Vong Halong
Its time to reach back into the big bag of superlatives we left in Europe. Ha Long Bay is one of the wonders of the world. Its a few thousand limestone islands sprouting up from the sea capped with greenery. Every island is riddled with caves and tunnels of all sizes. On our first day our boat took us through the bay amid red sailed junks and small fishing villages. We toured one of the bigger caverns and slept out in the bay under the twinkling stars.
The next day we kayaked through the islands from dawn till dusk. Big schools of fish would spring out of the water to fly from some unseen predator. Eagles lazily soared from peak to peak, lunching on whatever they spied below. Many of the islands were hollow in the center like doughnuts, harboring secret lagoons fed only by twisty sea caves. We paddled through several of these tunnels and found they were home to dark green clams, turquoise, midnight blue, yellow and red corals, sandy starfish, and orange sea fans. The lagoons inside were large and warm with soft sandy beaches.
Our guide led us to one island that was filled with monkeys. “Beware,” he said, “Hold on to your camera, the monkey he is naughty.” In fact, all of the monkeys were naughty. You can get away with doing a great many strange things in public if you’re a monkey.
These islands go on without end in every direction. It gives you beauty overload. Our friend Caitlyn was here and said you see so much eye popping scenery every second you almost get bored with it.
We hired a marvelous tour guide to see us around the islands named Dung, which means “Hero”. Hero, in his tour guide work, has noticed that the Europeans don’t litter, so he’s tried to adopt this very un-Vietnamese habit himself. He also likes the uniquely western idea of splitting the bill at the restaurant or the bar. “But don’t like the American idea, he eat so much and she eat so much.”
Hero says:
“Vietnamese tea very strong. Cannot sleep at night. Also, for many years Vietnam very poor, can only grow the sweet potato. The sweet potato also make you cannot sleep. Cannot sleep, that is why the many population of Vietnam. But now we grow rice, everything okay.”
After we snapped a bunch of photos on the water, Hero drove us to Hanoi…