Halong Bay

  Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay, Vietnam
Monday, October 30, 2006

After the trekking, we decided to reward ourselves with a few days by the beach so we headed for Cat Ba Island. The town itself is quite small - only 7000 inhabitants - but despite being geared up to tourism, is quite a strange place. Apparently there are some 100 brothels (and no, I didn't visit any of them), though the wierdest thing is that the men are really overly-affectionate with one another; lots of holding hands, stroking and general caressing. There are some nice beaches where we lounged around for three days before taking in the main reason people visit here - Halong Bay.

Sunset over Cat Ba harbour

Halong Bay is a stretch of water that contains some 3000 islands, most of them uninhabited, and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Along with a group of Canadians, we chartered a boat for a two day trip, including a night spent at sea. The scenery was beautiful and we also took a paddle boat through some open water caves. The only problem was the tour guides who decided they couldn't be bothered to take us to all the places we had paid to see (the booking itself is done with someone else). Obviously I pretty quickly lost my cool with this situation and through a combination of my shouting and the slightly more diplomatic efforts of Mani and the Canadians, we eventually got what we wanted. It did make us realise how any activity such as this is completely dependent on the quality of your assigned tour guide, regardless of any assurances from the tour operator that things will run smoothly.

Boat on Halong Bay

We would have stayed a bit longer in Cat Ba but were put off doing so by the atmosphere in the town. Every night there would be swarms of young men walking up and down the main strip, and they didn't exactly welcome foreigners with welcome arms. They stare at all the men like they want a fight, and openly leer at the women. All the time whilst touching one another!
My opinion of the Vietnamese people is plummeting by the day...