The trip to Halong Bay had an early start. We had to be in the lobby about 7:30am to catch the bus at 8. Around 7:50 our guide, Lucky, showed up. We were the first ones on the bus and were hoping it would not be too crowded since the van was not that big. Over the next hour we picked up the rest our of group, 4 Australians, 4 Brits, 2 Dutch, 1 Phillipino, 1 Swedish and his Chinese mail order bride. As we drove around to pick everyone up it was funny to the see the mass exodus of white people from Hanoi, all getting on buses and heading out on their tours. Every corner seemed to have a couple white people, backpacks in hand, waiting for their ride and on the other corner buses full of white people making their rounds to collect them. As we headed out to town Lucky did his best to tell us the schedule for the day but with his broken English and bad jokes plus everyone being pretty tired there was not much enthusiasm amongst the crowd. We crossed the Red River out of town and Lucky pointed out that the bridge we were on was the first one ever built by the Vietnamese, in the early 80's. While it may have been a great accomplishment for the Vietnamese I was a little worried having seen the rest of their architecture in the city and knowing our bus carried 16 people.
As we settled in for the 3 hour drive out to the Bay most people fell asleep which was no easy feat given the road conditions and the way the driver was driving. The comfort of the passengers doesn't even factor in. About half way there we stopped a porcelain factory that was a drink/snack/junk shop. Having learned our lesson earlier in China we did not buy anything. The odd thing was across from the shop were fields and fields of rice farms with the traditional Vietnamese worker: round pointy hat and pajama looking clothes. It was actually quite odd on the drive out there as most all of the architecture and people look like they could come straight from the 1950s. I think I could take a picture and put in black and white and then pass it off as antique. Some of the odder things we saw were mopeds with pigs tied onto the back of them, mopeds with 10 chicken cages strapped onto the back, 2 giant hogs tied to a lamp post on the edge of the road and my favorite, a guy butchering an animal (pig maybe) on the side of the road, picking the last meat off the skeleton. The even odder part was it did not even phase me. It is amazing what you get used to after almost 2 months in developing countries.
We eventually made it to Halong Bay and to the mass chaos. The main dock was similiar to the Guilin Li River; people and boats all over the place. Somehow in the chaos we lost the 4 British kids and had to wait 20 minutes while the guide found them. Not the first nor would it be the last time people would wonder off from the group. Once we got the group together we headed over to the boat, the Huy Huong, and boarded by scurrying up a gang plank using a bamboo pole held by the crew as a hand rail. The boat itself was a 3 deck boat, made to look like an old "junk" but using motors instead of sails. The first deck was the sleeping quarters, 6 rooms with twin beds, AC and private baths. They were not glamorous but they would do for the night. The second deck was the general sitting and dining area and the top was the open air tanning deck, with 8 chairs for the 16 people on the tour. As the boat left the harbor people spread out taking in the landscape. Thirty minutes after leaving dock the boat dropped anchor and we all sat down for lunch. Nothing special here but we sat with 2 Australian brothers who quizzed us about being American. While they were very nice guys and well mannered a comment about whether I have ever wished I was not American while being on this trip struck me as a cleverly disguise insult. But having to live with them the next 2 days I let it slide for now.
After lunch we headed over to the first stop of the day, the Sung Sot cave, along with the fleet of other tour boats. The boats all jostled for position to unload their people at the cave, banging and bumping like they were at the Xi'an train station. The cave name means Amazing Cave but having see a big cave in Tucson and the Reed Flute cave in Guilin I had already had just about enough of caves. It also didn't help that there were tons of tourist there which made the advertised secluded boat ride seem like a bit of a lie. Lucky did his best to get the group enthused by pointing out formations in the rocks with funny names, like the Buddha, the turtle and others that looked nothing like what he said. He tried his best comedy by pointing out one shaped like a penis and asking what people thought it looked like. No one wanted to say it even though everyone knew but Lucky persisted anyway. After 2 minutes of him alluding to what it was he finally said it was a "population stick" and everyone gave a groan. I guess comedy doesn't translate well.
Next stop on our hurried tour (we only had 1 hour at each stop) was an overly crowded beach at Titop Island for 1 hour of swimming. Justin and I opted not to swim when the private secluded beach we were expecting was packed with 300 Vietnamese kids and every other junk tour on the water. We decided to climb to the top of the island instead, about 400 steps straight up that gave a good view of the bay. The climb only took about 15 minutes so after coming down we decided to take a dip with all the time we had left. The water was bath tub warm, dirty as hell and packed with people. I was starting to think Aaron was full of shit. When swimming was all done we headed back to the boat to await dinner. Total distance traveled for the day was not very far since we made a bee line for the cave from the harbor and then straight from the cave to the beach. When the boat parked half way between the two for the night I could still see the harbor in the distance. We had 1 hour to swim off the boat before dinner but everyone quickly put a stop to that when the first two guys that jumped in got stung badly by jellyfish. If that was not enough 2 other boats from our tour company parked right next to us, trapping us in the middle. Seclusion strikes out again.
But it was not all bad. As we waited for dinner we sat on the top deck and watched the sun go down behind a limestone pillar. It was a great view and I got some good pictures. Dinner was a big meal and not to bad. After dinner I grabbed a beer and retired to the roof of the ship to lay on one of the deck chairs. As I watched the moon rise from behind another limestone pillar I sipped my beer as a cool breeze blew across the deck. In the distance I could see the lights from various boats and beyond that the lights of the harbor. To the other direction were limestones islands dotting the water, all with a faint glow from the moon. It was one of the cooler places we had been at that point and I finally felt relaxed. After finishing the beer I turned in early in order to make the 8 am wake up call the next morning for breakfast.
