Competitive Tourism: Event 3 - Ha Long Bay (Overnight on a boat)

This will be a bit of a long post as it will cover two days and a night. Sorry about that.

We had an early start for the long bus ride to Ha Long. I'd had a poor night's sleep, in spite of turning in early. My room was right over the street and throughout the night there'd be noisy conversations and banging of things and trucks beep-beeping. I could get back to sleep after each incident, but there were so many of them!

As instructed, I packed an overnight bag and left the rest of my stuff at the Hotel. I tried to doze on the bus with little success. They're not big seats, so I end up all crunched up and uncomfortable. The countryside is just like last bus trip: flat, rice fields bounded by tall narrow buildings.

The toilet stop was at a ceramics factory. It was very interesting finding out how they make the pots, etc. And, typical of Vietnam, it seems, we could just walk into the working factory (though it was not working very hard!) and wander around; no safety briefing, no no-go zones, just wander around. I discovered that the building next door was a sewing factory. Big hanger-like factory building with huge airconditioning vents on the walls. I peaked in a slightly open door and saw rows and rows of women bent over sewing machines. That wasn't part of the tour.

The factory floor, with pot moulds ready to go

One of the line of about 20 kilns where the clay products are fired

Our tour guide, Tham ("Tim Tam"), explaining matters
while one of the factory workers works on

Back in the bus to Ha Long Bay boat terminal. This is clearly a very busy tourist operation. In fact, we were taken to a new part of the bay for departing boats as it is so busy these days. This turned out to be a bit of a theme of Ha Long Bay - it is very busy with tourists. For me, that brought the experience down a bit.

As I've paid for a "single supplement", I'm assigned my own cabin and it's very comfortable. This turns out to be a real blessing; more on that later.

After a very nice lunch with the American family (John and sons, Zach and Sam, with "uncle" Zach). I have a nap before our first stop.

New hotel construction at the boat station

All the boats awaiting departure

A view from the boat at the (new) boat harbour

Our boat!

The busy departure harbour

One of the islands that you sail past; it's very difficult to do it justice in the photo

First stop is swimming off a man-made beach; well, the other folks swam, I watched. Two of our tour were stung by jellyfish! Most of the group also climbed up to the lookout on this island.

The swimming area on the island; note the absence of people!

View from the lookout, showing the island chains

Anastasia, with Fluffy, her travelling
Unicorn (and the Chinese congo line
forming in the background)

It was quiet and tranquil for a while and then two boats of Chinese tourists show up and mob the place. They are charging around taking photos of everything, including one young girl (~12, blond hair, pretty) travelling with her family, who was mobbed by Chinese women wanting a photo with her. She was an absolute trooper and posed with all of them, and there were lots! By the time we left, one group of Chinese women was performing a chorus line/congo in the shallow water of the swimming area singing at the top of their lungs.

Next stop on our cruise around Ha Long Bay is the "Surprising Cave", which is very pretty. The story goes that when the French discovered it they entered through the first of three chambers, which is quite small, but quite interesting, then through to the next chamber, which is bigger and more impressive, then on to the third chamber, which is unbelievably big and breathtaking to see. I have lots of photos of these caves, but they don't really do them justice. Here's a taste.

Second chamber

View across the third chamber

Another view across the third chamber

An attempt to get quite a lot of the third chamber

The opening to the third chamber, from
the tender

As we are walking back to the tender to take us back to the boat, a monkey is "guarding" the path and attacks me as I walk past. Nothing serious. Not even sure what it thought it was doing, but it jumped at me as I walked past and touched my shoulder as it went past.

Scenes of Ha Long Bay

Then we had what I thought was a lovely dinner on the boat after talking with Zoe about being a farmer in NSW. Well, she's not a farmer any more, she's going into the mines as the farm was losing money because of the drought.

The chef produced several beautiful examples of carved fruit and vegetables to garnish the table and meal.

A sparrow from a carrot

A flower arrangement from carrot,
cucumber and choko

After more chatting with tour group friends after dinner, I retired to my room and while making notes for this blog discovered that my "guts had turned to water". I was struck down with diarrhoea! That was very unpleasant and meant that I had another poor night's sleep dealing with shooting pains in my stomach and occasional visits to the head to relieve myself. What a waste of a comfortable cabin, but thank god I didn't have a roommate!

All the boats parked for the night (twilight)

You are never alone in Ha Long Bay (night)

Anastasia and Gwyn returning
from kayaking

I had volunteered to go kayaking the next morning but pulled the pin on that. A lack of sleep and unresolved diarrhoea are not good kayak buddies. Fortunately, among her many other astonishing attributes, Anastasia carries a pretty comprehensive pharmacy and so dispensed some Gastro-Stop and Hydralyte for me when I mentioned I was unwell. Time would tell that that seemed to do the trick. My diarrhoea cleared up but I was still pretty shattered from another poor night's sleep. I still have no idea what caused the illness as I was only eating what everyone else was eating and none of them was similarly afflicted.

On the return trip, the chef offered to demonstrate how he made the carved vegetables, an offer we gladly accepted. He was very patient and wielded a very sharp knife (looked for all the world like a prison shiv!) to carve the beautiful flower arrangement for us.

That's a small, sharp knife he's got

Beautifully executed and no mistakes

Returning to harbour

Our boat then joined the procession of boats returning to the harbour to disgorge their tourists.

We got back on our bus and drove back to Hanoi. This time the rest stop was at another factory where disabled and disadvantaged children and adults are offered work creating tapestries with fine silk. The artwork is exquisite, some of it so fine that from a distance (and not a big distance) the work looks like a photograph or a painting. There were several pieces I would gladly have owned except I have nowhere to hang them at home.

Street scenes of New Hanoi (in contrast to the old quarter)

So, now we're back at the Hong Ngoc hotel allocated day rooms to await departure to the overnight train. Another poor night's sleep, I feel sure! Most of the rest of the gang have gone out to check out Hanoi (as they'd not been here before the tour started).