Ha Long Bay, Vietnam – November 15, 2010
This blog will be not only a write up on Ha Long Bay, where we spent the afternoon and night, but also general comments on Vietnam, which I haven’t included anywhere else yet - if I can remember what I’ve already said and what I haven’t.
We left Hanoi at 8:30 this morning and drove north for four hours with just one twenty-minute stop for restrooms and some shopping. At 12:30 we arrived in Ha Long and went directly to the pier where we boarded a boat for a four hour cruise including lunch and a cave exploration. It was a cloudy day but very warm so just perfect for a relaxing cruise in Ha Long Bay. The bay is a UNESCO world natural heritage location, covers over 1500 square kilometers and includes over 3000 limestone islands carved into wonderful shapes by the water. It also includes a vast diversity of sea life including fish, seaweed, coral and other plants. From our perspective as tourists for the afternoon, it is just a beautiful bay with many stunning islands in incredible formations.
The islands in the bay were formed over five hundred million years as the earth’s plates moved and pushed the rock up from the ocean. They have beautiful designs on their sides when the rock is showing. Sometimes they are layered like bricks and sometimes they are swirls like a modern painting. At other times the slopes are treed and no rocks are visible. And often the stronger rock that has not been eroded away or broken off stands out as an overhang or distinct shape towering above and balancing on the rock below. There are many islands and individual outcroppings that conger up various shapes such as a kneeling woman with a shawl, a turtle, a bird, dragons, swans, and many others. It was a very relaxing afternoon enjoying the scenery and imagining what all the shapes were.
Many of the islands have caves and tunnels in them, some of which took 700,000 years to make as the water slowly eroded the weaker parts of the rock. We could see many of the caves at water level and above on many of the islands. The Vietnamese used these caves to hide during the war. We went into one cave and it was huge. We had to climb up almost 200 steps (and back down again) but it was certainly worth it. The inside of the cave was basically white and had continual stalactites and stalagmites in various shapes and formations. The coloured lighting enhanced all of these formations and made for some beautiful shots. The first part of the cave was very open and large and was considered the royal ballroom. In other places there were smaller passages and then structures that looked like mermaids and lions and dragons and buddhas and, if your imagination was working well, you could see all of them perfectly. I think my imagination was lacking in some cases.
When we first arrived at the harbour there must have been 30 buses lined up with tourists rolling off. And in the harbour it looked like there were hundreds of boats. Some were just small junks and only a few people could take a ride on those. Some were larger and would hold 10 or 12 and one like ours had two decks with the tables and chairs for eating below and an open deck above and would hold about 30. Other ships had three decks with sleeping quarters at the bottom, eating area on the second and an open deck on the third. They were all wooden boats and most appeared to have the same polished wooden interior that ours had. The ship itself was very comfortable and seemed very sturdy. However, we weren’t so sure about the pilot or crew. Dozens of boats were leaving at the same time from the harbour and boats were going in all directions. They all have large rubber tires down their sides and it’s a good thing because the bump together quite regularly. At one point our boat was getting quite close to another boat out in the open water and it became obvious that the crews were transferring a watermelon to our boat. They must have forgotten to pick up our dessert! Anyway, the two boats hit quite hard and anyone who was standing went flying. One of the ladies on our boat fell quite hard but seemed to be okay afterward. The tourists really are flocking to this place but I don’t know whether the locals are being properly trained to handle the duties required of them or if they are just being rushed into it. As someone in our group said, “the tourists are just loving this place a little too much. Hopefully they aren’t loving it to death.”
Our onboard lunch was absolutely delicious and the best we’ve had so far on our journey. It was a seafood luncheon that consisted of many courses including whole steamed prawns with a lime and salt mixture for dipping, deep fried spring rolls, stuffed crab, French fries, calamari, a fish the name of which I have forgotten, rice and steamed vegetables and of course watermelon for dessert. (I think I’m forgetting something but I don’t know what!) Everything was cooked fresh on the boat and it was all piping hot when served. And it was all devoured quickly.
Ha Long Bay has been an important port since the 12th century and it has also always been a big fishing community. Evidence of civilization in the area goes back thousands of years. Currently there are just over 1 million people living in the city, which is right along the shore line and that means it runs up the hillside. It looks and feels like a small town but at over a million people I guess it is not all that small. Obviously we just haven’t seen the entire city.
