October Vacation, Part 4: Along Halong

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Halong Bay, Vietnam. GO.

Everyone reading should immediately locate Halong Bay on a map, then buy a direct plane, bus, and boat ticket there. 

The entire time we spent in Halong Bay, I was thinking to myself, I didn't know places like this actually existed in the world. Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and nominated as one of the world's "Seven Natural Wonders" - for very good reason. For as far as the eye can see, the bay is an endless plane of jade green water interrupted by thousands of huge craggy limestone cliffs and islands, that rise up like crooked various-sized skyscrapers balancing on the water's surface. Anna, Nicole and I signed up for a 3-day, 2-night tour of Halong Bay in the Hanoi airport (unfortunately, tourism is set up such that it's hard to visit without joining the dreaded Package Tour), and by Friday we were eager to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city for it. We set out early Friday morning, and were cruising on our sailing junk cruise ship in the Bay before lunch.  

Cruisin

The first day of our Halong Bay tour involved sailing on the ship all afternoon, visiting the "Suprise Caves" located inside one of the Bay's huge karst formations, kayaking, enjoying an afternoon beer on the top deck of our ship, and swimming off the boat at sunset. We ate a dinner feast of spring rolls, vegetables, rice, and pork, and spent the rest of evening chatting it up with our fellow package tourists. As a whole, they weren't the most lively bunch (post-dinner karaoke had to be forced down most of their throats, even when we started everyone with a rousing rendition of If You Wanna Be My Lover)... But everyone was very friendly and eager to swap travel stories. There was a Belgian woman who spoke 6 languages and had taken a 5-month leave from her marketing job in Germany to travel by herself through Southeast Asia; an Irish Gaelic couple who were traveling Asia and Australia for an indefinite amount of time (but were pining for the Guinness back home); two young girls from Spain, who mostly kept to themselves; and an older, very heavyset Russian couple, who smiled a lot and loved to swim in their speedos, and who required a Vietnamese "page boy" to tag along on the tour for translation help (they didn't speak one word of English - the Official Language of Tourism in any country, it seems).

Post-impromptu sandal hike. At least the view was worth it. 

On Day 2, we were dropped off at Cat Ba Island, the biggest of island in Halong Bay. Feeling a lot like sheep or herded cattle, we were passed off to a new tour guide in the morning (the gregarious "Won"), shuttled onto taxi boats, then tour buses, and finally dropped in front of Cat Ba National Park. We had actually signed up for the bicycle tour option, but had instead ended up with the hiking group - who were about to climb up through the island jungle to the tallest viewpoint on Cat Ba. We told Won we weren't really equipped for a hike, pointing to our sandals and beach gear. He apologetically promised he would rent bikes for us later in the afternoon, but that since we were now at the Park anyways, we could take an "easy hike" to pass the time. So hike we did: one hour, all the way to the very top, through the jungle, in shower-shoe flip flops. Sabai, sabai.

 

Eat your seafood IN THE SEA.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on bicycles and at Cat Ba beach, which had only a handful of other tourists on it and incredible panoramic views of the bay. The beach was breathtakingly beautiful, and Nicole and I stayed floating out in the green bay water until we were too pruney to stand it any longer. Around the land point from the beach, a small island bay is home to an entire "floating fishing village," which is exactly what it sounds like. Local fishermen live with their families in one room homes that float out in the water, about 100 meters from the shoreline. Alongside the homes are floating seafood restaurants, to which people can hire dinghy boats and eat what's gotta be the freshest seafood meal in the world: while you wait, you can watch your fisherman chef pulling nets up from the water beside you.

Cat Ba Beach: gorgeous.

The last day of the tour, we were shepherded back on a boat and taken to Halong City - the dirty, crowded, overdeveloped gateway port to Halong Bay. The tour company served us lunch there, and we sat at a table with a large group of Vietnamese tourists. In a typical display of Asian food-hospitality, they all reached over the table to serve us from plates of rice and chicken, and showed us how best to eat it, before even touching their own food. One guy even left the restaurant after we'd cleared our plates to buy chili-spiced guava from a street vendor, and fed half the bag to me. (I will never tire of being fed delicious food from total strangers in Asia).

From Halong City we headed back to Hanoi, and caught an 18-hour overnight sleeper bus to our next stop in Vietnam. ...More on that transportation adventure, and the marvels of Hoi An, in Part 5.