Halong Bay - Day 1

Events of 5-Feb-2013

I arrived at Halong Bay after a three and a half hour road trip from Hanoi. Interesting trip but tiring. Halong Bay had dual carriageways and modern multi-storey hotels - not what I'd imagined. My driver pulled into a paved yard on our right in between the road and the sea. There were a number of porters milling around and tourists waiting. We’d clearly arrived at our embarcation point. A smartly-dressed young man checked my name on his list, had a porter remove my large case and invited me to wait in a modern café building. Within a few minutes, the young man was asking me to join a number of other passengers on a ship’s tender moored at the dock, where we donned bulky lifejackets for the short crossing to our boat.

The ship0's tender transfers the passengers to our boat.

Our boat, the ‘INDOCHINA SAILS’ was moored in the bay, together with a bewildering array of other boats clearly intent on a similar tourist mission. I was told later that there are 200 hotel boats and 300 day boats serving the tourists!

Once all the passengers were aboard, the anchor was ‘weighed’ and we set off across the bay, passing a fairly large cruise ship, the ‘Henna’ and various cargo ships at anchor. It hadn't occurred to me that the port we'd just left would be a destination for cruise ships nor that there would be significant cargo tonnage. The 'Wikipedia' article here suggests that I saw 'Henna' on one of her first cruises from China after a change of ownership.

The 'Henna' at anchor.

Our boat took the marked channel which threaded through a proliferation of rocky islets characteristic of Hulong Bay. The smartly-dressed young man, I discovered, was Son, the cruise director, and after his safety briefing we were issued with keys to our cabins. I had cabin 101, nearest the bow on the starboard side (that’s front right). This cabin had one double bed rather than two singles (as some cabins had) so suited me very well. At one o’clock it was up one deck to the restaurant were we were served with numerous courses of Vietnamese food which (despite my conservative tastes in food) I enjoyed very much.

By half past two, we had arrived at a small, conical-shaped island called Titop. We were taken ashore by tender and invited to climb the 400-odd steps to the small pavilion on the summit. It was quite a pull but I made it. The views were good but I counted 25 tourist boats, similar to ours, anchored in the bay.

The view from the summit of Titop shows just how much company we had.

Returning to sea level, there was a small sandy beach and demarcated swimming area. I’d followed their advice and optimistically worn a swinsuit under a skirt and top but the water was too cold to do other than have a ‘deep paddle’. Nobody else was any more adventurous than that. After around an hour, the tender returned us to our boat.

Our boat - 'INDOCHINA SAILS'.

The boat set off again for the Bat Cave (cue music … 'Duma duma duma duma duma duma BATMAN!'). There were two options for visiting the Bat Cave – by kayak or by rowing boat powered by a Vietnamese. The kayak was very tempting but since it’s 50 years since I paddled a kayak, I thought I’d better be sensible and go by rowing boat.

The Vietnamese rowing boat is powered by two slim oars each terminated in a ‘T’ handle and loosely tied to a short vertical wooden post attached to the gunwhale. The rower stands facing the bow and works the ‘T’ handles in a sort of circular movement so as to dip both oars in the water for the power stroke. The kayakers preceded us through the Bat Cave which is a tunnel leading to a pleasant lagoon surrounded by tall mountains. I was rather disappointed to learn that bats were not in occupation at the time of my visit. We did, however, see a troop of monkeys resting or scampering on the rock walls.

A few of the monkeys we found on the cliffs around the lagoon.

We returned to the boat by the same route and, once aboard, the ship cruised to our overnight mooring at Luon Bo where we anchored amongst a number of similar ships. We enjoyed a relaxed buffet dinner in the dining room after which various other entertainments had been arranged but, thoroughly exhausted, I retired early. Before I returned to my cabin, Son had explained to me that all the passengers on the boat, except one couple and myself, were on a one-night cruise and would return to the mainland the next day, whereas the couple and I would spend the next day on a Day Boat before meeting up with ‘INDOCHINA SAILS’ in the afternoon, by which time the boat would have disembarked the one-night passengers at the port and returned with a new complement of passengers!

Photographs

Halong Bay - Day 1.

[Expanded 7-Feb-2013, 27-Feb-2013]