Writing now from Hoi An (not Hanoi, but an anagram of it, about 500km south along the coast). We have spent the last two days cruising around Halong Bay which is renowned for its emerald waters, sandy coves and mysterious caves. Unfortunately, our experience was more one of cloudy skies, grey seas and tourists a plenty! We are slowly becoming accustomed to the dreary weather, and finding out that the weather has been glorious the day before we arrive anywhere!!
So we were transferred to Halong City by 3 1/2 hour bus journey, with some other members of our group. Our tour guide was a little over enthusiastic, and insisted on going round the bus all introducing ourselves, and prided himself on giving us all little facts about our respective nationalities. We arrived at the harbour to find hundreds upon hundreds of pirates of the carribean style 'junk' boats. We were quickly rounded up by our tour guide, and taken to our junk, the Dragon cruiser. The rooms were lovely - looking right out onto the sea - and probably the most luxurious room we've stayed in yet! We then introduced ourselves to the group properly; we were with 4 very antisocial Japanese, 3 French exchange students, a Portuguese couple, an Israeli couple, 2 Australian women, and Christian; a Swiss boy, with, in his words, only tourist English, and somewhat lacking social boundaries!!
We all then set out to visit some of the caves which Halong bay is famed for. We took a small steamer boat to shore, and were promptly joined by about a thousand other (mainly Japanese) tourists.
The caves were nothing to write home about (though I seem to be doing so!), and although the stalactites were fairly impressive, they were somewhat ruined by the ropes, paths and fluorescent uplighting for the many tourists' benefit. Next stop was kayaking. It was fun rowing around the caves and small islands, but the sea was filthy, it was raining, and the novelty quickly wore off.
An hour later, we returned to not so dry land, to watch our guide and crew catch our dinner from the fish farm pens located around the kayaking area.
Later, after a hot (!) shower and a delicious Vietnamese seafood dinner we set about on the evening's entertainment. We had karaoke scheduled, but none of us were really in the mood so we played an amusing game called 'the wolf' all night, which was a great way to get to know each other a lot better, and in the case of Christian, a little too well!
The next day, we had what had seemed at the time of booking to be a fairly full schedule. The day started with an early morning tour of the pearl farm - where they implant a small piece of mother of pearl and a small white shell ball into an oyster, and then grow them for 18 months until a pearl is born!
As Ori, our Israeli traveller, put it, they stick a white ball into an Oyster, wait a year and a half and then get out....a white ball!! However, it seemed this was the end of our packed itinerary - after breakfast, some of our group went their separate ways, to spend a night on the island. Unfortunately, our guide seemed to disappear onto a different boat with them, and a small group of us were left on our boat with no guide, and apparently no English speaking crew at all, waiting for our food decoration lesson.
After a few hours of cruising around in the mist, we suddenly realised that we were back at the harbour. Expecting to learn how to turn fruit and vegetables into decorative garnishes, we tried to question one of the crew about it.
A lot of confusion, head shaking and the usual hissing later, our guide phoned to tell us that they had run out of cucumbers so we were just going straight home. We weren't very impressed with this excuse, but then a very angry chef appeared from the kitchen with a face like thunder, a set of knives and a tray holding half a carrot and a tomato which he slammed down on the table. He then proceeded to cut and slice the living daylights out of the vegetables, 'tsking' all the while, to create some vaguely flowerlike garnishes. It was hilarious just how angry he was, although the number of sharp knives he had was a little unnerving! We then realised that the Japanese group had taken the only steamer boat to shore, without us! Eventually the boat came back for us, and we set off on our long journey back to Hanoi. From there we took a flight down to Hoi An where we are now relaxing before a long day of shopping tomorrow!
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