Tuesday the 22nd of October was a long day for us, and one of the best in our holiday so far.
About Ha Long city not that much needs to be said; just back of the beach is a long row of restaurants, with a woman out the front of each one waving enthusiastically to tourists. The hotels up on the hill look over the bay, and they compete with each other to have the most garish and slightly non-sensical neon sign. The road leading up to our hotel loops around; on one end you take a sort of shortcut through some alleys, up the hill past a karaoke bar, motorcycles honking past now and then, and turn right, walking past street food vendors who put their plastic chairs under tarpaulins.
On the other end you go the way we went to find breakfast; down the other edge of the same hill, squiggling down to the main roundabout which marks the end of the restaurant strip. Unsurprisingly the same waitress that waved enthusiastically to us last night was standing out the front of the same restaurant this morning; had she slept? do they sleep? – and she recognised us and started up again. I ordered a thing called a ‘bread omelette’, which was a long white bun equipped with two fried eggs and some salad. What we might call a fried egg sandwich.
And then it was back up the winding hill with us.
‘I suppose’, I said, ‘that we should buy some bottles of water? Here, look, water, in this shop here.’
‘If I’m buying them’, says Alice, ‘I’m going to buy them at the top of the hill, cos I’m not carrying them up.’
At 8.45am the group and it’s leader got into a larger taxi and lined ourselves up at the marina, which is back on the road out of town, past the other end of restaurant row. All we knew is that we were for a boat cruise to Cat Ba Island, although we were wondering just how that was going to work out with four people in the group. Turns out it works very well. What happens is this; you get a 24-seat boat, with a big glue sundeck on top and plenty of space in the windowed cabin to leave your bags and yourself lying around out of the sun, and then you go floating out into the bay, watching the small wooden rowing-boats ducking out of the way.
Then you basically set sail for paradise.
Around Cat Ba Island is a large archipelago, although people who have been to Southern China recently would recognise these small islands as the same type of limestone karst formation found around Yangshuo and Guilin. It’s just the same as if Yangshuo were 20m below sea level. Which would be tragic because then we couldn’t move there. So we had a great time swanning around on the boat, sitting quietly up on the sun deck, stopping at a floating fish farm and a deepening stalactite cave along the way. Back on the boat we sat ourselves down inside and had lunch bought to our table, and with a smile too.
The boat continued it’s soft progress through the submerged limestone peaks, while we had a light slumber and digested. And when everyone was ready they pulled up, chucked the anchor out, and we got into our swimming gear.
‘It’s deep enough, yeah?, I asked Tuan.
‘Go ahead. Just jump.’
‘The water’s clean?’
‘Go on. Just jump in the water.’
Sound advice from a man not swimming himself, but good advice is good advice. So I got up on the ledge (what’s the part of hull above the waterline and above the deck called? I’m sure there’s a particular name. Anyone?) Anyway I did a nice big swan dive down into the salty bay. I couldn’t convince Alice to do the same; she walked around to the ladder which the drew ha hung over the edge and lowered herself in. I don’t know how deep the water was; we were maybe 30m from shore and couldn’t see the bottom, so deep enough is my guess.
A couple of laps around the boat were fun, and then we set to treading water for as long as we could, which the women folk found significantly easier, possibly due to their higher ‘truth’ and ‘virtue’ content, which enables them to float better to begin with. If there could be anything more fun than swimming off a boat, I don’t know what it is. But it might be getting a van ride from where the boat moors on Cat Ba Island over to the national park entrance, and then going for a short-ish walk through pretty thick forest up to the top of the hill where there is an old Navy look out post. In the forest there are small monkeys which you may see; or instead of that you can watch your Vietnamese-speaking guide climb the trees, swing through the vines, and generally hop around having a ball and keeping everyone amused. Now there is a man who likes his job.
In the forest is surprisingly dark, and cool, although sweat still leaks out of you and washes off your mosquito repellent, and then the hordes of potential malaria hosts carry you off to their lair where the Grand High Mosquito demands to know your blood type. But if you hear a strange noise, don’t worry; it’s just your native guide giggling after picking one of those flowers that sticks to your shirt when thrown. The best thing to do is pick it off and throw it back. I might have said that the walk was shortish, but most of the last kilometre was up and over rocks, through muddy patches, between trees, and finally up some rusty ladders bolted to the mountain, with bamboo growing all around.
The look out post is at the very top of Ngu Lam peak. I think this one of the higher peaks on Cat Ba Island, maybe the highest. Or anyway, the look out post is definitely the rustiest. As always, the climb to the top is worth it, even though I couldn’t help thinking the next step would be the one that proved too rusty. At the top the guide thought it would be funny to warn me that one of the railings was bit weak by shaking it, and then pulling off a flaking sliver of rust and throwing it toward a monkey that he could hear in the forest down below. Then while we minced our way down the steps he climbed down the inside of the frame.
Why? Because he actually is a monkey.
On the way back we came through a muddier, slipperier short cut path, then sat near the exit drinking coke and giving the mosquitoes a fair chance to bite any of the available unbitten parts of our legs.
The van took us after to back to the main town of Cat Ba port, which like Ha Long city is a marina with a row of restaurants along the bay, and hotels and houses creeping up the hills. We got there just on sunset, dropped our bags in the hotel room which had a balcony and a double bed and which I swore I would never want to leave, and skipped the 150m back down to the water to watch the sunset. Which was gorgeous.
For dinner Tuan took us to one of the waterfront cafes, where they have crabs in a big tank for your selection. Full and happy, we went for a little walk past the jewellery markets peacefully occupying the footpath in front of all the restaurants, then around the bay a bit, where we sat on a bench and talked about what we might or might not do when we get home.
