Karst Maze of Halong Bay

We are back in Ha Noi after spending 2 nights and 3 days on a 'junk'. As it turns out this boat was appropriately named. There are about 5 gajillion junks leaving the bay of Halong City each day to take tourists out to the bay and to the main destination of Cat Ba island. But first, let me try to describe the area. Halong Bay sits off the northeast coast of Vietnam and consists of more than 3,000 islands, all of which are made of limestone and are very similar to the scenery we saw in Krabi, Thailand. Sheer, vegetation-covered cliffs that drop off directly into the water. The bottoms of these cliffs are carved out by the water and thus there are also many caves. This photo gives you an idea of the scenery.


So we booked an official tour, at one of the unbelievable amount of tour offices in Hanoi. Just about every other store front can book a tour for you and is either called Singh Tours, Kim Cafe, or Kangaroo Tour. Of course there is only one legitimate company for each name, but as soon as one company gets good press in Lonely Planet or becomes popular, about ten fakes open their doors. If you book with the most reputable, you pay a lot of money, if you book with one of the fakes, you hardly pay anything, so we sought out one in between. If you can believe it, you get what you pay for. We had a mediocre trip. The scenery is stunning. Really. But it would have been much better to not be on the freeway to Cat Ba with all the other junks and to have been able to explore it more on kayak. We could have done that, but the price goes up exponentially.

The junk is a big boat that has a quite nice design. Cabins on the lower level for sleeping, main level is a big dining/seating area, completely enclosed, and a sundeck up on top. The problem with these tours, is that these boats go out every single day and make the same trip, and thus lack any maintenance. The crew on the boat also lacks much in the way of customer service. The two worst things about our boat were the rats that came out at night (luckily we only heard one nibbling on the wood by our heads at 6:00 AM, no nibbling on feet), and the Wonder Bread that we were served as breakfast (that was it, just a stack of bread on a plate!). We heard much worse horror stories from other boats, and luckily we were able to keep a light attitude about it all. But the rats....yuck. I looked under our bed before we left our cabin and saw so much rat shit....you think the crew could sweep once in a while or get a cat. We saw a mouse while we were playing cards, and mentioned it to the crew and they just laughed and said, "mice, yes, many, many". We thought they were joking.

Here is a look at the plentitude of junks at the dock leaving Halong City. It's hard to see what the individual boat looks like from this picture, but it sort of gives you an idea.


The first day, you boat out for four hours, stopping once to go in a cave, and again for kayaking (of which they only gave us 20 minutes to do!), then they lay anchor off the harbor of Cat Ba (the biggest island and the one that is quickly becoming quite developed), and slept that night on the boat. In the morning, they dropped us off at the harbor, took us to a hotel, then went on a trek up one of the peaks on the island (into what we thought was going to be the National Park, but we eventually figured out they skirted the borders so as not to pay the fee). It was a nice walk though, and gave us some nice views of the bay. Then we were supposed to go on an excursion to 'Monkey Island', but we've seen enough tourist-fed monkeys and decided to stay back, and instead rented a kayak on our own. In the kayak we paddled around the fishing villages that exist in the harbor (whole villages living in shacks built on docks - and a surprising amount of dogs living with them!), and then circled some of the nearby islands. It was nice to get away from the group and the schedule.

Here we are at the summit of our morning trek. You can see one of the smaller bays of Cat Ba island behind us.

A leisurely evening was spent walking the streets of Cat Ba town, drinking some more bia hoi, then breakfast at 7:00 (if you are one minute late for breakfast, they start calling your room or knocking on your cabin door - these guys are very picky about timing and even who sits at what table!), and back on the boat for the journey home. They promised we would go home a different route than we came, which they did, but the different route was only different for about 2 km, then we rejoined the rest of the parade of junks heading back. It was a good trip overall, and we are definitely glad we did it. We did learn a bit about Vietnam tourism in the process. It is definitely a rapidly growing industry, and will continue to do so, then eventually when the number of operators becomes too much, they will have to start refining and specializing to please the likes of Keith and I. (At least we didn't complain as much as some of these Westerners....yikes there was a lot of griping!).

A look at one of the fishing villages we kayaked through:


Here's a photo of a woman bringing what we thought was going to be our freshly cooked seafood dinner on the boat. Turns out we had to buy our own if we wanted any fresh seafood. Maybe they would have cooked it for us, maybe not, we have no idea. No one really told us much of anything. But as we were eating our dinner which was fine, some kind of breaded fish, we noticed the crew sitting at the table behind us eating fresh muscles and crab! Oh well. The boat she is on, is called a sampong. They are woven boats, with twine for oarlocks and a tar coated bottom. It's what all the locals use as a floating store for the tourists, seafood delivery, gathering/catching seafood, pulling kayaks up to the junk for us to use, or of course for transport.





We're back in Hanoi for the night at a great hotel that provides free internet and breakfast (hopefully more than white bread) for $13USD. They price hotel rooms and tour packages in USD here. We've heard the rates in Hanoi are the highest in the country, but for $10-15 you get a big room, with AC, TV, and hot water, and sometimes breakfast. Tomorrow we take a night train to the northwest corner of the country to see some highlands, and do some treking to some minority villages.

Drinking bia hoi on a street corner in Ha Noi:


Some random observations/info about Vietnam so far....
-The horn honking in Hanoi is ridiculous. They honk so much, that it has lost any meaning! In Indonesia they honked a lot, but it tended to have some purpose, like, "hey, I'm passing now, and I'm bigger than you so I'm not slowing down". Here, they just honk ALL THE TIME. Good thing our rooms have not been street side.

-We talked a bit with our tour guide on the way home and found out some interesting information. On the three hour drive to the bay, we saw almost nothing but rice fields. Apparently each individual is alloted a 720 sq meter plot of land. Where most will grow rice. They do two crops of rice a year, each taking four months. If they are able to harvest and sell half that crop they will make $60. So $120 a year for one plot of rice. The other 4 months they grow other veggies like corn, lettuce, and potatoes. An average factory worker makes about $60 a month. A government employee makes about $50 a month, but really gets much more money thanks to corruption.

-Mom - I haven't seen a "Vietnamese Roll" yet, at least in the way you are thinking. Still looking though! There are however, an abundance of lovely bakeries, and real loaves of bread. The food in general is good. Not as spicy as Thailand. Noodles are the main thing here in the north. They also eat everything else - dog, snake, spider, etc. We heard some stories about travelers trying snake (there is a very special way the serve it up for you) and one fellow who visited a remote village on his own and had a feast of dog - the details are pretty gorey - just think Fear Factor. Not sure if we'll ever get that brave.

-We are overcharged for everything we buy. This is nothing new in SE Asia, but it seems worse here. It is hardest when you first arrive to a country because you never know what you should be paying. We haven't argued too much with the small stuff because, it really is insignificant to us and probably helps them out a great deal...at least for a day.