Bai Tu Long Bay – three pairs of pants

12 November 201526 January 2018

Day 59 (Thu 12 Nov): Bai Tu Long Bay to Hanoi to Lao Cai (cave, sleeper train)

… And the by-now-obligatory sunrise photo (which, if you look, very closely resembles one of the sunset shots from last night, but a different quality of light):

Our final stop before returning to port (nooooo!) was a natural cave:

It’s not the biggest and doesn’t have lots of rocks that look like animals (with various degrees of imagination), but it also wasn’t overrun with tourists, so I enjoyed it a lot. And the views were great, too:

It was whilst I was sorting stuff to check out that I noticed the remote control… for the toilet:

Another toilet specimen to add to my trip’s collection 🙂

Lunch was at 10:30am.

Very early, but we weren’t due back to Hanoi until 5pm. And then it occurred to me that the staff serve four meals every day because they do two lunches: one for the out-going lot, and another for the incoming bunch.

An amazing trip – spectacular scenery, lots of fun, great company and luxury accommodation. My only wish was that we’d had more time to just be. Having lots of activities was good, but I’d have liked to just sit on deck or in my cabin and watch the world (specifically the limestone karsts) go by:

If there’s something on, you’d feel like you were missing out, but we don’t need to be entertained every minute of the day. Overall, though, a great trip.

Returning to port meant returning to Wi-Fi, and finding out that the sleeper train I’d booked wasn’t available. With live availability and payment upfront I’d assumed that it meant it was booked, but it actually meant that my request had been submitted. And because I hadn’t been able to check my email, I hadn’t found out. So I ventured to Lily’s (again) when I arrived in Hanoi. I also showed her the homestay I’d chosen. She looked at me earnestly. “Touristy”, she said. Oh dear, really? The reviews didn’t indicate it, but she was right – it wasn’t that far out of Sapa. And anything with good TripAdvisor reviews would be busy, I knew. She suggested another. I trusted her judgement. Getting back to port had also meant getting back to the masses* – our toilet stop was at a tourist department store full of overpriced goods, with the bus helpfully dropping us at the back of the store and picking us up from the front:

Standing in the queue for the loo, a lady pushed past. I tapped her on the shoulder. Didn’t even need to say anything. She mumbled something and went to the back of the queue. I won’t even bother telling you what nationality she was – I’m sure you can guess.

* I should clarify that I’m not adverse to people. In fact, I’m very fond of quite a few of them (if you’ve been invited to read this, you’re one of them), but I don’t like big groups of people. I’m one of life’s natural introverts so find being around lots of people very tiring.

“Sleeper” train is a bit of a misnomer, as was “soft bed”. Slightly more give than concrete but there’s not much in it. Don’t Vietnamese people have hips and shoulders? Took ages to get to sleep – every position was uncomfortable, but I think it was mostly because the train was throwing me around. But I eventually fell asleep…

11 November 201526 January 2018

Day 58 (Wed 11 Nov): Bai Tu Long Bay (kayaking, swimming, pearl farm)

General consensus was to stay three days in Halong Bay, if you could. With half-day journey times either end, it seemed sensible. So glad I did. Five “three dayers” left the others to go out on the day boat.

It was raining hard:

… but we went kayaking anyway and saw a different side of Bai Tu Long Bay. With nobody else around, we explored caves and islets.

After lunch the sun came out:

… so we did it all again (different route, of course). Seeing the place in both weather conditions, I felt like I got a really good sense of the place. Kayaking through Bai Tu Long bay was definitely a highlight of my trip:

Then swimming off the boat:

And I’ll let some more photos of the place speak for themselves:

Only thirty percent of farmed oysters actually produce a pearl. And only ten percent produce “perfect” pearls – “perfect” is defined by the colour (which depends on the mother pearl) and evenness of shape. We saw the whole process, from the nucleus (created from ground oyster shell, if you remember from the one on Phu Quoc island?) being inserted into the oyster:

To the “incubation” for one month in calm waters:

And then transfer to the moving water for growing (between three and six years, depending on the type and size):

Then the suspense as they’re opened:

The best pearls are then graded, with each label detailing the grade (A to AAAA), colour (signified by the letter preceding the grade), the type (written in words) and the size (in mm):

The farm is actually Japanese owned, and these oysters are shipped all over the world.

Later that evening, I was introduced to Shaheena, who is also travelling alone. She travels the world finding precious “stones”. Once she’s found some, she’ll stay in the area for a few days and sketch designs which she takes to the jewellers who make up her creation and ship it to her.

