Trip to Ha Long Bay

This is Ralph.  Jim was all over this blog thing from the very beginning, while I was being supportive in my inimitable way with sarcastic comments and general snarkiness.  Since I was origninally just as snarky and negative about a trip to the highly touristed Ha Long Bay – which of course I loved and consider just as good an idea as having this blog – it seemed only fair that I handle this entry.

Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO world heritage site about 3 hours from Hanoi.  This means that it’s a treasure that the whole world is committed to preserving.  It’s a remarkably beautiful body of water punctuated by towering limestone islands carved into extraordinary shapes.  It was other-worldly.

It’s also the destination of countless tours from countless different operators in Hanoi.  We chose a small boat reccomended by our (*wonderful) hotel, and were very pleased with the result. Here’s a picture of our boat:

There are 5 cabins on the boat.  Four were occupied on our trip, fortunately by some interesting and compatible folks (all about half our age, but you’ll be glad to know that we beat them all back to the beach at the finale of our sunset kayak outing!).     The boat was very comfortable and the food good – complete with dishes like this one, giant shrimp steamed in a pot filled with extremely hot rocks.

 

As lunch proceeded, we cruised through the remarkable scenery to visit a fishing village.  I was very dubious about this activity (expecting a Walt Disney kind of thing), but actually enjoyed seeing what was a very real place – a collection of fisherman’s homes floating in a protected cove amongst the cliffs, complete with meeting house, school, televisions, and lots of pet dogs (the existence of which raised lots of practical questions I didn’t really want to consider too deeply). 

We had time for the kayaking mentioned earlier just as the sun was coming down.

 

The after dinner (9 courses this time)entertainment was all musical, led by our guide Thinh, who seems to be a frustrated rock star.  The whole crew sang several Vietnamese songs, which were quite wonderful, and one of the young waiters played some astoundingly bad guitar solos.  They then requested that we all sing a song from our country.  All were too shy except yours truly, who valiantly sang a verse or two of Yellow Submarine.

Waking up the next morning, I was the first person out on the deck.  The feeling of being there among those incredible islands in the morning mist is something I’ll always remember.