, very fancy. Only bad thing was that we needed to buy all our own drinks and they were very pricey, luckily we had remembered to bring some water with. We sat with a French couple, the man was also an accountant who had quit his job and both of them were now touring through Asia for 6 months before returning.

After lunch we were shown to our rooms, we settled in and headed up to the deck to watch as we maneuvered through the limestone bays. Funny enough, our boat wasn't a very social one, the dutch kept to themselves, the two Germans also, while the English and Ozie had the occasional transfer of words they too kept to themselves or their books. It was only the French and us who spoke regularly, hence we decided to spend the rest of our dinners and lunches at the same table.

The top deck had beach chairs with soft white cushions overlooking the bays we were passing. The limestone cliffs literally rose vertically from the sea, some hundreds of meters high. The scenery was made even more breathtaking with the addition of fluffy white clouds encircling the cliffs. After about an hour or so cruising around the bays, we anchored at a bay where there was a cave. We climbed the 100 or so steps to the top and entered the cave, there were literally hundreds of tourists. Our guide continued to give us some information about the 300 million year old cave, how it had been discovered in 1904 and at the hight of the Vietnam war, how over 2 000 people had hidden in the caves. At first it sounded a bit far fetched until we entered further into the cave and got a taste of its immense proportions.

The cave was filled with tour groups hurrying through the cave, mostly we were shown animal shapes in the rock formations. Unfortunately we couldn't hear much and as a result of the many tourists the group moved relatively fast in single file formation, only allowing the front 4 people to hear what was being said. The further we got into the caves the more you needed to use your imagination to recognize the animal shapes. The caves were very similar to those we visited in Dong Hoi, however the latter were more impressive with its lighting and the formations, these were superior in there size.

Back on the boat we traveled further into the bay to a fish breeding facility which had kayaks moored to its platforms. We divided into groups of two and were allocated kayaks to use for 40 minutes paddling around the limestone formations and islands. The kayaks weren't in the best condition, many had part of their seats broken and although it didn't affect you to much, we were promised good quality ones as we paid for the deluxe package, can't get everything you want! It was very enjoyable to paddle round the island formations, we even reversed into a small cave looking up at the roof of the cave and experiencing the tranquility before continuing onwards. Along the way we were even fortunate to "discover" a small boat that had sunk, through the water we could see all the details as the visibility was brilliant.

Back on the fishing platform we stopped to buy water and two beers (all for the same price as one beer on our boat) that we enjoyed while waiting for the others to arrive. Unfortunately we were told that if we buy more beer we had to pay a surcharge to the boat, it was enough to stop us from buying again, but most of the others continued and paid nothing.

From there we traveled a little further to a bay where the water was cleaner, here all of us went for a swim. You could either jump from the first (2m) or second level (4m) depending your aversion to height. Leanne went for the first level and thereafter the second one, unfortunately she landed on her bum the second time so that was the end for her. I on the other hand landed on my back due to a failed attempt at a somersault, it had worked on the first level, but I under compensated for the second level jump. Afterwards we exited due to an increase in the number of jelly fish, which according to our guide were poisonous.

The rest of the afternoon we spent lazying on the deck chairs chatting to the French couple, while watching the scenery as we rode past. The sunset was beautiful although there were just a few to many clouds to make for brilliant pictures. We were called by the tour guide to freshen up for dinner and headed to the showers, at least the lights were working, but still not the aircon, that they only switched on later the evening.

Dinner was a feast, seafoods, chicken, vegetables, spring rolls and obviously rice. After dinner we had the opportunity to try and catch some cuttlefish (squid), we stood there more for the joy of having a line in the water than any hope of catching anything. We chatted with the French couple and later handed the second rod to his girlfriend to continue, having caught enough jellyfish.

We headed to the deck where both of us lay on one chair watching the millions of stars overhead, trying to recognize constellations. The tranquility was disturbed a little later by music pulsating from other boats nearby. We had also had the option to have a karaoke, but our boat was a little dry for that. We lay there a little longer until both of us started falling asleep. We headed to our room around 21h00 or 22h00 to get an early nights sleep and wake up for the sun rise. The room was very fancy, the bathroom even had a marble or what looked like marble zinc, only thing was the hard bed, it however didn't keep us awake even for a minute.