With all of the chaos that is Hanoi, we were quickly ready to make plans to get out of the city. We made reservations to take a guided trip about 3 hours away to Ha Long Bay. We made plans to stay overnight on a boat (a junk, actually), explore a cave, kayak, and visit a floating village. Our trip also included meals aboard the junk. Guided tours haven't really been our thing, but it's so cheap that it just makes more sense than fumbling around trying to plan independent activities.
First of all, getting to Ha Long Bay was its own adventure. Even outside of the city, cars and scooters use their horns for every kind of road warning - "I'm coming up on your left," "I'm turning," "There's a pedestrian in view," "I'm in your lane and you need to swerve." Then in addition to the bumping, swaying, and noise, we were crammed into the mini bus with luggage filling any open space. Another passenger fell asleep on Pete's shoulder. It was a long drive...
At the dock there were maybe 60 boats bobbing in the water waiting to be filled. On our boat we had one guide and 16 passengers. Considering how many boats there were - some even bigger than ours - lots of people were out on Ha Long Bay. We hopped aboard and sat on the deck to enjoy the view.
The unique part of Ha Long Bay is the huge number of limestone rocks that protrude from the water and form jagged islands. However, it was quite overcast on our first day out, so there was a haze hanging over the tops of the rocks, but it did make a cool effect. We floated along through the bay, navigating past the other boats (that now seemed to number in the hundreds) toward the cave. Once there our tour guide helped us off the boat and we followed him up some steps that led to the cave entrance.
After New Zealand, Pete and I have gained some knowledge of caves, but nothing prepared us for this one. Upon entering the cave one is immediately overwhelmed not by the natural features of the cave, but by the bizarre pink and green and purple lights that glow on the walls. It's psychedelic. The hundreds of tourists fill the cavern, taking pictures and following the path that has been carved into the stone. Caves are created in special conditions over millions of years and their formations are so delicate, but here in Ha Long Bay, people were actually touching the walls of the cave! I was feeling so sad for the cave but convinced myself that preservation was probably not realized when the cave first became a tourist attraction. But then we learned that the cave was only discovered in 1995, so that means that in less than 15 years people have already begun to destroy what took the earth millions of years to produce. Can you tell this really bugged me? I'm sure it was once a lovely cave.
Later the boat parked itself in a calm section of the bay where we would spend the night. It was swimming time. Everyone was a bit reluctant to jump in the water, so our tour guide made the first move. Pete was among the few brave souls to join in, jumping from the top deck of our boat. I, however, was a wimp, and I couldn't get past the garbage and oil that floated on the water's surface. All of the swimmers survived and then came dinner.
They fed us well on the boat, providing large quantities of fresh fish, rice, vegetables, spring rolls, and shrimp. And we watched in agony while everyone enjoyed their meals. Very sadly, Pete and I were still recovering from our nasty stomach troubles and had no appetite.
Day two of the boat trip included a kayaking trip around the bay and a visit to a floating village. If I thought the garbage was bad at swim time, it was horrendous around the village. The limestone formations were very cool from water level though. But while we enjoyed the kayak trip, two people from our small group dropped expensive cameras in the water. One was retrieved.
Our tour guide pointed out special rocks, including a "dog rock" and two rocks that looked like they were kissing. Ahhh... At the end of the second day's trip we got off the boat and were taken to lunch in a small town nearby. Finally Pete and I joined in the meal and had delicious soup, rice, and spring rolls.
Overall Ha Long Bay was an example of the natural beauty one can enjoy in Vietnam when escaping the city, but it also highlighted some of the problems here. Glad we went though.
