Ha Long Bay Cruise

A fishing Village with the best view in the world

Much like the beauty of the Limestone Mountains in Vang Vieng, Laos, the beauty of Ha Long Bay can simply not be described. So I’ll describe the boat and ride and post some pictures instead.

We arrived at the ferry docks the day of our tour and got on the boat after only a little waiting, just enough time to buy and drink an overpriced, harsh tasting tourist coffee.

The boat we ended up on was quite beautiful, complete with “VIP” written on the side. We felt special. Not to mention after a couple days’ talks with other people on the boat, we still paid less. Awesome

Our guide spoke incredible English and explained exactly what it was that we were going to be doing in the next couple hours, so we all sat back and got to know each other while we eagerly awaited lunch to be served. I don’t know how we do it, but everywhere we go, Melisa and I always find the Canadians. So we end up on a boat with three Canadians teaching at the Canadian International English School in Beijing, a couple Newfies and an Australian girl who also has Canadian Citizenship who may be doing a year at U of T next year. (Her uncle also works at York) That’s 8 out of 16 people that have Canadian roots, all on one boat. It IS a small world after all.

Surprise Cave formations complete with lights

So we spent most of the first day dumbstruck at the beauty of everything around us, and take a hike through a couple caves. One was the Surprise Cave and the other was the Bo Nau Grotto. Both were beautiful, the first was discovered only about 5 years ago and some of the stalactites and stalagmites have been recognized as animals, the image of Buddha, and even shadows of Romeo and Juliet. The exit has a place for any other discoveries that people may notice in the shapes of the rock formation.

The second cave was home to the Vietnamese army, where they would hide out when they were sharpening their weapons in preparation against the Mongolians. Our guide explained that when they enticed them into battle, they would hide out in the cave and wait for the water to recede; causing the Mongolian boats to be impaled by all the rock, and planted steel tipped spears, under the water. Walking through, I could almost feel myself walking back in time watching the commander and all his men plotting their battle win.

After seeing the caves we waited on the pier for our boat to come around and pick us up, it’s at this point that there is a serious boat traffic jam and our boat crashes into the side of another boat. No big deal all the crew claim and help us all onto the boat. At this point, we all start to notice the dents and broken sides of our boat and all the other boats around us. Turns out those boat drivers in Ha Long Bay are just as careless as motorcycle drivers in Hanoi.

My only regret about our tour of Ha Long was that it wasn’t warmer so we could sunbathe while watching all those amazing rock formations slowly move past as we cruised through the bay, I’m sure that there would have been more activity in the fishing villages and that we may have been able to see the fisherman at work. Although at one point, our giant junk boat got caught up in the line of a tiny little boat and pulled them almost a kilometer before the crew recognized their frantic screaming and stopped to allow them to untangle themselves.

Despite the cold we got into Kayaks and steered ourselves through a mountain tunnel that I am absolutely in love with, and around the bay. Later some of the people in the group went swimming, despite the frigid temperatures outside and the fact that everyone else was wearing double pants, double sweaters and scarves. (Turns out we weren’t the only ones completely unprepared for the cold weather.)

Kayak tunnel: my favourite place on earth

All in all it was a great three days away from the city, and despite the frigid weather and wind keeping us inside the cabin, we made the best of it.

And no, the Aussie children were not on our boat! I think the lady we booked with hooked that up after we told her that we weren’t actually friends with them.

“In the end its not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away”

A boat traffic jam / accident in the making, with our boat, Cong Nghia pushing it’s way to the front

The boat that got stuck in our boat, with their fishing line of teacups…

A solitary houseboat proudly waving the Vietnamese flag

A junk boat sailing through rock formations

Culture Shock: Laos to Ha Noi

The first memorable thing about arriving in Vietnam for Tet (Vietnamese New Years) wasn’t the chaos of the motorbikes, it wasn’t the haggling of the taxi drivers or the unscrupulous way people would call out to you from their hotel or shop.

No, it was the fact that once we dropped our bags and started asking about arranging train tickets out of the city in the next few days, there was nothing available. Nothing for a full week. Neither Melisa nor I have been in one place for a full week since we were at the Sanctuary, surrounded by friends and beach and lazy days. There was no way that we were going to spend my last free week stuck in the city that was meant to be a launching off point for side trips.

After some heavy drinking, we met a group of Aussies who had found a place where they bought bus tickets to go to Ha Long City, and from there they would hire their own Junk boat to do a tour of the Bay. They figured that since they were such a big group, and a boat usually holds about 10 people, they would find a good deal. So the next morning, first thing, we booked our bus tickets to join them on the adventure out of what will be a dead city.

We were able to do some wandering around the city, but quickly realized that all the streets look the same, with either more or less traffic. The farther we got into downtown, the more hectic it got. Melisa compared it to the streets in Delhi, minus all the squatting old ladies. Everywhere we went people had peach and mandarin trees strapped to the back of their motorcycles and people where frantically doing their last minute shopping in preparation for all their New Year visitors.

Tet in Vietnam is mostly a family celebration. The elders give the children money, same as Chinese New Years, and the children all get new clothes to look presentable for the New Year and for family gatherings. Everything will be closed, there are very few parties, and everyone will be traveling out to the country to visit family.

Nonetheless, wandering got old fast and we turned to planning mode and headed back to our room to book my ticket to Bangkok and Melisa planned for what she’s going to do when I head back to Bangkok.

Headed to Ha Long without a plan:

So Ha Long turned out to be just as dead, if not more, than Ha Noi. There was seriously only one person around booking tickets for boat tours and the group we were with was trying to do everything on the super cheap, so denied her. Melisa and I were seriously considering ditching the group, whom we were getting weird vibes from anyway, to take the $60 two day tour through the bay.

Following the group turned out to be the worst idea, considering that apparently a couple of them decided that they wanted to ditch us and essentially told us so.

“We’re already a big group, planning is hard enough as it is, plus this is our last few nights in Asia together… so…”

Whatever, we left the children and walked back towards the tourist wharf to take the lady up on her deal. Hopefully everything I’ve read about boat tours and friendly people doesn’t play out in our case, because this woman took us into her hotel for a good price, offered us the same price 2-day boat tour that she offered when we were in the group, and even found us a cab back to her hotel from the wharf. Kind of a relief after the slight disappointment of being ditched.

It’s been seriously cold here, and we’re probably going to catch hypothermia out on the boat tomorrow, but the view of the islands and the caves should be worth it. I have 6 more days before I’m headed somewhere warmer and with better health care, so if I do get sick I can worry less about it in Thailand.

Obviously I’m taking every precaution to stay as warm as possible (despite the fact that my only sweater is a ‘summer night’ long sleeve shirt, I’ll be doubling up with Melisa’s cardigan and scarves). I seriously don’t want to get sick when I settle into classes.

Even if we do end up on the same boat as the Aussie douchebags, we’ll make the best of it and enjoy our trip. We are the older and more mature people of the bunch anyway, so we’ll prove it.