Ha Long Bay Land
Trip Start
Feb 05, 2008
1
32
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Halong Bay,
Halong Bay,
Vietnam
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
There were only eight of us on the tour, including Claudia and her Dad Peter from Switzerland and Daniel from somewhere near Cologne in Germany
Sunset on Halong Bay
. The four of us hit it off right away. I love the Swiss. Is Switzerland the Canada of Europe? There were two other couples who pretty much kept to themselves. Ha Long Bay is well known and touted as a must see and if it's anything like its pictures, it should be amazing. In fact, they are lobbying to have it listed as one of the world's top seven natural wonders.
Things start to look a little fishy when on the way out we stop for a break at a massive ceramics shop that also happens to serve coffee and beverages at western prices.
We arrive at Ha Long Bay and it looks like we are queing for a Disney ride. The 'harbour' is filled with junk boats, all of which look ostensibly the same. Hmmm, I wonder what distinguishes the high-end boats the one I just boarded? Our boat Hau Aii was captained by a salty old dog of about 19 years of age. Our guide Bien spoke pretty good english and told funny jokes.
First we headed for 'Surprise Cave', along with oh I'd say another 30 odd boats. On the way we had a delicious lunch
The Harbour
. They track drinks on a spreadsheet and you pay at the end. I had a beer with lunch--one tick under beer. We arrived at the cave where we are paraded through on nice concrete sidewalks with little chains along the side to keep us on the patch. Rock formations were nicely illuminated with pretty colour spotlights. What the... This is where my Swiss friends learned the meeting of 'lame'. Back on the boat, we 'sailed' about 200 metres to a floating dock where we and dozens of other touristas piled into 'kayaks' and paddled around the garbage infested waters enjoying views of the limestone rock formations. After an hour of paddling it was time for a beer. Hmmm, there's now two beers ticked under my name, yet I had only had one at lunch. 'Oops sorry'. Now I was pretty sure it might be a good idea to keep track.
It turns out all of the boats anchor in roughly the same spot, not far from the surprise cave. You can see Ha Long City from where we sit. I suspect this is a loose and failed attempt to control any impact on the environment.
After a pretty good dinner we sat up on the rooftop deck, chatted and had a few beers. When I went to bed, there were nine marked under my name. I don't think I had that many but I can't be sure. I also decided not to let the cockroach that scurried out from under the bedspread when I went to bed bother me. Next morning when it was time to pay there were 10 beers marked, plus a water. Hmmm.
Ha Long Bay...one of seven natural wonders of the world? It's the first place I've been where the pictures and the hype do it more justice. I don't think so. I'm not even sure I'd reccomend it as a must see. But I guess you can't come to Vietnam and not go to Ha Long Bay.
