Halong Bay

We were picked up from the hotel in a nice van carrying 4 other people.  We drove for hours and took convenient rest stops in shops full of other white people and eventually arrived to Halong  Bay.  The Vietnamese are very proud that Halong Bay was just recognized as one of the “new” 7 wonders of the world and honestly it is easy to see why it is breathtaking.  We were sorted by our boat and quickly whisked away to our ship.  Brent and I can honestly say it was the most amazing and “posh” (a word I will start to now use thanks to my Aussie friends) experience we have ever had.  Our boat, or junk as they call them, was modeled after old Spanish Pirate ships, full of dark wood and extravagant details.  There were no tvs or phones for most of the trip and it was easy to forget that we had just left a city of over 6 million as there was not a sound or other boat insight.  We were on the boat with 18 other people and were blessed to like every one of them.  There was even a family from Eugene, what a small world! 

We spend the days kayaking  around the 1000 islands (well we didn’t get to them all..ha), eating 4 course meals and sitting with this feeling of total amazement that we were blessed to see such a site. Our crew were lovely and very friendly and even took us to a small fishing village where the residents all live together on the water.  Up until a couple of years ago the fishing people would all live separately but because of UNESCO stating the Bay was a heritage site and giving some funds to fixing it up they were able to build a primary school for the children and convince about 25 families to band together as a village for their children.  The mayor greeted us as we arrived and you could see there was a lot of pride that they had for their village and school.  We even were able to sample some of their local booze…wasn’t as bad as I thought and was pretty smooth going down, even if it came out of a old gas container!  

It was such a lovely time and almost surreal in the experience.  We just kept saying “can you believe we are here?!” as everything was above and beyond our highest expectations.  The last night on the ship our crew had created a bbq dinner in a cave, which was something I had been looking forward to!  They again did not disappoint, we took our small junk boat toward the cave and it was dark out and all we could see ahead was twinkling lights and our whole group was just silent taking everything in.  We had to climb about 90 stairs, which were all light by twinkling lights and at the entrance of the cave was hundreds of tea lights (and a few strategically placed spot lights) lighting up the two room cave.  Everyone had dressed up a bit and our whole crew was there to welcome us.  Our table sat in the middle and we feasted on an some amazing just cooked via fire seafood.  As I sipped our wine and everyone was aglow in candlelight it almost felt a bit like a dream it was so perfect.  Our chef had even prepared amazingly done food art for each course and it was pretty humbling seeing how much effort they had all made to make sure the experience was memorable. Our guide shared with us the story of the Bay and how the pirates were coming to attack the Vietnamese people and as they cried out for help a dragon came down from the sky and fired out pearls from her mouth.  These pearls turned into thousands of limestone islands which caused the fast moving pirate ships to crash and perish.  He said it with such gusto and show it was easy to believe that this was possible.  At the end of the dinner our captain made a couple of speeches about how thankful they were for us coming and the crew proceeded to sing some Vietnamese folk songs.  After that a group of woman in our group, mostly from New Zealand serenaded them back and I know I was not the only one that felt truly blessed.  As we pulled away from the island and back onto our boat it really hit me how lucky I am to experience this site because as the word spreads I am sure that being able to look out for miles and only see one other junk and a few local fishing boats will not be the case.  Though we will sure treasure our three days there.