Sailing Along on HaLong Bay

We are back in the van on our return trip to Hanoi having spent the last 24 hours on board the Ginger Junk in Ha Long Bay which is part of the Gulf of Tonkin. I think I mentioned that we had high expectations for this sojourn and we were not disappointed. I was prepared for hot weather, but it was cool and comfortable since there was very little sun. But we were able to see the karsts (limestone pinnacles) with no problem in spite of the haze. In fact, although I have nothing to compare it to, I think I prefer the hazy weather because it makes the water and the karsts look so other-worldly.

We boarded around noon yesterday onto a tender which attaches itself to the junk moored a little ways out in the harbor. I was expecting a sleepy little village but this harbor is very busy with hundreds if not thousands of people milling about and so many boats of all types that one wonders how they will all fit into the bay. We had to descend some treacherous steps to get onto the tender, but made it with Thien’s help and then waited for the others. I could write for hours about the group of 18 that we were ship-mates with but suffice to say it was a most congenial group. They were all American except for a couple of ladies from England and Scotland and while we try to avoid going where the Americans go, I’ll make a big exception in this case. It didn’t take long for us all to become great friends and the variety of people was so interesting. A couple and their darling little boy from Austin but living in Singapore for a few years. He’s with Dell. The English/Scot ladies, widows maybe, were delightful and so interesting. Dierdre, the Scot, volunteers in Sri Lanka as a caretaker in an elephant camp once or twice a year. Then there was the college professor and her husband and sister. The sisters were born in Baltimore, so great rapport there. Two vivacious and lovely ladies traveling sans husbands, one from Columbus, Ohio and one from Rye, NY. They had some great stories to tell. A really nice couple from California that Mary and Neil may see again since they live near their Coronado house.

After we boarded, we were ushered up to the Salon for a brief orientation and description of the vessel and voyage to come. The staff was made up of five or six 90-pound Vietnamese guys, all very sweet and helpful. Then we were shown to our staterooms which were quite lovely considering we were on the high seas—two comfy beds, closet, marble bathroom with shower and big windows looking out on the incredible vista. A quick stowing of gear (must be ship-shape you know) and then up to the upper deck, a spacious expanse of teakwood with comfortable chaise longes and chairs. There we started to get acquainted with the others. Once we were out of the harbor though, the sights began. As you can see from the pictures (which I hope I can post), we sailed among the karsts sometimes so close you felt like you could reach out and touch them. Although I had seen many pictures on the internet, this was another case of you have to be there. The mountains are much larger than they looked like in the pictures and the grandeur is yet another example of the wonders of this earth. To get a sense of the scale, look at the boat against the karsts. I think the guide said there are 3,000 karsts in the bay, some with names but most with only numbers to identify them.

There were two shore excursions while on board, both requiring about a million steps to climb up in order to see the views from all sides. It’s worth the screaming calves, knees and thighs to make the trek. We also went into a huge cave where we could disembark and walk around. One can imagine that centuries ago people lived in these caves to protect themselves from the elements, but it must have been pretty spooky without the electric lights that today light your way.

Mealtime was great fun—gourmet lunch and dinner the first day. The crew had set the tables according to the parties—four seats at a table for us, three for the Singapore couple with child, and two for the other twosomes. But at lunch we pushed the tables together so that we all could sit together and by dinner the crew had picked up on our desires and had arranged the tables the same way. We were in bed by ten so as not to miss tai chi at 7:00 AM.

The next morning, after tai chi (you can see the tai chi “master” but I have spared you the pitiful attempts of our group to follow him), we had another shore excursion to see some more of the amazing variety of these island pinnacles, after which we were served a lovely lunch buffet and back to the marina by eleven where our faithful guide Thien was waiting. This is a must do for anyone visiting Vietnam.

Our Second Day in Hanoi

Sunday, March 25: We left the Metropole again this morning for the three hour van ride to Ha Long Bay for the much anticipated overnight on the Chinese junk called the Ginger. Unlike the Victoria Express, the Ginger gets great press and the people we’ve run into who have been on it have all raved. Gourmet food and wine, lovely teak staterooms and of course the breathtaking scenery makes this one of the highlights of our trip. I wrote the previous train saga on the first part of our morning ride and now I still have an hour or so to tell you about our second day in Hanoi.

