Days 118 & 119: Halong Bay

Fishing Village
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This morning we depart early for a several hour bus transfer to the coast and sea east of Hanoi, the beautiful Halong Bay. This area, in the Gulf of Tonkin, has spectacular karst rock formations jutting from the water and we’ve booked a 2 day / 1 night trip aboard a replica Junk, the Red Dragon, to cruise round and enjoy the scenery. If you’re struggling to picture the scene imagine lots of islands like Scaramanger’s missile silo transforming one in The Man with the Golden Gun (actually filmed in neighbouring Thailand, but the best I can think of).

Fishing village residents
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Upon arrival at the jetty just north of Halong City we’re delighted to find that the junk has only 6 guests rather than its usual 10 and as such the 9 crew comfortably outnumber us. Shortly after boarding its time for lunch, an eight course affair leaving us in doubt we’ll be eating well in the next twenty four hours.

Red Dragon Junk

Setting off into the gulf proper, our guide outlines the route ahead - happily this operator shuns the most popular (and thus crowded route) in favour of something more off the beaten path. Indeed other than the sister Red Dragon junk we see no other tour boats after a few hours until our return the next day.

Halong Bay
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After some general cruising, chatting to our fellow passengers (a German couple with unpronounceable names and a couple from England, but with her being from Haddington just outside Edinburgh) and taking far too many photos, we lay anchor for the rest of the day and set out on two excursions. First was a short but steep ascent up a path to visit a limestone cave inside one of the volcano-esque islands – actually pretty cool and educational to hear of the preservation efforts in the region. The second was an outing in canoes (proper canoes being 2 person kayaks) to explore at our leisure. Before the inevitable ‘sleeping’ of my legs we managed to get at least 30 mins paddling, going round a few karsts, into the mouth of a water level cave and spending a while watching (and attempting in vain to photo) eagles soaring above us. Best of all was the commencing sunset back towards our junk.

Junk and mooring from cave exit
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After a pre dinner cocktail whilst watching the remainder of the slowly setting sun from deck (it’s a hard life this!) we commenced on one of the strangest meals of our travels to date. 10 courses, but many accompanied by elaborate vegetable carvings which we had to applaud. And photo (felt obliged) as they made such a big deal of unveiling each one, to the extent that for the replica junk we all had to close our eyes whilst it was brought out.

Post dinner the crew ‘treated’ us to some traditional Vietnamese songs, to which we then had to return the favour, opting to sing Flower of Scotland and Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes (the only 2 songs at least 3 of us Brits all knew the words to). Then us passengers spent a while trying to figure out Chinese Chess watching the crew play – even despite explanations it was too confusing so we re-focused our efforts on the fine wine and whiskey.

Massive tunnel under karst
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Our second day saw us visit a floating village, the village largely populated by families that until recently resided in many of the caves and were relocated when they became protected as a world heritage site. As such the islands are not the traditional woven reeds of Uros in Lake Titicaca but rather industrial looking ballasts under basic wooden homes. That said, painted in varying colours and spread out in seemingly random groupings, they do have a certain amount of charm. Our round the village trip was on a traditional boat (one per couple) rowed from astern by a local women in traditional garb which gave it all a more genuine feel.

Night sky onboard
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Another large meal for lunch and it was time to head back on the bus to Hanoi, making the same stop at a large handicrafts market about halfway. This time we did pick up a few souvenirs / gifts, of course only to find similar cheaper back in Hanoi that evening.

To those anally retarded reading this – please don’t email me to point out that technically Vietnam and Thailand don’t share a border and are therefore note actually neighbours, its close enough!