The countryside in northern Vietnam, and indeed all of Vietnam that I saw, is very lush and green. The rice paddies make the land seem almost as if it is flooded but still it is a beautiful bright green. From Hanoi to Ha Long Bay is mainly flat until close to Ha Long Bay where it gets hillier. The crops grown on the flat land include rice, bananas, corn and many other fruits and vegetables. Many farmers still use water buffalo with small single plows in the fields but a few of the did have the small motorized tillers like Dad used to have for his small four foot wide garden. At one point there were about a dozen men using these tillers in one large field so obviously they do at times work together on their farms. I did see a small old tractor in a field and later on another one on the street but those were the only two in all my travels in Vietnam. On occasion there were even people working with single hoes working up the land in some areas. In many of the fields there would be bicycles or motor bikes parked at the edges and then you knew to look for farmers. Many times they were just seen from the waist up if they were out in their rice fields. And almost everyone working on the farms wears the traditional woven cone hat so that the yellow cone is pretty easy to spot in the green fields.
There were some small communities along our journey. Homes in these communities are often just one or two storeys high. In the larger communities the homes were higher but normally no more than four storeys. Of course there were some business buildings that were higher in the larger centres. The homes are often very colourful with blue, yellow, orange, green earth tone colouring. And most of the old brick houses are still very thin because they paid taxes based on their width, but quite high and deep. It was interesting in many places to see brick buildings that were totally empty and some didn’t even look like they’d been finished but no one was working on them now. I forgot to ask the tour guide about them so I’m not sure what the story was.
We passed one big industrial area where there were lots of big factories. It is located in the north because there is a big harbour here which allows for easy shipping. Some of the businesses in the area involved clothing, footwear, coffee, rice, seafood, electronics, oil and natural gas. Vietnam is apparently quite rich in oil and natural gas, which is one reason China would really like them to join the Republic. Coal power is still used in a lot of places, which accounts for a lot of the pollution. They have some hydro power and they are trying to switch to nuclear power as well. In one of the industrial areas there was a large Canadian training centre mainly for trades and technical training the tour director thought.
The roads are generally good although there are some bumpy patches that need repair. The main problem with the roads is of course just their driving, which seems really strange to us but seems to work for them. I am moving closer to the front of the bus every day so will soon have a bird’s eye view of the highway – but I think that will be in Cambodia so who knows what I’ll find there. There are trees all along the road side, which makes everything look even greener but prevents good picture taking. There are also many rivers, streams and canals to help with all the drainage required in the rainy season and to get the proper water levels for the rice paddies.
Parts of the countryside look very dirty and there is a lot of garbage on the side of the road or on the banks of the streams. In the same area there are lots of little fires burning, which I assumed might also be garbage. Obviously they don’t have garbage collection in these areas so I guess burning it (or throwing it on the side of the road) is the only way to get rid of the garbage.
In one of the areas just outside of Hanoi there were vendors on the side of the road selling bread and baguettes. Apparently this area is famous for its breads and people just stop on the highway and grab some to eat on the road or to take home. In the town and the main cities, when people stop at a café to eat they just sit on little plastic chairs or stools out on the street. These look like kid’s chairs to me but they are used everywhere and you can see people sitting on them eating with their knees up to their chins. It looks uncomfortable but it’s definitely the accepted thing to do.
You see some cemeteries along the side of the road but not many and the coffins or memorials seem to be in different sizes. The Vietnamese believe in reincarnation. They bury their dead for three years in regular sized coffins. Then three years later they remove the body and clean the bones so they are ready for the next life. This ceremony is very important and must be done in a very precise manner and only at night between certain hours. Then the bones are buried again in a smaller coffin and remain there for life, or I guess until reincarnated. One of the real cruelties of the French was that they beheaded the Vietnamese prisoners and then buried the head and body separately so the person would never be whole and could not be reincarnated. Okay, enough about that except to say that I wonder how Ho Chi Minh’s body fits into this picture. If he is suddenly reincarnated someday will his body just disappear from viewing?
I think that’s it for Vietnam (although I’m still not done writing my Hue blog!). Vietnam is a very beautiful country. Its cities are a bit older and dirtier looking than in some places but they have everything you need and the people are friendly and happy. I was only here for 10 days so certainly didn’t see the entire country but what I saw was definitely interesting and enjoyable. Now we’re off to the airport and our flight to Cambodia. If I see anything else of note on Vietnam I’ll have to add it to the Hue blog because I’m posting this one now while I have internet access. Chow!
This blog will be not only a write up on Ha Long Bay, where we spent the afternoon and night, but also general comments on Vietnam, which I haven’t included anywhere else yet - if I can remember what I’ve already said and what I haven’t.
We left Hanoi at 8:30 this morning and drove north for four hours with just one twenty-minute stop for restrooms and some shopping. At 12:30 we arrived in Ha Long and went directly to the pier where we boarded a boat for a four hour cruise including lunch and a cave exploration. It was a cloudy day but very warm so just perfect for a relaxing cruise in Ha Long Bay. The bay is a UNESCO world natural heritage location, covers over 1500 square kilometers and includes over 3000 limestone islands carved into wonderful shapes by the water. It also includes a vast diversity of sea life including fish, seaweed, coral and other plants. From our perspective as tourists for the afternoon, it is just a beautiful bay with many stunning islands in incredible formations.
The islands in the bay were formed over five hundred million years as the earth’s plates moved and pushed the rock up from the ocean. They have beautiful designs on their sides when the rock is showing. Sometimes they are layered like bricks and sometimes they are swirls like a modern painting. At other times the slopes are treed and no rocks are visible. And often the stronger rock that has not been eroded away or broken off stands out as an overhang or distinct shape towering above and balancing on the rock below. There are many islands and individual outcroppings that conger up various shapes such as a kneeling woman with a shawl, a turtle, a bird, dragons, swans, and many others. It was a very relaxing afternoon enjoying the scenery and imagining what all the shapes were.
Many of the islands have caves and tunnels in them, some of which took 700,000 years to make as the water slowly eroded the weaker parts of the rock. We could see many of the caves at water level and above on many of the islands. The Vietnamese used these caves to hide during the war. We went into one cave and it was huge. We had to climb up almost 200 steps (and back down again) but it was certainly worth it. The inside of the cave was basically white and had continual stalactites and stalagmites in various shapes and formations. The coloured lighting enhanced all of these formations and made for some beautiful shots. The first part of the cave was very open and large and was considered the royal ballroom. In other places there were smaller passages and then structures that looked like mermaids and lions and dragons and buddhas and, if your imagination was working well, you could see all of them perfectly. I think my imagination was lacking in some cases.
When we first arrived at the harbour there must have been 30 buses lined up with tourists rolling off. And in the harbour it looked like there were hundreds of boats. Some were just small junks and only a few people could take a ride on those. Some were larger and would hold 10 or 12 and one like ours had two decks with the tables and chairs for eating below and an open deck above and would hold about 30. Other ships had three decks with sleeping quarters at the bottom, eating area on the second and an open deck on the third. They were all wooden boats and most appeared to have the same polished wooden interior that ours had. The ship itself was very comfortable and seemed very sturdy. However, we weren’t so sure about the pilot or crew. Dozens of boats were leaving at the same time from the harbour and boats were going in all directions. They all have large rubber tires down their sides and it’s a good thing because the bump together quite regularly. At one point our boat was getting quite close to another boat out in the open water and it became obvious that the crews were transferring a watermelon to our boat. They must have forgotten to pick up our dessert! Anyway, the two boats hit quite hard and anyone who was standing went flying. One of the ladies on our boat fell quite hard but seemed to be okay afterward. The tourists really are flocking to this place but I don’t know whether the locals are being properly trained to handle the duties required of them or if they are just being rushed into it. As someone in our group said, “the tourists are just loving this place a little too much. Hopefully they aren’t loving it to death.”
Our onboard lunch was absolutely delicious and the best we’ve had so far on our journey. It was a seafood luncheon that consisted of many courses including whole steamed prawns with a lime and salt mixture for dipping, deep fried spring rolls, stuffed crab, French fries, calamari, a fish the name of which I have forgotten, rice and steamed vegetables and of course watermelon for dessert. (I think I’m forgetting something but I don’t know what!) Everything was cooked fresh on the boat and it was all piping hot when served. And it was all devoured quickly.
Ha Long Bay has been an important port since the 12th century and it has also always been a big fishing community. Evidence of civilization in the area goes back thousands of years. Currently there are just over 1 million people living in the city, which is right along the shore line and that means it runs up the hillside. It looks and feels like a small town but at over a million people I guess it is not all that small. Obviously we just haven’t seen the entire city.
