Day 8 - Halong Bay - 14th September 2014

Halong Bay Day 8 - 14th September 2014

I am sitting in the top deck of an old Vietnamese junk in the middle of Halong Bay. I think I have died and gone to heaven. An unbelievable panorama stretches a full 360 degrees, towering great mountainous rocks that look as though they have exploded through the ocean floor heading for the skies. Black and grey and streaked with white, giant blocks a giant may be chipping away with an enormous chisel, bright green bushes climbing up the sides, hundreds, no thousands, three thousand of them. Small boats drift by, gentle breeze blows, the sea is a green blue and my back is warmed by the setting sun, my bikini is perfect attire, and I have a cold beer shandy.

We have just returned from an outing to a small shaded beach just minutes from the boat, taken there in a small tender. Some of us climbed into kayaks made for two and sailed underneath rocks arched like bridges, we saw schools of fish being chased, leaping out of the water, and a few large fish, leaping silver and gold, flashing in the sunlight. We swam in the warm sea, gathered in clusters, giggling like children, swapping stories. I find a couple of interesting shells to take home to place under my Buddha, and the woman I am searching with finds a rusty syringe. I am glad I am wearing the ugly old crocs provided in our cabin.

We arrived here about 12.30, after a four hour drive, a slow drive, as the road rules on this particular section of road are very strict, 40 kph is the limit, and the cops are notably corrupt, there is always room for negotiation, the government gets very little, whilst the toll man, the traffic cop, the tax man are incredibly rich, everything can be handled for a price. The drive is through diverse lands, rice fields, built up areas, new high rise, shanty type shops, but we learn the the centre of Hanoi was just 20 years ago rice paddies - the development has been extraordinary. We stop at a gigantic barn size building, flanked by a dozen tourist buses, where there are clean western toilets and a vast array of overpriced, but good quality of goods for sale, embroidery, leather, jewellery, lacquer work, clothing, silk, and marble. Under a battery of fluorescent lights sit a small army of men and women at rows of tables embroidering the most exquisite pictures of Vietnamese women with bicycles, rice paddies, fluffy kittens and puppies, flowers, swans and lakes, the painstaking stitching being matched to a photograph in front of them. One women is doing a frost of trees in a myriad different shades of green, my eyes cross and I get a headache just thinking of the weeks of work involved in this. I see a similar finished item, perhaps two feet by eighteen inches on sale for US$160. OMG. The group have done Australia proud and bought hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. I find an interesting pashmina, a kind of circle with two holes for ones arms which you slide on like a jacket, giving your toe layers of varying lengths behind you and reversible, in a good range of patterned shade. US$50. I resists but I persuade someone else.

How exciting to turn into the drop off point at Halong Bay, and see perhaps fifty beautiful wooden junks, lined up, perfectly painted, like something out of a child's story book, and a row of ten smiling people, on board our junk, waving wildly, shouting greetings! Our cabin is small, but all deep mahogany wood, and comprises a queen size bed on one side, and the other, a hand basin, flanked by sliding doors, one is a shower and the other is a toilet. Along one wall is a flank of wooden white doors and windows which open to a tiny verandah, with a table and two chairs. I put on a bikini on immediately and sit there just because I can, as jutting rock after jutting rock slides by, the tranquility of the place seeps into my pores. Everything gleams. The white painted wooden ceiling is pristine, this boat is straight out of the early 1900's, I want to wear an elegant Vietnamese dress and pearls with a shell comb in my hair, carry a cone bamboo hat, and do the foxtrot to a big band with my dashing husband.

We have the boat to ourselves, it can take about 36 but we are 26, and as we enter the dining area for lunch, there is one table for two, which Gerald and I long for, and still have concerns we may be considered unfriendly if we sit alone. We sit at it anyway, which means that our two guides sit at a table with two of the guests. The dining area, and everywhere else, has dark wooden floors and walls, with white ceilings. The food is laid out on a long central table, with salads, fish and crab and prawn dishes, fresh spring rolls, soups, stir fries, cheese, fruit, nuts and desserts, so artfully presented, it's worthy of photographs. Very few use chopsticks, and the more European food is taken first.

After this feast I sit on our verandah and watch the view, suffused with gratitude for our lives and the beauty of this place. Gerald has already had enough sun, and is reading, but shortly, I am able to distract him with a much more pleasurable pursuit with no problems. Life is so very, very, very good.

Beach and kayaks

Katherine 'trim'

Cookery lesson of spring rolls in top deck

Dinner at our table for two