Cruising in Halong Bay

There were a few places on our trip where we had planned to splurge a little and break up the backpacker accommodation. A Halong Bay trip was deemed as one. So through the Handspan travel group in Hanoi we selected the Indochina Sails as our boat on which to spend 2 days / 1 night. With this boat we were promised high end cabins, great food, less people, better transport to the Bay, and a relaxed cruise to some of the lesser traveled spots. It pretty much hit on all of those things for us.

The trip started with a 3.5 hour mini bus ride to Halong Bay. Along the way we made friends with the two women sitting behind us - one French and the other Belgian, though she had more allegiance to Spain and France as those were places she had lived for most of her life. The Belgian was named Katy and the French woman Angelique - both were doctors, albeit very young ones (early thirties) and on a 2 week trip. Katy was actually a transplant surgeon (!) mainly for children. Wow, talk about a stressful job. She was the more chatty of the two as both her English was better and she was just more social than Angelique, who Veronica noted had bitten all of her nails down and was obviously in turmoil over something. (We never got to what that was). From Katy, we learned that we would love the Gili Islands in Indonesia. Her reasonings would maybe be different from ours - finding an Italian lover and partaking in the island's mushrooms - not what you'd usually expect from a transplant surgeon! Anyway we enjoyed her company on the boat and ate a couple of meals with them.

OK, I got a bit sidetracked with Katy and Angelique. Now back to Halong Bay. So the Bay truly is stunning with these limestone karsts jutting out into the water. Apparently there are something like 1200+ of these huges karsts. You could endlessly take pictures of them, and we did. They looked different during the day, sunset, and morning with a kind of misty aura to them.

Within the Bay we also cruised past a fishing village. This was fascinating because these people, a couple hundred of them, live on tiny floating houses. They are not attached to any land because there is no shoreline on the karsts, just sheer rock face jutting upwards. The nearest real piece of land to set foot on is back about an hour's cruise away. So literally these people live on the water. Kids were playing on the little (and I mean little) docks in front of their houses or on wooden boats. In some places you had 3-4 houses all attached to each other, so you could maybe walk a total of 50 feet across the docks. But then at the end of the dock was just water. Water, water, everywhere for them. Except of course fresh water, which gets brought in on wooden boats with motors in big plastic barrels from which they buy their water.

Women in wooden boats laden down with all sorts fo food and beverage items would paddle up to our big boat and try to sell us stuff - Pringles, cookies, cokes, beer, etc. We got some good pictures of them.

On one of the islands, you could go into a big cave, which was a cooler experience than I thought it would be. The cave was very big and felt almost prehistoric. Of course you had tons of tourists being guided through it so it took away from the experience a bit but such is life if you want to see the sights.

We also climbed to the top of one of the islands which did have a small beach too. The climb was pretty steep but we got some great views out, especially of our beautiful wooden boat, moored off the island.

Between stopping points, we spent time up on the deck in nice teak lounge chairs. It was great to just sit there and gaze out at the passing islands.

After dinner on our only evening onboard, we did a little squid fishing off the back of the boat, which was fun. Both Veronica and I did end up catching a few. There was a young American couple on their honeymoon from San Francisco also having fun with the squid fishing. I think the boat staff ended up eating our squid which is good because otherwise I would have wanted to toss them back in.

The other people on board were quite friendly. There were groups or couples from Holland (as always), US, France, Russia, and England. We chatted quite a bit with the English couple as they had many interesting stories to tell from their time of living in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and parts of Africa. He was with the English Foreign Service. I felt too embarrased to ask him just what exactly "the foreign service" is - I mean I think it's like working for the Secretary of State's office or something in the US but not sure. I have heard the term before and it always seemed to be associated with Hanoi or Hong Kong and sounded quite exotic of a job. With his English accent and manner of speaking, he was exactly how I pictured someone who worked in "The Foreign Service".

On the bus trip back to Hanoi, I learned why you do not want to sit in the last row on the bus. Veronica and I were being tossed about. I think it's the first time I have ever felt a bit car sick.

While neither one of us would want to be on a tour for our full trip, I think we both enjoyed meeting the other people which of course comes quite easily on a tour. So together with having some interesting conversations, great scenery, and a really comfortable boat, we enjoyed ourselves a lot!