Viet Nam 2010: Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay

Getting to Ha Long Bay involves a three-and-a-half hour bus ride. It takes us along a very long road, the traffic on which is the usual: Mostly motorbikes, sometimes carrying entire families, sometimes with a refrigerator on the back. Between that we have cars, and a couple of buses. Overtaking is often done for long stretches in the face of oncoming traffic, with right of way sorted by honking.

What I’m less used to is the scenery. Much of the road is on top of a dike, and we cross many bridges bridging what I assume are tributaries to the Red River flowing through Hanoi. The houses we pass are built tall, with their ground floor, often open to the street, clearly used as a basement of sorts, which I take for evidence of frequent flooding.

Alongside it all are the rice patches, divided in a checkerboard pattern by the raised paths providing access to them. The patches themselves are flooded, with the rice plants sticking out of the water. Driving by, we can see that these stand in orderly rows, mute testimony to the fact that they aren’t sown – every individual plant is planted, by hand. By people standing ankle- to knee-deep in water, bending down to place them. Millions of them. We see some of the farmers at work, often wearing the local conical hats, with bicycles parked on the raised paths, bent over in the fields. My back hurts from watching them. Or maybe it’s just from watching them for a few hours while cramped into a small bus with a bunch of other tourists.

In Ha Long Bay we get on a boat. It’s a Chinese junk type of boat, with “junk” describing the barge-like type of boat, rather than being a remark on the perceived quality of the vessel. There are at least a hundred of these at port, picking up their daily load of tourists. Getting there takes us past the usual hawkers, and onto a boat between which small rowing boats circulate, selling fruit, snacks and water – waterborne hawkers.

The junk, under power of its diesel engine puttering away behind us, takes us past and through the many limestone hills which rise out of the waters of Ha Long bay.

The day is somewhat overcast, which makes being out on the top of the boat (it has cabins on the bottom deck, a restaurant-type deck on top of that and a sundeck one level higher) quite nice. For much of this day and the next, we have a vista of stunning hills, with the smell of salty seawater, mixed with a hint of diesel, in our noses. The slightly hypnotic subdued thrumming of the engine, combined with the slight swaying of the boat, combines for a very, very relaxed atmosphere. Just what I needed.

We are taken to the supposedly most magnificent cave in the many (somebody seems to have bothered to count them, the number was a little over and-and-a-half thousand) islands. Though the cave was officially opened for tourism only ten years ago, graffiti dating back to 1938 (that I can see) shows it’s been a spot to go to for much longer than that. As much as I dislike these early despoilers of the cave, I envy them the ability to explore it on their own. Enough light seems to fall into the cave that I feel certain I’d be able to find my way even around the back of the third (and largest) cave of this system. The caves are interconnected, and full of stalagmites and –tites. And floodlights in off colours. And, of course, tourists. Which follow a path laid out in stones (boring, but fair enough to preserve the cave) and not only touch the limestone at every opportunity, but are actually actively encouraged to do so by the guides. “Touch the turtle, it bring long life!” - not to the limestone formation they call “turtle”, which is visibly blackened with the acid of everybody’s skin.

Afterwards, we anchor at one of the many waterborne settlements. Many fishermen live in floating houses, there are supposedly some floating schools. The few houses right here also have some floating cages with fish in them to prove their credentials, but seem to specialize in tourism. They have a bunch of kayaks and pretty run-down paddles which are rented out. An hour’s worth of paddling comes with the trip, and I note how the junks coming from the cave take turns delivering a boat load of tourists to paddle, to be replaced by the next one as it leaves. Nevertheless it is fun to go kayaking. I get the only single kayak which seems to be present, as we constitute an odd number. This should make me slower than the others, but doesn’t. Or maybe they’re just still in relaxation mode, while I’m off to see where the kayak will take me. Certainly I can do a somewhat larger round than what the guide indicated would take an hour. But I’ve left my cell phone on the boat and so don’t have a watch with me to tell me exactly how long an hour is, so – by playing it safe – arrive back at the floating huts after only 40 minutes or so.

I spend the remaining time squatting on the floating deck, talking to other early returns and buying a coconut. This comes with the green skin and all the copra (white fibrous stuff between skin and nut) still attached which is usually already removed when buying these elsewhere. The seller hacks a little dent into one side through which once can insert a straw. It’s not bad. I later take the machete to hack it in two, but have only given it one exploratory whack when the lady in charge of the operation takes the machete away from me, ostensibly to do it for me. I sit back, prepared to both be slightly humiliated by her superior skill and to learn something by looking on. And sit and wait, with mounting annoyance, while she ineffectually whacks away at the thing until she’s gotten it open. I could have done that.

The boat moves on after bit, and anchors somewhere else – with fewer other boats around – to indicate that we can swim here if we like. The guide thinks I’m joking when I indicate I wish to jump off the top of the boat.

I’m not. ;-)
The water is pleasantly cool, and surprisingly salty. I realize(d) that this is seawater (apparently not everybody had), but the (few) other swimmers agree that it seems to have a higher salinity than ordinary seawater. I swim for quite a bit, and jump off the boat a few times for good measure. I attract a bit of a crowd (including a photographer :-) and a few fellow jumpers.

Dinner aboard is mostly seafood, that’s okay. We talk about travelling for a while after dinner – everybody around the table is on a long trip of several months, except for myself and a Vietnamese gentleman who works in Yokohama. Beer bought aboard is 1.80 USD a can – cheap for US standards, particularly if you consider that it’s sold to a captive audience, but expensive by local standards. We don’t drink much. I eschew the cabin for my hammock. I may not get to hike Cat Ba island, but somehow the hammock feels right. Before retiring, I find that some people on the back deck near the waterline of the boat have found that waterborne hawkers are still peddling the waters of Ha Long Bay after dark in their broad, shallow-bottomed rowboats, and apparently sell beer much cheaper. They have too much of a head start, however, for me to want to join the party, so I go to hammock.

We’re brought back to Ha Long city. It’s cloudy on Sunday, though if one lies down in what little sun filters down to us, out of the wind, it’s still quite comfy. At least I feel that way. Given that there’s not a lot of us doing this, maybe having been in winter not too long ago has something to do with it. An American woman who’s been travelling Southeast Asia for two months now seems positively chilled.

In Ha Long city, we are brought to a restaurant which serves an uninspiring meal, one drink included. The whole place clearly has deals with all manner of tour operators, and exists to churn out meals on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to please customers, it won’t have return customers. It has to be just good enough so people won’t complain to the tour operators, so it’ll have return business. It manages this balance quite well.

Then it’s back to Hanoi.