Day 12: Friday 20 Oct 2000
Halong Bay

This entry posted on:
23 OCT 2000 at 0730	Vietnam
23 OCT 2000 at 0030	UTC
22 OCT 2000 at 2030	EDT
22 OCT 2000 at 1730	PDT

Today we were set to leave for the first day of the tour we fully expected to be the crown jewel of our trip to Vietnam... Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay sits on the northern coast of Vietnam, near the city of Hai Phong which was an oil depot during the war and, as such, suffered the repeated wrath of LBJ, Dick Nixon, and their wacky fleet of B-52s. But we didn't see any of that. What we got was a very pleasant bus ride through the northern rice paddies and up into the mountainous region around the city of Ha Long. We stopped for a quick lunch on the way where we got to know our new compatriots, Sandra and Andreas from San Francisco, Edward (Bernie) and Stephen from London, Liz and Rosemarie, expats from England and Australia currently living in Bangkok, and a Danish family (Vera, Michael, Sebastian, and a Dad whose name escapes me for the moment). As you could probably guess, being so near the coast, this restaurant specialized in seafood, most of which was kept alive in a series of bubbling tanks along one side of the restaurant. As we were leaving, I happened to glance inside one of the tanks and caught an eyeful of the strangest collection of beasts I'd ever seen. They were about six inches long, with flat segmented bodies, huge stalked eyes, and bent arms like those of a praying mantis. Sandra said she thought they were prawns but couldn't be sure. I don't know what they were but damn were they weird looking. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if someone had told me they were alien larvae from Europa. After lunch we boarded the boat which would be our home for the next 36 hours or so. The boat was actually quite pleasant, with a very comfortable main cabin for eating, drinking and watching the scenery go by, comfortable berths below decks, and a raised rooftop observation deck for getting some nice high-angle views of the spectacular scenery, which was where we spent most of our time.   Our first stop was a series of tremendous limestone caves which were only discovered ten years ago--unless we completely misunderstood our guide Kien, which is wholly plausible. These caves really were impressive though, and absolutely huge. One interesting observation Mike had was that they looked very Disney-fied, sort of like the interior scenery on the Matterhorn ride. Large plastic gnomes peeking out from behind rock formations here-and-there would not have seemed out of place at all. But if you could get past that thought, it was possible to be very impressed by the sheer size of these two enormous holes. After getting back on the boat, we set sail for a small swimming cove. We were a little dubious about how interesting that was going to be as it was still quite overcast, with a spitting drizzle that seemed turn on and off minute-to-minute, and a slightly chilly wind blowing across the bow, but we didn't want to make a judgment on a thing like that until all the facts were in. When we got to the swimming hole, I was still a little iffy on the whole affair, but Stephen pointed out that it would probably be some time before any of us were in Ha Long Bay again, and that we were likely to regret it later if we didn't at least have a go at it.   And so, in we went. I started out by leaping off the second level, which was about ten feet off the surface, but you just had to know that it was only a matter of time before I made it up to the top of the flying bridge, a good twenty-five to thirty feet up, we collectively decided. And after a successful leap from the top, everyone was soon joining in.   After our little swim, we were served a very nice little dinner that the crew cooked for us in the on-board kitchen. We had rice, crab soup, a few hard-to-identify meats, and one entire fish with the head still intact. We sat at a table with Stephen and Edward and we all seemed to get on quite well. After dinner, we all went up to the roof deck for coffee and to continue our conversations about movies, and England, and whatever. We had dropped anchor in this amazing little cove surrounded on all sides by limestone cliffs, and even with the dark, overcast night sky, it was a beautiful place to spend a quiet evening (Kien called the boat our "million star hotel"). After a while, the four of us wound up back down in the meal cabin, playing several heated rounds of the card game "shithead." I had played the game before but had to re-learn the rules, and Stephen and Edward were pros, having spent most of their travel time up to that point playing with whomever would join them. But it was Mike, full to the brim with beginner's luck, who carried the day. He was absolutely unstoppable. With the exception of one game where he wound up the shithead, he won almost every other game outright. We finally decided to go to sleep around midnight, not because we were tired or not having a good time, but because we felt like we were keeping the rest of the guests awake. Most everyone else slept on deck, but Mike and I decided to make a go of it in one of the cabins, where there were actual beds... of a sort. In the end we were glad we did. Even though it was a little warm and musty down there, we stayed out of the rain and chill and were, we gathered, much more comfortable than those who slept out on deck and got misted on as a consequence. Tomorrow, Ha Long, Day 2.

On to Day Thirteen...

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