Ha Long Bay

10th March 2014: For everyone there is a personal list of the seven places of the world that are truly outstandingly beautiful, for me, The Grand Canyon is one, An English Bluebell wood another, and also The mountains of Austria. Yesterday a new one was added to my magnificent seven; Halong Bay, Vietnam.

Unfortunately for us however, the cold weather had followed the ship down the coast from China and instead of the expected warm sun, we had a cold miserable damp dreary day with a mist that never lifted…

So just for you, this is what it should have looked like:

Instead, the grey mist hung around all day, and as we kayaked and motored on our junk around the bay this is what we saw:

and

Rocks, standing like ancient sentinels of time, looming out of the mist as we silently approached, causing ones imagination to see shapes in the towering monoliths like faces, turtles, snails or just about anything the mind chose to see.

In fact, Halong means “where the dragon descends into the sea” and it does not take much of the local rice wine to see the dragons coils in the glassy smooth water.

Also during the day we visited the local cave “Tien Cung Grotto” which the Australian beside me said were “the best caves she had ever seen”, and if you knew Australians on this ship, that’s HIGH praise. The lighting effects were superb and all done on the proverbial shoestring. A lot of western countries could learn a thing or two here. Throwing expensive computer controlled effects is not always the answer.

Good news, the pound is worth 35,000 Vietnamese dong. Bad news, we only have American Dollars.

More facts from the brochure for you. The population of Vietnam is 84 million, half of whom are less than 20 and Fab Si Pan, the country’s highest mountain is more than twice the height of Ben Nevis. ….that’s over 10,000ft

Unfortunately I did not go ashore here so impressions of the countryside will have to wait for our next port of call.