Halong Bay
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2008
1
45
68
Trip End
Ongoing
Halong Bay,
Vietnam
Thursday, October 30, 2008
It wasn't surprising to find that nowhere was open, though we eventually found a street food place, just a table with a hob, a pan of soup heating up and some tiny plastic stools on the pavement. We sat and had some; it was very, very good
Halong Bay (1)
. It was still early when we finished, so we went for a walk around the lake. By this time it was getting light and there were more and more people on the street. A lot of people were jogging around the lake or standing facing the lake, doing stretches or touching their toes. As we worked our way around the lake we passed about 10 or 15 different classes, young and old men and women in groups, watching an instructor and following all of their keep fit moves. Each class had a loudspeaker instructing them what to do; this was exactly the same sound in each class, and we reckoned it must be transmitted over the morning radio.We got back to the hotel at about 7.30am, where we met up with Nikki and Ed, a couple from London. They've been travelling around the world in the opposite direction to Kyle and Stephanie, our Ozzie/American friends, and having met in South America about six months earlier, they had arranged to meet again as their paths crossed for a second time. The six of us were to travel to Halong Bay together.
As we sat in the hotel, we discussed whether to get the train or bus for the next part of our journey towards Hue, after we returned to Hanoi in three days time
The Boat
. We asked the man at the hotel what the price of the train was: US$40 each it was a bit steep. We were talking it over when he asked us for the money. We explained that we hadn't made our minds up, but he said that his friend at the other end of the phone line had already printed tickets for the 11pm train. We weren't as annoyed as we should have been, because he had effectively made our minds up for us, so we paid the cash.The minibus came to the hotel, and we drove the three hours to the "boat station" at Halong Bay. We had about an hour to waste here. Fearful of what the price of beer would be on the boat, we went to a local shop and haggled a crate of 24 down to 200,000 dong (£7.50), and hid it in our bag to take on board.
The boat, when it arrived, was much better than we had expected. It was a wooden boat about 20 metres in length. There was an open upper deck at the top, an enclosed middle deck which contained the dining room and two bedrooms, and a lower deck which contained the other four bedrooms. It was a reasonably big boat, but accommodated only 12 passengers. Our room had a small but decent en suite, a large and comfortable bed, and air-conditioning
Halong Bay (2)
.Halong Bay occupies about 400 square kilometres; within that there are 1,969 islands, or so our guide, Nam, tells us. The islands consist mainly of limestone, and have dense populations of trees. Many of them are tiny, and it's an impressive sight to look out towards the horizon and see hundreds of small rock islands, most taller than they are wide, jutting out of the sea. It's been a UNESCO World Heritage Site for the last 14 years.
Our boat left the mainland and we headed off into the calm waters of the bay. Within an hour we were served a seriously good meal of various seafoods, veg, rice and noodles. We continued on for a few hours taking in the scenery, before going for a swim in the reasonably warm water and getting out in the boats kayaks. We kayaked between various islands and through a small tunnel into the middle of a round island with a central lake.
Night fell fairly quickly, and after our meal we headed to the top deck
Kayaking
. Our fears regarding the extortionate pricing of the beers on the boat had been well grounded. They were charging 20,000 dong for the same as we'd bought for about 8,000 a piece. They also charged 5,000 "corkage" for each can if you brought your own. It wasn't difficult to smuggle our cans to the top deck and drink stealth beers, but it meant drinking it warm. We had planned to swap some of our warm beer for the cold beer in the boat's fridge but the crew were far too eagle-eyed to allow us to get away with that. We ended up tolerating "warmies" all night. Not the best. But what tastes better, an 8,000 dong warmie or a 20,000 dong coldie?The jury's out.
