Today after another breakfast at the AMAZING buffet at our hotel, we were picked up by Starlight Cruises for our cruise of Halong Bay. From Hanoi to Halong it is about a four hour trip, and our very talkative tour guide Xung talked a lot of the way in an accent that mixed Vietnamese, Australian, and American accents; we really had to concentrate to understand him. He said he had had English teachers from both Australia and America, so that explained the accent. He also attempted to regale us with jokes (i.e. "Mother gets a Samsung phone, daugher gets an LG phone, son gets an iPhone, what does Dad buy? He gets iPAY!"). But sometimes he forgot to tell us the punch line and continued with his tour information. :) (i.e. "If a female cow has 4 legs how many legs does a male cow have? Hanoi has more than 8 million mopeds driving in the streets..." ) We still don't know how many legs a male cow has. :D
Along the way we stopped at a tourist trap specifically for tourists traveling from Hanoi to Halong Bay, exactly halfway between the two cities, about the size of a Walmart, and filled with souvenirs of every kind, including huge statues, woven wall art, small stone and wood carvings, clothing, etc. We bought a small stone carving of people rowing a boat. Our tour guide assured us that all the goods were made by people with disabilities, but we could see people making the woven art and none of them "looked" disabled...
 |
| Women weaving wall art. You can see finished art on the wall behind them. |
| |
| Women weaving wall art. You can see finished art on the wall behind them. |
We arrived at the tourist boat dock at Bai Chay and got on our water taxi to the cruise boat. Even though the water in Halong Bay was smooth as glass, we were required to wear life jackets every time we boarded this little boat.
 |
| Golien, Jeff, me and Michele looking smart in our life jackets. :) |
Many of the boats we drove by in Halong Bay were in pretty shoddy condition, and our hopes were a bit low of having a nice boat to cruise, but when we arrived at the Starlight Cruiser we were excited to see that it was a really nice boat! The boat could hold 60 people in 30 cabins, but there were only 10 tourists on board total! There were more staff taking care of the boat than there were people riding on it!
 |
| Our boat, the Starlight Cruiser. |
 |
| The lovely dining room on the Starlight Cruiser. |
 |
| Our cabin. |
 |
| One of the outdoor decks, with other cruise boats and Halong City in the background. |
Halong Bay itself was beautiful. The bay has around 2,000 islands of limestone (karths) jutting straight up out of the water, with vegetation clinging to the side and top of the karths. The water is emerald green, shallow (7 meters) and smooth as glass other than the wakes of all the cruise boats. It was foggy today and low visibility, but the small islands with their sheer cliff faces suddenly appearing through the fog was very evocative.
 |
| Gavin and I at the start of our cruise of Halong Bay. |
 |
| Me and islands in the mist. |
 |
| Emerald water. |
 |
| It is hard to see in the photos, but these islands are really tall! See the boat for scale! |
 |
| Fishermen in Halong Bay. |
 |
| Fishermen in Halong Bay. |
 |
| A colorful fishing boat. |
 |
| A pearl farm in Halong Bay. |
 |
| Islands shrouded in the fog. |
Our food on the cruise was simply amazing. Every meal was 7-10 courses of DELICIOUS Vietnamese food, all elegantly prepared and presented. We had spring rolls, Thai style beef, shrimp and mango salsa, asparagus crab soup and so much more!
 |
| Beautiful presentation, our first course for lunch. |
Our scheduled activity for the first day was a visit to Hang Sung Sot, or "Amazing Cave." Some of the islands in Halong Bay are hollow and have caves filled with stalactites and stalagmites, and Hang Sung Sot is the biggest of these in Halong Bay. We climbed the ~200 steps up into the cave, then got to admire the rock formations. Xung proceeded to point to every other rock in the place and inform us what it looked like with an abundance of detail while pointing with a laser pointer. "See this rock? It looks like a pig. See the eyes there, and the cheeks, and there are the ears, and there's the nose and mouth..." If we didn't immediately saw we saw the pig, he repeated the whole description again... After Xung pointed out all of the dragons, a pig, lotus flowers, a man and even Queen Victoria, Michelle won the quote of the day by saying, "He just Rorschached the shit out of this place." :D
 |
| View from the top of Hang Sung Sot at the entrance. Lots of tourist boats at the dock. |
 |
| Gavin and I inside the entrance to Hang Sung Sot, creepy picture lit from below. |
 |
| See that pool? It looks really deep and clear water, but it is actually a reflection of the ceiling in a shallow pool! |
 |
| Me inside Hang Sung Sot. |
 |
| Stalagmites. |
 |
| Xung said he needed to learn the english word for this rock formation. I told him it was a pointer finger... :D |
 |
| Hang Sung Sot. |
 |
| This rock formation Xing called the Dragon Upside Down. |
 |
| Huge stalactites in Hang Sung Sot. |
 |
| The view from the top of Hang Sung Sot at the exit. A lot fewer boats, as we were the last to leave! |
 |
| Our little water taxi back to the Starlight Cruiser. |
 |
| A woman rowing a boat full of stuff to sell to tourists between all the cruise boats docked near Hang Sung Sot. Xung told me it is now illegal due to pollution and overcrowding of Halong Bay, plus all the scams and ripoffs that were happening to tourists from these boats. This woman is undeterred. :) |
After the visit to the cave, we went back to the boat to relax for a bit, then it was time for cooking class. The boat's chef came to the dining room to teach us how to make Vietnamese spring rolls. He had the ingredients all ready in bowls and mixed them together, including one mysterious looking white powder. He put a LARGE spoonful of the powder in with the other ingredients, and when we asked him what it is, he said "This is MSG." (I avoid MSG like the plague when at home, but I have to relax my standards when traveling... :) ) He then gave us all gloves and rice paper and taught us the correct way to roll the spring rolls. Then he deep fried them, and we all got to share them as an appetizer before dinner.
 |
| The head chef demonstrates how to make spring rolls. |
 |
| Gavin and I try it out. |
After making spring rolls, the chef demonstrated how to cut vegetables to make fancy shapes. He started with a simple flower made from the skin of a tomato, then progressed on to even more impressive creations.
 |
| Working on a tomato flower. |
 |
| Tomato flower - cute! |
 |
| Tomato SWAN!!! Wow! |
After another delicious 7 course meal, we headed out to the small boat to try our hand at squid fishing. The bamboo poles had a string attached with a large lure that looked to me like a bright green octopus with metal wires for arms. We were supposed to bounce the lures up and down in the water to look like shrimp. After about 10 minutes of no success, we decided this was a joke they play on tourists, and this is not actually how to catch squid. ***
 |
| Jeff and I trying our hand at catching squid. |
Still jet lagged and a bit tired from our early start this morning, we headed to bed. Tomorrow we will return to Halong and start the working part of the trip. (for everyone but me, that is! :) )
***We found out a few days later that this IS the way to catch squid - another American on a different tourist boat said they caught 5 or 6 squid this way. I guess they just weren't biting for our boat!
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment