Indochine

2 March 2008

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Another port and another country. Vietnam this time, the port of Halong Bay and for me it didn’t so much represent Vietnam as it brought back memories of China.

We anchored this morning and I was awake early again in preparation for another tour. As it turns out there is only one tour on offer here and it is really Halong Bay’s major claim to fame. The tour was a trip on a converted fishing junk out into the bay to see the thousands of limestone islands (almost two thousand in total) that rise out of the water in all manner of strange shapes. If you have ever seen the movie Indochine then you would probably have a lasting memory of the landscape. For the thirty seven of us that boarded a converted junk pulled up to the side of the ship we were about to enter that memory.

The junk was nicely appointed, an enclosed cabin with seating at tables in a train style and more open air seating on top of the cabin. There were small trees in pots on the deck at the bow and I could imagine a family living aboard in the days when it was a working boat rather than transportation for tourists. We were herded into the cabin as the junk pulled away and our guide gave us a rundown in somewhat broken English on what we could expect to see. It seems that Halong Bay is attracting an ever increasing number of tourists, especially Americans and has been named a UNESCO world heritage site. Our first and only stop was at Thien Cung Cave and the junk made a zippy trip across the bay from where we were anchored and headed straight to the cave site.

Luckily I was on the first junk to leave and when we arrived at the cave there were only about 30 other junks trying to jockey for position at a small stone pier! The guide told us that it is fashionable for tourists to fly or drive from the major cities for an overnight stay in Halong Bay, sleeping on a converted junk and visiting the cave as part of their tour of the bay. Obviously we were not the only ones out on the water today and I could see a steady stream of people making their way up a steep path to the cave opening. There was a space at the pier, which was really just a series of wide steps carved into the bank, and our junk slid quickly into the opening, nestling nose first and allowing us to just step off the bow and make our way up. A few people stayed onboard because we had been warned about the number of steps up and then down but most got off and we slotted into the other groups making their way under the guidance of shouted instructions in a number of different languages.

The path up was steep and the steps were narrow but after ducking through the opening it became worth it. The cave is large and has been lit with a number of different coloured lights to show off the myriad of different shapes that have been formed by the dripping water. It may only be limestone but it had the look of marble and that gave the space the feeling of the inside of some bizarre gothic cathedral. The number of people trying to make their way up the path and into the cave meant that we didn’t really have time to stop and stare but instead we made our way through the carefully defined paths and obeyed the signs exhorting us not to climb, touch or write on the formations. From the floor of the cave we had another steep and narrow climb up to the exit and then a steep and narrow climb down to another pier where our junk was waiting. At each switchback in the path we had the opportunity to buy souvenirs.

Back on our junk we had to manoeuvre backwards, rotate and then force our way out into clear water. This was the closest I have seen yet to the image I have in my mind of a water village. All of the junks were so close together that the sound of creaking timber as one rubbed against the four or five others it was in contact with was almost as loud as the calls of people hawking fruit, drinks and carvings from the steps of the pier. How the captain of our junk managed to get us out and turned around I’ll never know but it was a feat of seamanship amid a wildly chaotic ballet of moving junks that I’ll never forget. As we reversed, the space we had been occupying seemed to close of its own accord, not filled by another boat so much as the other boats just settling into position like the aftermath of dragging your spoon through thick porridge.

Out in clearer water we joined a small flotilla of junks making their way among the islands. There seemed to be a tourist route that all the junks were following but rather than making it seem crowded they only added to the atmosphere, traditional looking boats weaving in and out of the little limestone islands. I had my camera working overtime as there was a new view or angle every second. Each of the islands was a unique shape like little blobs on a baking tray before it goes into the oven and they are cooked to a uniform shape and height. These islands were craggy and uninhabitable with many of them having been worn away by the water at the tide mark so that they now looked like spinning tops balancing on a pointed end.

But this is where it became familiar. Not the fact that they were islands but the shapes of the peaks and the way that they faded into the haze of the distance all around us. The similarity to the Li River in China was marked. If you have ever looked at the paintings of mountain scenes on Chinese silks and assumed that the shapes were stylistic then you are wrong. The islands of Halong Bay and the mountains around the Li River are exactly like that in all their twisted and convoluted glory. It’s like entering one of those pen and ink paintings.

The trip back to the ship was slow and settling on the gunwale I enjoyed crossing the bay. It was only a short tour but it was memorable for the scenery and the memories. Tomorrow I have a nine hour tour into Vietnam proper which promises to be interesting.