The countryside in northern Vietnam, and indeed all of Vietnam that I saw, is very lush and green. The rice paddies make the land seem almost as if it is flooded but still it is a beautiful bright green. From Hanoi to Ha Long Bay is mainly flat until close to Ha Long Bay where it gets hillier. The crops grown on the flat land include rice, bananas, corn and many other fruits and vegetables. Many farmers still use water buffalo with small single plows in the fields but a few of the did have the small motorized tillers like Dad used to have for his small four foot wide garden. At one point there were about a dozen men using these tillers in one large field so obviously they do at times work together on their farms. I did see a small old tractor in a field and later on another one on the street but those were the only two in all my travels in Vietnam. On occasion there were even people working with single hoes working up the land in some areas. In many of the fields there would be bicycles or motor bikes parked at the edges and then you knew to look for farmers. Many times they were just seen from the waist up if they were out in their rice fields. And almost everyone working on the farms wears the traditional woven cone hat so that the yellow cone is pretty easy to spot in the green fields.
There were some small communities along our journey. Homes in these communities are often just one or two storeys high. In the larger communities the homes were higher but normally no more than four storeys. Of course there were some business buildings that were higher in the larger centres. The homes are often very colourful with blue, yellow, orange, green earth tone colouring. And most of the old brick houses are still very thin because they paid taxes based on their width, but quite high and deep. It was interesting in many places to see brick buildings that were totally empty and some didn’t even look like they’d been finished but no one was working on them now. I forgot to ask the tour guide about them so I’m not sure what the story was.
We passed one big industrial area where there were lots of big factories. It is located in the north because there is a big harbour here which allows for easy shipping. Some of the businesses in the area involved clothing, footwear, coffee, rice, seafood, electronics, oil and natural gas. Vietnam is apparently quite rich in oil and natural gas, which is one reason China would really like them to join the Republic. Coal power is still used in a lot of places, which accounts for a lot of the pollution. They have some hydro power and they are trying to switch to nuclear power as well. In one of the industrial areas there was a large Canadian training centre mainly for trades and technical training the tour director thought.
The roads are generally good although there are some bumpy patches that need repair. The main problem with the roads is of course just their driving, which seems really strange to us but seems to work for them. I am moving closer to the front of the bus every day so will soon have a bird’s eye view of the highway – but I think that will be in Cambodia so who knows what I’ll find there. There are trees all along the road side, which makes everything look even greener but prevents good picture taking. There are also many rivers, streams and canals to help with all the drainage required in the rainy season and to get the proper water levels for the rice paddies.
Parts of the countryside look very dirty and there is a lot of garbage on the side of the road or on the banks of the streams. In the same area there are lots of little fires burning, which I assumed might also be garbage. Obviously they don’t have garbage collection in these areas so I guess burning it (or throwing it on the side of the road) is the only way to get rid of the garbage.
In one of the areas just outside of Hanoi there were vendors on the side of the road selling bread and baguettes. Apparently this area is famous for its breads and people just stop on the highway and grab some to eat on the road or to take home. In the town and the main cities, when people stop at a café to eat they just sit on little plastic chairs or stools out on the street. These look like kid’s chairs to me but they are used everywhere and you can see people sitting on them eating with their knees up to their chins. It looks uncomfortable but it’s definitely the accepted thing to do.
You see some cemeteries along the side of the road but not many and the coffins or memorials seem to be in different sizes. The Vietnamese believe in reincarnation. They bury their dead for three years in regular sized coffins. Then three years later they remove the body and clean the bones so they are ready for the next life. This ceremony is very important and must be done in a very precise manner and only at night between certain hours. Then the bones are buried again in a smaller coffin and remain there for life, or I guess until reincarnated. One of the real cruelties of the French was that they beheaded the Vietnamese prisoners and then buried the head and body separately so the person would never be whole and could not be reincarnated. Okay, enough about that except to say that I wonder how Ho Chi Minh’s body fits into this picture. If he is suddenly reincarnated someday will his body just disappear from viewing?
I think that’s it for Vietnam (although I’m still not done writing my Hue blog!). Vietnam is a very beautiful country. Its cities are a bit older and dirtier looking than in some places but they have everything you need and the people are friendly and happy. I was only here for 10 days so certainly didn’t see the entire country but what I saw was definitely interesting and enjoyable. Now we’re off to the airport and our flight to Cambodia. If I see anything else of note on Vietnam I’ll have to add it to the Hue blog because I’m posting this one now while I have internet access. Chow!
posted by Jayne Brooks @ 5:40 PM
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