Around ten yesterday morning, we had re-organized our luggage for today’s trip to a warmer clime, again planning to store the larger bags until our return. We decided we would hire pedi-cabs again, but held out little hope of our same crew being available.

But lo and behold when we emerged from the hotel, there they were smiling and waving. It was like old home week. We indicated that we would be engaging their services for the better part of the day and that elicited bows and beaming faces. I climbed into the same cyclo as before and we headed for the Hanoi Hilton. I had seen the War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City on the last trip and could have skipped this replay, but the others wanted to go so we went. It was grim, though not as grim as the War Museum which is only about the Vietnam War and the atrocities that occurred then. This place, dubbed the Hanoi Hilton by the GIs, had already been a prison for more than a century and there were graphic descriptions of the horrible conditions and torture that the prisoners received at the hands of their Chinese and then French captors. Only one small part was devoted to the American War and there were pictures of our soldiers before, during and after their detainment, a young and handsome John McCain among them. Talk about propaganda! The information on the walls went on and on about how well the Americans were treated compared to the previous occupants of the prison, how they received special clothing and food, warm blankets and even playing cards and other entertainments. The faces in the pictures told the true story, though, and a prisoner of war is still a prisoner of war. In the other parts of the prison there were life-size re-enactments of people with ankles shackled to their cots unable to move and of the guillotine and other instruments of torture, some of which were not described but the images conjured up were bad enough. In the American area, no talk about torture or death, just what a picnic it was for our guys. Although it is called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Communists still have their hold on the country and they tell you what they want you to know, true or not.

Afterwards, our drivers took us to the Cathedral where Mary and I remembered having been dropped before for our foray into the Old Quarter with its maze of shops and restaurants and of course the usual street scene of cooking, trading, commerce and god knows what else. We had lunch at a seafood restaurant where I ordered oysters with cheese (to the horror of my mates) and the waitress said you want one? Yes I said thinking she meant one order, but she brought me one oyster. It was a normal sized oyster on a huge shell with a tiny egg, maybe a quail’s egg, and some lovely cheese sauce. I know it sounds hideous, but it was so delicious I ordered four more. With the corn and crab soup as a starter it was enough. Neil is even more adventuresome than I am and tried to order the swimming (or streaming) bladder and cockles soup but the waitress gestured that he wouldn’t like it so he switched to something a little more conventional.

After lunch, we walked the street for a little while but it was clear that Mary and I had to ditch the guys in order to do some uninhibited shopping. So we sent them off with their drivers to a temple and then to the hotel for a nap while we roamed the shops of the Old Quarter with our drivers hovering nearby. I spotted a very interesting parchment type wall panel in one of the shops with some lovely old painting and Chinese writing and quite frayed around the edges. Would have bought it in a minute but didn’t think it would survive the suitcases. How much, sez I? $39 says the clerk. Is it old? Yes, very old, she says. How old? Sixteenth century she says. Now that was a buy. $39 for a four hundred year old antique maybe from the Ming Dynasty. Too bad we had to pass it up. I think this was on the same level as the “genuine fake” handbags we picked up in Bangkok on the last trip. Or the 100% plastic pearls we’ve been warned about by our guides. It looked good though, and we are not purists.

We made it back to the hotel with barely time to post a blog and change for dinner at a lovely and authentic Vietnamese restaurant called Lac Viet, which we learned was the ancient name for Viet Nam. The restaurant is housed in a beautiful old building that is open to the elements in certain areas, with three or four stories, each room with a different theme indicated by the paintings on the walls: the Library, the Ai Dao room (the traditional long dresses worn by the women), The Days Past room and a few others. The extensive menu made of wood and parchment paper was mind boggling so we asked the waiter to bring us whatever he thought we would like and we loved it all. We had farmer’s roasted pigeon, chicken in a clay pot, and morning glory with pork (a lovely green vegetable that none of us had ever tried before), as well as some wonderful appetizers. Perish the thought that we should go to bed hungry.