Hanging in Halong Bay

When you are on tours you tend to have a lot of thinking time. In this case 4 hours each way (short in Vietnam standards) on a bus . Just to warn you, this statement isn't going to be all that profound because when you have been touring like us your brain goes into idle mode. So 8 hours of bus thinking produced 1 vibrating thought;
With so many tourists visiting the same places, I wonder how many photos are being snapped every day?
With Halong bay my answer goes something like this;
*In low season there would be 800-1200 tourists on the water starting out on their first day. In high season 4000-5000.
* That means 800-1200 tourists are still on the water from the day before, and 4000-5000 in high season again.
* And a third of that are people doing the third day of their tour (most go home on the 2nd).
>> that means as a medium of those numbers 2350 are on the water at any time in the low season and 12000 in high season
** I estimate that an average of 30 photos are taken every day per person.. probably hundreds from the keen ones and 10s from the "mmmm, better take a shot I spose fellas"
Taking these figures to the ol bus brain computer gives 70,500 photos per day in the low season... and 360,000 a day in high season..
I could go on about how many photos of Ha Long bay exist, judging by this tour being in operation for all these years.. or digital leaving analog, and the exponential growth of the daily photographer, but really, all this is boring.

Maybe my point here is that we are struggling to use our brains these days, and I really believe we will be solid assets to our next employers for the first short period while we enjoy the feeling of something generating in our noodle from left to right.

Get on with it!
So we board a Junk for a 3 day tour. This boat is a slow moving diesel powered barge that carries/sleeps 16 people plus guides. We get taken around these incredible 3000 odd islands at walking pace which gives the average white tourist a lot of sun bathing time on top deck.
On our first day we cruised the bays, walked some incredible caves, kayaked and then went swimming at a small island. How much of that did we actually do? Well, the kayaking was done by everyone except for us as we were the only ones doing a 3 day tour and the kayaking was scheduled for the next day. We went to go swimming but the water here is full of rubbish and a English kid pulled a syringe out of the sand right on the shore line. The waters are very pretty - but rubbish is a big problem here with 100s of boats and no one seems to be cleaning the aftermath.

Our junk was kinda like the gay pride party bus, parading a nice selection of multi coloured flags. At night it turned into a karaoke disco with green laser beams and a disco ball.. no lie!

Our sunbathing platform;
The afternoon sun across the water;

The sunset over the Ha Long Islands is spectacular.

That night after the disco, and the crazy Polish guy feeding me bisongrass vodka had calmed down, we slept with the gentle flow of the ocean. At about 3am I was awoken by the sound of giant water rats racing around the inside of our walls and desperately trying to gnaw their way in. We drifted in and out of sleep and only awoke once an hour as the rats were getting more and more frustrated with their failures. In the morning it was like nothing had happened as no one spoke of the rats over breaky, but I suspect we all had similar experiences.

After breakfast we were transported to another junk with just one other person.. and the 3 of us on this giant boat cruised to Cat Ba island where we went mountain biking and trekking through caves with flying bats. The biking was magic as the roads were ancient and there was a great lake and jungle.

After lunch we went to a floating fishing village (like a house built on polystyrene bricks) who hires out kayaks and paddled around the small floating villages for an hour. The people here catch fish and store them in netted chambers around their houses - this is their trade and sometimes the tour lunches.

We then sailed around the other side of Cat Ba and checked into a hotel for the night. The next day we departed at 7.30am and cruised slowly back to Ha Long city over a 5 hour trip before heading back to Ha Noi in the afternoon.

A truely magical trip and worth every penny paid. My only advice is not to fall into the trap of thinking, as you may end up boring the readers of your blog ;)

The caves you visit. It's like a hollowed out cliff face - the biggest cave I've ever seen.. better than Waitomo even.. could you believe that ;)


Sea Hawks are everywhere hunting and giving people omens