April 7-8 2012 Halong Bay

On Saturday, April 7, we left our hotel in Hanoi and were driven for almost four hours to beautiful Halong Bay, on the north-east coast of Vietnam, to join our ship, the Halong Jasmine, for an overnight cruise through the bay. It really is a lovely place, and even though it was raining when we arrived, it didn’t spoil the occasion. Anyway, the rain stopped within an hour and we were able to walk around on the spacious decks and take in the lovely views.

The bay is full of these limestone ‘castes’ and legend has it that back in the mists of time when Vietnam was threatened by invaders, two dragons (a mother and child) flew over the bay and spewed pearls from their mouths. These pearls fell into the ocean and islands grew up, which frustrated the invaders. There are nearly 2,000 islands in the bay!

After lunch on board we cruised for a while before stopping to visit a cave in one of the castes. Evidence has been found of humans living in these caves up to 10,000 years ago. From the cave we were taken across to a floating village, where we transferred to bamboo boats, two passengers per boat, rowed by the women of the village to earn a little extra money while their menfolk operated the fish farm which is their main source of income.

Our lovely boat girl

The houses are all tethered together, not far from shore, and have mains power, which allows for some mod cons like TV sets.

A typical house in the floating village

There’s even a school, which gets some funding from the government, and the kids we saw there all seem happy and bubbly. As in the rest of Vietnam, everybody is so friendly.

Children on a break from class in the floating school

When we returned to the boat, we saw this little girl with a lady (presumably her mum) selling shells which they gather themselves and then polish up for the tourists. We didn’t want any shells, but couldn’t resist her and gave her a little money.

A little girl selling shells to tourists in the bay

Around 6pm the boat moored in mid channel for the night and we enjoyed a good supper, followed by a fairly early night. We met a lovely couple called John and Tempy Pearson, from Dublin, and astonishingly, John had worked for many years for a firm in Clara, which is Jen’s mum’s home town.

We were up the next morning for coffee and pastries at 6.30am, followed by a spot of tai chi on the sundeck. We were then taken to a lovely beach nearby where those who wanted to could swim, while those who wanted to could climb to the top of the caste. Jen climbed halfway and then rested while I went on to the top, to be rewarded with some great views.

Our ship, the Halong Jasmine, on the right

On returning to the ship we packed and left our cases for the crew to take ahead to the jetty while we had brunch. It was at this point that my brand new John Lewis suitcase broke and almost fell apart, but with the help of the crew I managed to fix it well enough to get it into the car.

At 11am it was all over and we rejoined our guide and driver for the three-hour journey back to Hanoi airport. He was obviously a bit concerned that we would reach the airport at around 2.30pm for a 7.50pm flight to Hong Kong, and tried to persuade us to let him show us some more temples or ceramic factories. Despite the time problem, we said no to all this. We had seen enough temples to last us a lifetime, and ceramic factories are just an opportunity for the locals to pressure you into buying something you don’t need or want. At one point in the journey, though, he suddenly turned round and asked if we would like “to take some photographs of festival”. Thinking that this might be a colourful and interesting spectacle which would use up a bit of time, we eagerly agreed. The car stopped immediately and we were invited to climb out and look at what amounted to a communal allotment. What he had actually said was “photographs of vegetables”!

Jen talks to Kinh about vegetables, while three local urchins get in on the act

When we arrived at Hanoi airport, Kinh found one of the guys who offer shrink-wrapping services for broken luggage, so we were at least able to get the suitcase to Hong Kong, where I was sure I would be able to buy a new one with no difficulty. We said goodbye to him, and, after a boring wait in a pretty basic airport, we were at last able to check in and escape to a reasonably comfortable business class lounge to wait out the final two hours before boarding.

Jenny’s bit: lovely boat, lovely people, bye-bye Vietnam.