She’d bought three pearls that morning. Back in the US, she’s built up a business (often through “I love your necklace, can you get me one?”) and resells the pieces for a 500% mark up. With a background in sourcing aeroplane parts, she’s redirected her energies to something she’s more passionate about. She was keen to tell me about the quality of the places she stays, and she clearly hobnobs with her target audience, but the sheer tenacity involved in doing something like this fascinated me. It makes you stop and think. If she can do it, why can’t I? Well, you know, not that particular domain, obviously, but she was interesting and inspiring and I enjoyed her company very much.

Here’s the by-now-obligatory sunset shot to end another wonderful day:

10 November 201526 January 2018

Day 57 (Tue 10 Nov): Hanoi to Bai Tu Long Bay (cruise, fishing village, vegetable carving)

Our tour guide gave us some useful information on our trip down to the port:

The Chinese occupied Vietnam for over one thousand years
“Viet” means “the king’s people” and “Nam” means “living in the south” (because Vietnam is south of China)
There are 56 different ethnic groups
The south has two seasons: rainy and dry
North and Central Vietnam have four seasons like us (and, of course, it’s currently autumn)
Population of Vietnam is 94 million (I think a previous tour guide said it was 92m, so close enough)
HCM city is the economic capital, whilst Hanoi is the cultural capital
Hanoi (which, of course the locals call “Ha Noi” because they only have one syllable per word, so multi-syllable words are broken into separate groups of letters – this makes learning Vietnamese even more difficult, because you don’t know where one “word” ends and another starts) means “inside the river”. Building it within the bend in the river made it easier to defend

He then explained that Ha Long (“descending dragon”) Bay was the seventh natural wonder of the world. This is only slightly accurate. It was one of the “New7Wonders of Nature” in a recent (2007 – 2011) global poll. Another tour guide had apparently said it was the eighth natural wonder. I think what they’re referring to is actually UNESCO – it was designated a World Heritage Site under criterion vii (“to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance”) and criterion viii (“to be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth’s history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features”).

Either way, it’s a spectacular seascape comprising about 2000 limestone islands and islets (“karsts”) rising from the sea, in a variety of sizes and shapes:

It was a slick operation when we arrived at the dock:

I found out afterwards that, in peak season, ten thousand tourists a day visit Ha Long Bay. And they know what you’ve booked. Well, they know what your travel agency has booked for you, which may not be what you think you’ve booked. But I trusted Lily, and it came good – this was to be my home for the next two nights:

My room had a jacuzzi bath. I have arrived 🙂

The views were incredible. Pictures, once again, just don’t seem to do it justice, but there are a couple that capture something of what it was like to be there:

It’s not just the karsts themselves (which are spectacular), but the sheer volume of them, too. The more expensive boats actually go to Bai Tu Long Bay. Cheaper boats don’t have a licence for the area, so it’s less touristy. That’s how “you get what you pay for”.

Lily had explained that there were two or three “areas” of activites (a fishing village, caves, pearl farms) and that which boat you were on dictated which area you would see – and the more you paid, the less touristy it would be. That was indeed the case, and we were rowed round the old fishing village on a bamboo boat, which allowed us to get really close to the rocks:

When the bay became a World Heritage Site, the fishermen were moved out. Despite questioning, it was difficult to get to the bottom why this was. The official reason was that providing education and healthcare to the community was easier if they were on the mainland. I think the powers-that-be were also worried about damage to the bay (e.g. water pollution) and wanted to protect the site (which did, of course, yield financial as well as environmental benefits). I understand work is underway to better protect the area – boats for ten thousand tourists generate a lot of water pollution (and rubbish).

Understandably, the fisherpeople weren’t very happy about being moved out. Some of them stayed. Most of them left. Some of them live on the mainland, but still come here to fish. Except that it’s not that easy to get home, so they live on the boat for a few days. A tough life. All for a few kilos of fish per day.

About 90% moved to Ha Long City, and their houses went with them. Literally. Their houses were deconstructed, moved to the city and put back together again. They’ve left a few, though, which look very pretty:

Unfortunately, nobody could tell me how the karsts were formed. Online explanations contain a lot of complicated words, so I’m going to have to leave that for another day, I’m afraid. But the results are truly amazing.

I’d heard there were eagles in the area. We spied these beauties, but weren’t sure what they were – if anyone knows, please do say:

Just incredible.

An impromptu game of football was going on when we returned, complete with a net to fish it out of the water when it went out:

I love the way they love to play.

Our evening entertainment on the boat was vegetable carving. Don’t laugh, it was actually quite good fun to watch:

But realistically it aint ever going to happen – practising vegetable carving will never get even remotely high enough on my priority list. Ever. And I’ll need to practice given my first attempt at a rose:

Squid fishing seemed to be primarily to keep the tourists amused as there was clearly no chance of anyone catching a squid:

A great day in an incredible place. Can’t wait to see more tomorrow.