Spectacular Halong Bay

Thursday 14 June

It is definitely worth the 3½ hour drive by airconditoned minibus to get from Hanoi to Halong Bay.  How glad I was to leave behind Hanoi City, with its thousands of hurtling motor scooters and motorbikes; no doubt there are good things to see there, and we enjoyed relaxing by one of Hanoi's lakes yesterday afternoon; but it feels that everytime you cross the road you are dicing with death.

There are 18 tourists on the bus; 15 "Westerners", and 3 Vietnamese - these are (we assume) a father and his 2 children, a girl aged 14 and a boy aged 11, we find out later.  The father can't speak English but the children can.  The father/children relationship appears very strained though; the father hardly speaks to the children, and when he takes photos of them, the girl puts on a forced half-smile, but the boy doesn't smile at all. 

The other tourists are all under 30; an young male business executive from Los Angeles, a Finnish couple, a Swiss couple, a very-quiet couple from Holland, 2 lads from Canada, and 4 Australians. And of course a much older couple from Bristol, England! Our tour guide is an English-speaking Vietnamese man.

There are hundreds of tourists visiting Halong Bay every day, but I am really impressed with the way our tour company have everything organised so that at no time are we left waiting around in the heat of the day.  When we arrive at the dockside, there are many boats waiting to take tourists out into the bay; but we are taken straight to a jetty where our "ferry boat" is ready to whisk us out of the harbour and into the bay, where we will join our luxury junk.  The scenery is amazing, in many ways reminding us of our trip down the River Li in Guilin on a bamboo boat.  There are similar greenery covered lime-stone peaks, but this time they are rising out of a millpond sea, and the view takes our breath away.  This is the Vietnam I want to see, and because it's just our small party of 18 (including our tour guide) on the junk, and we've already started to get to know each other, having travelled here together by minibus, it feels like an exclusive trip; there are several other boats out in the bay, but no other tourists around.

Our cabin on the junk has everything we need; a comfortable double bed, a panoramic open window with sea view, air conditioning at night, electric sockets (to charge up Reg's phone and plug in the travel kettle  - we don't travel anywhere without it now) and an ensuite shower/toilet.

We have lunch on the junk, a mixture of meats, vegetables, fruit, and fresh fish which has been caught in the bay - it's all delicious.  After lunch we board another ferryboat, which takes us to visit a cave in a mountain. This involves climbing up a vast number of steps, in a temperature of 37ºc.  I almost bottle out and stay on board the boat and read my kindle, but the cave is the biggest one in Halong Bay and very famous.  I decide to go, and the interior of the cave is enormous and very beautiful, but one cave is much like another to me,  I feel I should have stayed on board the junk when we are herded through the cave with hundreds of other tourists, like a production line: and because the cavern is inside a mountain rather than underground, it's even hotter inside than in the open air.  Never mind, it's kayaking next!

Reg doesn't think he'll enjoy this but he loves it.  We're in a double kayake, with an oar each, with me sitting in the front.  I just manage, with help from a very amused Vietnamese worker, to get into the kayake without tipping it up - memories of my kayake overturning on the River Loire in France many years ago, my lifejacket popping me to the surface of the water like a cork, and then me being unable to climb back into the canoe, have stayed with me.

To try to get some rhythm with our paddles, Reg starts saying in a loud voice behind me;

"Left! Right! Left!"

We start to get the hang of rowing together when a largish boat looms nearby.

"Left! Left! Left!"

Panicking, I say, “Do you mean left paddle or turn left?” (ie right paddle!)

“Left! Left! Left!”

I'm pleased to say we narrowly miss the boat.

Reg and I haven't argued so much since we tried to learn ballroom dancing together when we were engaged (36 years ago) – Reg says it's because I always want to do my own thing, and won't follow his lead.  Despite all this, we really enjoy our kayaking session, although getting out of the canoe at the end is another matter. Reg is still in the boat, leaving the embarrassment of extricating me from the canoe to the seasoned boatman standing on the wharf. The boatman hauls me up but my lifejacket is caught in the canoe! Eventually Reg and the boatman free my lifejacket, and with an enormous effort on the part of the boatman, I plop out onto the wharf, like a beached whale.

After our kayaking session, the ferryboat takes us back to our luxury junk, which is moored in in the bay.  We have free time on the junk; all the young ones swim from the boat, the lads mostly jumping off the side of the junk into the luxuriously warm seawater, and the girls scaling the ladder which the crew have fixed to the side of the boat.  I watch the young ones in water, and would love to go in, but am not sure about climbing down the ladder; also, if I'm honest, I would feel self conscious scaling the ladder in front of all those lovely young people with their beautiful bronzed bodies.

I leave the the young ones to it and go to our cabin for a rest; Reg has gone to listen to his music on the top deck.  Soon it's time for our evening meal, and as at lunchtime we all sit together at a long table; the meal is similar to lunch, except that there's more of it.  No-one goes hungry.

Our tour guide suggests that after dinner we might want to try dancing or karaoke (I'm not sure he's serious about the karaoke - I don't think anyone's had enough to drink to volunteer to be the first to take the microphone).  Most people just want to relax on the top deck of the junk, savouring the balmy warmth of the evening air, and feasting their eyes one what must surely be one of the most beautiful seascapes in the world - which is no doubt why it is a World Natural Heritage site.

Reg and I have a long conversation with the young Swiss couple, on topics which range from how expensive Switzerland is to live in, to why young people ( in Switzerland and elsewhere) are choosing to live together rather than marry. In Switzerland, if a couple aren't married before they have children, they have to adopt their own children! We talk about faith and spirituality, the banking crisis, the “Occupy St Paul's” protests (and the similar ones which occurred elsewhere, including in Switzerland) and the riots in England last August. The young businessman from California joins in our conversation, until we all decide to call it a night.

I sleep well, our junk resting gently on the millpond waters of spectacular Halong Bay.