Local Color From Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Once upon a time, soon after the Viet people established their country, invaders came. The Jade Emperor sent Mother Dragon and her Child Dragons down to earth to help the Viet people fight against their enemy.

Halong bay, Vietnam

Right at the time invaders’ boats were rushing to the shore, the dragons landed down on earth. The dragons immediately sent out from their mouths a lot of pearls, which then turned into thousands of stone islands emerging in the sea like great walls challenging the invaders’ boats.

The fast boats couldn’t manage to stop and crashed into the islands and into each other and broke into pieces.

After the victory, Mother Dragon and Child Dragons believed this country to be so beautiful that they didn’t return Heaven but stayed on earth at the place where the battle had occurred.

The location Mother Dragon landed is now called Hạ Long Bay and where Child Dragons descended is now Bai Tu Long.

The dragons’ tails waving the water created Long Vi (present Tra Co peninsula) and formed a fine sand beach over ten kilometers long.

Every time I come to Vietnam, I try to see a part of the country that I don’t know. Last trip, August 2009, I went north to World Heritage Site Ha Long Bay, in the Gulf of Tonkin. The photos speak for themselves.

Tomorrow, Friday, I’ll fly to the Central Highlands, to the ancient citadel of Hue. (I have been to Central Vietnam before, to the city of Da Nang and the ancient village of Hoi An.)

Sometimes I wonder, How did I get so lucky as to come to know this beautiful country and its compassionate people?

I’m curious. Do you believe in luck? Do you ever marvel at your good fortune? Do you curse bad luck? Let me know if you get a chance.

Source: redravine.wordpress

Recommendation in Halong bay:

Halong bay cruise

Halong bay kayaking

Wonderful Halong Bay, Vietnam

"The trip to Halong Bay was a wonderful experience and something we would highly recommend to anyone visiting Vietnam". Recommended in Vine_hooligans's blog

The mini-bus that collected us early on Tuesday morning.

The bus ride took us though some beautiful Vietnamese country side with row upon row of beautiful green rice paddies (Vietnam is SE Asia's second biggest rice exporter). The sea of green fields was occasionally dotted with the traditional beige cone shaped hats that is synonymous with Vietnam leading water buffalo or tending to the crop.

When we arrived at Halong Bay after the 4 hour journey were surprised to find rather than a quite little country harbour an extremely busy port with hundreds of tourist boats coming and going, not surprising since Halong Bay was declared a World Heritage site Busy Halong Bay.

The moment to start approaching the harbour the lime stone pinnacles are visible though the haze and I was blown away by the sheer number of them. The Halong Bay area has more than 2000 of these pinnacles rising out of the ocean some hundreds of meters tall.

After some passports checking we boarded our boat on which we would spend the night and set off into the bay. Our room was great and even though it was small it was bigger than some of the hotel rooms we have stayed in. All meals were also included on the boat and we soon settled in for a nice Vietnamese lunch of crab, prawns, octopus a whole fish, scallops and of course Vietnamese dish is complete without a big bowl of rice.

Cruising through the massive outcrops was magical and even though it was a little hazy the view was still spectacular. On the program for the day was a visit to one of the dozen caves in the Halong bay area, kayaking before mooring for the night. I had no idea how big the cave we'd be visiting would be and was blown away by the size.

When you enter the first chamber it looks impressive but only once you make your way through a tunnel into the main chamber do you realise how big the cave actually is. This must have been by far the biggest cave I had ever been in and with the lighting effects the made it look like a something out of a fantasy story.

Being such a major tourist attraction we were not the only visitors and had to often fight our way though big tour groups and often stand our ground when shoved out the way as someone wanted to take a photo and clearly didn't want me in it. I thought this was hilarious and acted completely ignorant when told to move and just smiled and waved.

From the caves we were taken to a floating village where we were given kayaks to tour the surrounds. The inhabitants of the floating villages all have little mobile businesses where they load up little boats with beer, wine, snacks and live fish and crabs and then motor alongside the big tourist boats and relentlessly try to sell their goods, anything to make a living.

Most the overnight boats moor around the area near the cave before setting off the next morning. We counted more than 40 boats moored for the evening. Dinner on the boat gave a good opportunity to meet the other travellers on the boat and swap travel stories.

We met a lovely Japanese girl called Hashmie who we plan to visit in her home town Kyoto when we travel through. We also had two American girls at our table one of whom was a teacher in a school in the south of China and it was very interesting to hear about her experiences as well as discuss some American politics which seems to be on the news channels every day now.

The next day some new passengers were transferred onto the boat amongst we met a guy called Keith who is an English teacher in South Korea who gave us some interesting insights into the Korean way of life.

We would strongly suggest spending more than one night in the area as it seems the further out you go into the bay the less crowded it feels.


Source: travelpod

Recommendation in Ha Long Bay:

Ha Long Bay Cruise