We arrived in Hanoi last Monday for only a couple of days before departing again for a 3-day tour of nearby Halong Bay. We're back in Hanoi now but more on that later. Halong Bay, in the Gulf of Tonkin off the east coast of Vietnam, is spectacularly beautiful and in 1994 became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Vietnamese legend has it that Halong Bay was formed years ago, when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders. Their gods sent dragons to help protect the land and the dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets that are today scattered throughout the bay, and they joined together to form an inpenetrable wall against the invaders. Whatever the origins, Halong Bay is an incredible site with over 2000 limestone karsts or cliffs rising out of the turquoise sea. There are many caves you can kayak through and some secluded islands to explore. Our own pictures really don't do it justice, as the days we were there were quite cloudy and overcast (the drawback of being here in their winter). Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures of us in our first kayak voyage - too busy enjoying the view I guess!
Our boat, the "Asia Cruise". Sleeping on this "junk" as they call it was very soothing, similar to the rolling motion of our recent train sleeps:
Halong Bay from a lookout point at Sung Sot cave:
Incredible sunset our first night on the boat:
For a Communist country, Vietnam is rampant with capitalists. Vendors have dogged our every step ever since Ho Chi Minh City and even on the water in the middle of Halong Bay, here come ladies selling everything from toothpaste to Oreo cookies. They live nearby in floating villages:
A couple of times, the sun peeked out for us and we glimpsed the emerald waters the brochures all show:
Ted & Jackson on deck - another body of water to add to his list:
This enterprising woman has made a business of selling seashells. One of the good things about travelling with only one backpack each is that we cannot be tempted into buying each and every souvenir that comes our way:
Mitchell gets his first ever foot massage. This is the best $2 a person can spend, trust me. Jackson is still holding firm to his hands-off policy and refuses to consider having any type of massage. As a side note, one thing that has surprised us is all the attention that Jackson constantly gets. Yes, he's little and cute and, with fair hair and blue eyes, he's a bit of a curiosity here. But he is well and truly sick of strangers pinching his cheeks, giving him a playful poke in the tummy, rubbing his back, or tousling his hair. On the one hand, you can't really tell your child that it's OK for strangers to touch you, but on the other hand we are trying to discourage him from being rude about it. It's a bit of a fine line . . .
Flat Stanley tells us this was his first time to Halong Bay:
One thing Jackson never tires of is swimming. This water was pretty cold (beach on Monkey Island) but no deterrant to this fish-boy:
We stopped on Cat Ba Island and went for a long cycle through their National Park, full of beautiful coastline, mangrove forests, and little fishing villages:
We also spent one night in a bungalow on Monkey Island, so named for the animal life found here:
These actually turned out to be very aggressive monkeys. One chased after Mitchell and almost grabbed him by the ankle before our guide beat it off with a stick:
We met a lot of great people on this cruise trip. This is Benni from Brazil, and Jackson quickly attached himself to him explaining one of his best buddies from back home is also from Brazil:
A home in the floating village:
Other people we met included a couple from England who wrote at least 3 pages of notes for us on Thailand and Australia, where they had recently been. We met an older Chinese couple who have lived in the US for the last 30 years. He speaks Mandarin, Russian, Japanese and Spanish as well as fluent English. Amazingly brilliant man. We also met a couple (guy from Ireland, girl from Japan) and he was learning Japanese from her. There were also two girls from Sweden, a girl from Indonesia, and another guy from Germany. We all stayed at the same set of bungalows at Monkey Island and the language we could all communicate in was, of course, English. I often think how fortunate we are to have English as our native tongue. English is truly the dominant language of the world, the lingua franca of travel as well as business. We could not have done this trip if we did not speak English. I think the boys are realizing this is not something to take for granted. Hearing all the different languages, and seeing the motivation in which people strive to acquire English (and other tongues) is hopefully making an impression on them.
