Halong Bay

Straight after returning to Hanoi from our Sapa trip, we got immediately onto another tour - to Halong Bay. 3 Hours from Hanoi, Halong City itself is a bit of a dump, and the port is teeming with dozens of boats and hundreds of tourists. Luckily we got straight onto our boat, and set straight off into the bay, which is so huge we immediately got away from the crowds.

 

As you can see we were pretty well wrapped up as it was cool and overcast - not the best weather for viewing the limestone Karsts that we'd hoped for.

 

 

 

The boat itself was lovely - a recently restored/updated junk, which was well fitted out, and perfect for our overnight stay in the bay.

 

 

 

Although the sails were just for show, they still looked great!

   

 

 

An unexpected part of our tour was the afternoon visit to the cave ('hmmm... cold, dark and wet, probably' we thought to ourselves). We were astonished when we actually got inside to see it:

 

 

 

 

[Errr... Hazel - Halloween was back on October 31st. Please take your mask off now!]

We thought it was reminiscent of the set from a sci-fi film - all crazy colours lit up the cave wonderfully. Haze thought this part of the cave was like being under a giant mushroom:

Whereas this reminded her of something else entirely:

Yes, those are people in the bottom-left of the picture below, just to give you an idea of the scale!

 

 

 

 

Just amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the view from the mouth of the cave, overlooking some of the boats that gather outside:

The sun came out just before sunset, as we went out in kayaks.

On our return, we were treated to a splendid sunset:

 

After dinner, we (the tourists) were cajoled into doing karaoke - putting us both well out of our comfort zone!

You realise, it was all for the benefit of the little girl in the middle here -  nothing to do with the booze that was on offer!

 

 

 

Watching night fall from the window of our room was very peaceful.

 

 

 

Goodnight!

 

 

 

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Ben Tre

The final place we stayed on our Mekong Delta excursion was Ben Tre, which is an island province as well as a village. We got there by minibus and ferry, and were amazed that the Guesthouse owner was true to his word and was there to meet us as we got off the ferry.

One of the nice aspects of the guesthouse is they offer free bicycle hire, which we made use of straight away. It was great to cycle along all the windy lanes, across bridges, passing locals on bikes coming the other way.

 

At the end of our ride we managed to get caught up in the school run, as all the kids piled out of class to their waiting parents.

We found a lady selling a delicious snack: barbequed bananas coated in sticky rice. One was never enough!

 

Our guesthouse was set in a garden, and we got a real feel for family life here - although we had to politely decline the offer of going to see the cockfight round the corner!

All in all, this was a really friendly place and we enjoyed spending time here.

Namaste!

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Sunrise at the Floating Markets - Mekong River

At 5am we were led from our Guest house in Cantho down to our boat at the riverbank. The reason for the early start is so that we get to see the Sun rise over the floating markets.

To our great relief, the first thing our guide took us to was the coffee boat - a much-needed wake-me-up for that hour of the day! It was impressive watching the young lad on the coffee boat nimbly steering his way through the flotilla of market boats using only one foot.

We got straight into the action, drawing alongside boats filled up with fruit, fish, baskets, rice, livestock and so on - not forgetting all the families and customers going about their lives on the water.

 

 

Looks like Penelope Pitstop's wearing her pyjamas on the ferry again!

Duck thinks: "I knew I shouldn't have had that last cake, just minutes before the Weight Watchers weigh-in!"

Here's some of the families we saw:

Here's us along with the Canadian couple (Michelle and Clement) we took the trip with. Pineapple on a stick, anyone??

And of course, we had to try on the hat our guide (Su) was wearing:

As you can see, Hazel fits the part perfectly, whereas Pete...

After the markets, Su took us further down river, away from the town a bit. We were a bit puzzled when she pulled over to the bank and started hacking at the palm leaves on the shore, then set off again:

Little did we know, she was weaving some amazing stuff for us, while steering the boat with her knee.

As the trip progressed, we got further into the narrower waterways:

And stopped off at one of the rice paddies. Haze is demonstrating her technique:

Here's one of Pete's "arty" shots:

On the way back into town, we passed by a large boat of unprocessed rice (that's still in its husk). As you can see, at this stage it just looks like grain:

All in all, it was a lovely morning. :-)

Namaste!

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Running the Gauntlet

After 2 1/2 hours of vomit-inducing stormy ferry ride, the last thing we wanted to see on returning to the mainland was an entire line of moto drivers, all waiting to pounce - as per normal.

Amazingly there seemed to be some kind of system in place (where else do you see moto drivers lined up like this?) and we didn't need to resort to the cattle prod or taser to keep the hordes at bay.

Namaste!

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The Long and Dusty Road...

...That leads to... nowhere in particular.

With apologies to Paul McCartney, I figured this the best way to sum up Sunday, our last day on Phu Quoc. We wanted to explore some other parts of the island, so we hired a bike and set off. This turned out to be a mistake, as quite frankly there was nothing to see - at least, not within half a day's travel! Aside from Duong Dong, most of the island is incredibly un-developed, with hot, dusty, potholed roads with little or no view to speak of.

At one point the track got narrower and narrower, until we had to stop and ask a family for directions through the bushes.

A lady kindly offered to lead us back to the road on her bike, although help doesn't come for free it seems, as she asked a fee to cover her petrol - probably 4 or 5 tanks-worth it seems for only a 5-minute ride, but we couldn't exactly barter with her. No wonder they're smiling so much in the photo. This must happen to many a tourist on this route. Suckers!

It's well publicised that the Vietnamese Government wants to invest some $2 Billion US on turning Phu Quoc into something like Phuket in Thailand, along with its own international airport. We think this will be a crying shame, as it will undoubtedly lose a lot of its charm. That being said, it definitely could do with a little bit of money - some decent roads and some signposts will go a long way.

As it was, we got fed up with our 'Road To Nowhere' and turned back to enjoy what remained of the day on our beach.

Namaste!  

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Gone Fishing!

On Friday we headed off to the South of the island on a tour of the nearby archipelago for some snorkelling action. The ten of us boarded our small but comfortable boat and it 'put-putted' (ed: that's the sound of the engine!) off at almost glacial pace... We didn't mind the slow progress as there were plenty of deck chairs in which to lie back and enjoy the view.

The snorkelling wasn't the best we've seen, but it was all still enjoyable nonetheless. While we were out swimming, the crew cooked up a storm in the galley for our lunch of fresh seafood dishes, including some freshly-caught sea-urchins. Here you can see them cutting off the spines from the back of the boat:

And this is some of our group tucking into it all:

Later on we all had a go at line fishing off the side of the boat. Though we both completely failed to catch a thing, Hazel is convinced if we'd had some better bait (such as SPAM!) we could have landed a whopper.

Everything else caught by our more successful companions was thrown straight in the frying pan. You can't get fresher than that!

A nice surprise to end the day was when they took us to a remote beach on the other side of the island, where you could walk out 100 metres into the sea and it was still at waist-level. This brought on great frivolity for the group, splashing about in the water.

Anyway, here's the obligatory 'Couple Pose'. Breathe in now, and smile for the camera!

Namaste!

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