cruising halong bay

Vietnam, being a former French protectorate, has wonderful bread. There are women who wander around selling the distinctive Vietnamese style bagette, and even stand on the side of the highway with baskets full of the tasty pastry. My breakfast was this bread with some butter and jam, and it was delicious. It reminded me of the bread I ate in Taize, in France.

The bus ride to Halong was three hours staring out the window at dots of people harvesting rice and corn. Old men pulled tired horses laden with rice stalks to be layed out in the courtyards like golden carpet. Halfway through the journey, limestone mountains began jutting up from the fields like the fingers of some giant trying to break through the earth.

We arrived at the port and boarded our boat. We sat on the sundeck while pulling out from the mess of hundreds of other wooden fishing boats and tourist boats. Lunch was delicious, and, as the Vietnamese woman sitting next to me said, a traditional Vietnamese meal. Because I was alone, I was assigned to sit with another group, that group being a French family (mother is Vietnamese, but moved to France 30 years ago). So while we did manage a little small talk, for the most part I just listened to the sound of their French conversation.

The afternoon was spent sunning ourselves on the deck, climbing rock formations to view unreachable lagoons, walking through caves, and swimming in the green waters. I was a little disappointed with the caves. Firstly, this is because I have been to a lot of caves, and these were nothing spectacular. But secondly and most importantly, even though Halong Bay was made an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994, there is blatent disregard for any preservation methods. Sure, there are signs in the caves that say “stay on the path,” but the guides lean on and rub the cave formations and pick up rocks from the cave floor. I asked the guide why he doesn’t ask the tourists not to touch the cave, since that destroys its natural development, and he looked at me like I was crazy and just laughed.

Anyway, we jumped off the top of the boat into the water. That was fun. As we were swimming around, our boat was visited by several floating stores. That is, women from the floating fishing villages dotting the lagoons rowed over and tried to sell us crackers, soda, books, everything. The French family bought some crabs and gave them to the cook to boil for our table. Everyone else was jealous.

After dinner we turned the television to the all-important Australia vs. Japan World Cup Game. There were no Australians on board, but there were quite a few British who were dead set against Australia. Unfortunately, Japan blew it in the last ten minutes.