Vietnam Day 3

Halong Bay Day 1

We mucked up our alarm, but managed to still have enough time to get ready and have breakfast before the pickup for Halong Bay, at 8am. The smog was appalling today - we'd noticed it on other days, but today it was a lot worse. It looks like their agriculture involves a lot of burning, as we saw quite a bit from the plane when we flew into HCMC. It is a 4 hour drive to Halong Bay, in a 10 seater people mover. For some reason both Sarah and I had assumed that as we left the city of Hanoi, we would eventually hit countryside, much like the Mountains, or out Hawkesbury way. We were very wrong. Imagine driving the stretch of Great Western Highway, at 50km/h, with incessant tooting, in roads 10 times worse - for 4 hours. There was just town after town after town, and the traffic and chaos didn't let up. 

All the little boats waiting to take tourists to their cruisers

When we reached Halong Bay, the smog had cleared a little, and it was a beautiful sunny day. We caught a small transport boat out to our Oriental Sails ship. We have a lovely room right on the water - about 1 metre above.

Our room

 We knew lunch was included, and there was a menu on the table when we sat down, although with 5 dishes, it was bound to be the dinner menu. Wrong! At least all of the dishes were fairly small, so we aren't over-eating.

Huge lunch menu!

 After lunch we had time to sit on the upper, open deck of the boat and watch the bay go by. It's a working bay as well as a tourist one, so there are a lot of different ships, from massive container ships to tiny fishing boats.

Limestone karst with fishing boats & smog

At 4pm we had he choice of a bamboo boat ride out in the bay, or do-it-yourself kayaking. I've never been a fan of having the water run down my arms when kayaking, so we opted for the lazy option. We went to look at a floating fishing village, where all of the small houses float in a pocket between the limestone karsts. They float on big blocks of styrofoam, and are anchored to the rocks. If the weather gets really bad, they can be moved to a more protected part of the bay. They even have a tiny room for a primary school.

Floating house, complete with guard dog!

Young boy with toy gun, rowing with his feet.

 After we returned from the bamboo boat, Sarah had a massage in the room, while I returned to the upper deck to lie back and watch the sun finish setting over the limestone karsts. When arranging the massage, the cruise director asked Sarah if she would like a strong one. She said yes, so he said he would have to find a strong masseuse. Sarah said that the Captain would be OK, which really made the cruise director laugh. For the rest of the afternoon, he kept suggesting he would go and get the Captain for Sarah, and it looks like the joke went through the rest of the crew as well.

At 6:30pm, they had a vegetable carving demonstration, where the chef made flowers from tomatoes and carrots, a lotus flower from an onion, a waterlily from cucumber, and the piece de resistance - a swan from some apples.

After dinner, it was squid fishing from the back of the boat. We could see them, but they didn't want to bite. One of the best things about the tours we are doing is meeting all of the other tourists. This time there are a few from Australia, 2 pair from France, and a couple of Americans. It's great to have Vietnam as a shared experience to begin meeting other people, as well as sharing tips and tricks about all of the places to visit.

The squid really were there.