Journey To Jurassic Halong Bay

Once again Vietnam has shown us yet another beautiful location, The world famous Halong Bay. The rugged limestone outcrops covered with vegetation and shrouded in mist gave the whole trip a mysterious and serene feeling. We spend the first day on a Junk and cruised among the 1969 outcrops and jade green waters. Whilst I was photo-happy, the photos truely do it no justice.

After cruising along for a couple of hours, we arrived at the Thien Cung and Bao Dau Go Caves. Thien Cung translates to paradise, and whilst it is beautiful, it would be a very isolated and strange paradise. There are eerie formations created about 250 million years ago from erosion in the shapes of dragons, turtles and Buddha- if you look hard enough. And the place is massive, it is hard to believe that such a huge area was created by the ebb and flow of water. The Thien Cung caves were actually only discovered by a fisherman seeking shelter from a huge storm in the bay in 1993. In true Vietnam form, the caves were open and ready to accommodate tourists by 1994 and have been lit up in a variety of colours.

Our next stop on the Halong Bay Cruise was a floating fish market. Trust me when I tell you, there is some weird shit living in Vietnam- massive fish that look like a cross between a shark and a grouper, strange looking cuttle fish and a range of crustaceans that defy definition. And as you can imagine it is an understatement to say that it smelt a little fishy. So after a brief look around the holding bays, I was back onto the boat and into some local cuisine- mostly vegetarian though!

We spent the night after a day of cruising at Cat Ba Island, the land that time forgot. Well that is until you reach the other side of the island and it is lined with shops, restaurants and bars where the only english the Girls know is "Happy Hour- 2 for 1". But the 40 minute drive from the wharf was something else. I was expecting to see dinosaurs roaming around and old T-Rex to come out of nowhere and rip off the top of our minibus. And despite the winding narrow roads that navigate the limestone peaks, the drivers are just as crazy as here in Hanoi- only they have goats to dodge as well.

Mum was a little disappointed at Cat Ba Island this time around, apparently in the peak season the place is lit up like Vegas with restaurants overflowing into the streets and markets set up all over the place. But this time there was a few lonely motorcycle riders and a weird music mix of Kenny G and traditional music pipped repeatedly on public radio in the streets. We were lucky enough to be woken up by it at like 6am- there is no escaping the public radio! There are some weird propaganda messages in between the music, the only word of which I understood was "progress".

Today we headed back from Cat Ba through the idylic surrounds of the bay and met so many people. From the bus taking us from Hanoi, to the Junk and transport to Cat Ba, the tour guides played "shuffle the tourists" so we ended up with a different group of people every couple of hours. So we met people from Korea, France, Canada, Phillipines and of course Aussies and one British woman that was lovely, but a bit of a cling on- and trying to hook me up with her son. Mmmmm no

Well we are back in Hanoi and going to check out more of the sights and sounds so i'll keep you updated.