Halong Bay … twice
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008After taking an all-night bus from Hue to Hanoi a few nights ago, we were suddenly hit with the realisation of being in north Vietnam as the temperatures were the coldest of our trip so far and had us quickly rummaging through our bags to find our RWC jackets that were stashed at the very bottom. We stayed in Hanoi only long enough to get some sleep and have a little poke around the old quarter before moving on, as we’ll be back there again once or twice more as we work our way around the north.
We took a train to Haiphong and a ferry to Cat Ba, a nice town (but full of rather ugly hotel high rises) with a picturesque harbour at the edge of Halong Bay, perhaps the most famed of Vietnam’s World Heritage sites. Halong Bay (and one or two surrounding bays) feature hundreds of limestone karsts rising out of the green water – sort of like Laos scenery but with the bay adding a new dimesnion to it.
On New Year’s Eve, we took a one-day boat trip out on the bay. The scenery was great … but it was extremely cold and windy on the boat (we had blankets wrapped around us and were still very cold) and the day was completely overcast, which made the surroundings seem less impressive. So overall we were a bit disappointed as we just didn’t enjoy it as much as we should have, simply because of the weather.
We woke up late on New Year’s Day to find glorious sunshine coming through our window. We had planned to leave, but checked the weather on the internet just in case, and since sun was forecast for the next day too, we delayed our departure and booked the same boat trip for the second time on Halong Bay. Yesterday was a fine day as forecast and we had a really great day on the boat, and can report that Halong Bay truly is a very beautiful place, and that it was worth paying US$30 to do exactly the same thing we’d already done two days earlier! On the boat we met a nice Aussie guy named Steve who is a ‘compulsive traveller’ like we are and has been to a few of the same places we have (as well as a few that we haven’t!).
So after four days in Cat Ba, we’re leaving for Hanoi this afternoon and if all goes well we’ll be able to get a connecting train to Sapa in the mountainous northwest of Vietnam, where we’ll stay for a few days.
Nick