Among the Sea Dragon's Lair - Halong Bay, Vietnam

I've been in Hanoi for a few days now and have seen most of the sights and sampled all the cuisines. Looking for something further to do, I decided to book a one day trip out to Ha Long Bay, a well known UNESCO heritage site approximately 165Km from Hanoi. I was picked up by a small van from the hotel early in the morning, and the guide had warned the trip wasn't going to be comfortable. He was right. It took us a good three hours to drive this distance as the drive took us along the highway through villages and towns, where roads were rocky and unsealed. However we arrived in one piece and was ushered onto a large junk boat named Ha Long.

Ha Long means "the sea dragon". Many legends surround this fascinating bay, one version based on a rumour, that once upon a time a dragon lived here protecting his valuable treasures in an underwater cave. When mankind threatened his habitat, and tried to steal his prized jewels, he went into a frenzy and broke up the land into small pieces to protect himself. More than two thousand broken islands scattered across the bay forming today's magnificent sight at Ha Long Bay.

The junk boat first took us to the largest of these islands to explore a lime stone cave. Nothing too fancy for those who have been in limestone caves, as by comparison this is on a smaller scale to those that exist else where in the world. However the experience of getting on and off the boat was quite an interesting one. Boat traffic is no different to road traffic here in Vietnam. Each boat was pushed right against each other used as stepping stones from the shore to your designated boats. When they harbour they literally try to push other boats out of the way so they can "park" closer to the harbour. For a little more than ten minute all you can hear are the sounds of squeaking wood and clashing of the water, and me sitting in the corner hoping the maintenance guy wasn't too lazy with his job that morning.

After the visit to the caves, we were off sailing again to explore the surroundings. Islands small and large appeared in front of our eyes and it was a sight words cannot describe, or could my camera capture the essence of this place. It's simply beautiful. The whole place was like as if someone had been doing stone crafts, or that each of the uprising stone islands can be seen as a piece of chess scattered about a chess board. Lush vegetation grew on the islands making a nice environment for the eagles that flew over our heads, hunting for fish. Using your imagination you can really picture each island to be some form of creature - some looked like fish, some chicken... snakes, dragon and beak of an eagle surrounded us. I felt somewhat overwhelmed to be standing at the front of the deck, just absorbing it all in.

A community reside among these islands. I was surprised to find that they actually do live their everyday lives here, in houses built on top of some form of floating boards. Each household had their own little veranda with chairs and tables, their pet dogs stood on the edge of the floats looking out for visitors, and an area of farm for sea stock. There is even a floating school for the children of this community to attend. While some may have business on the mainland, most of the families survive on selling seafood to visitors like us. People travelled by small rowing boats, and "shops" were also boats which they rowed around and around until someone calls out to them to pull them over.

When the boat took us back to the habour I felt a slight disappointment in myself for not booking an overnight trip. It would have been nice to wake up to a sunrise over Ha Long Bay and go for a paddle surrounding its secluded beaches. At least, I've left myself with something else to do the next time I am in town.