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In order to view 'OUR JUNE 2010 PHOTOS FROM HALONG BAY' at WEBSHOTS, click HERE.
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Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site, a vast and marvelous bay filled with thousands of karsts (limestone rock formations) towering into the sky, and a current nominee to be one of the 'new 7 wonders of nature' in the world and one of the 'Seven Natural Wonders of Asia':
http://www.new7wonders.com/
http://sevennaturalwonders.org/asia
It was very difficult to decide on a Halong Bay tour. There are so many travel agencies, operators, boats, and itinerary variations. I was concerned about planning to stay on the boat more than one night in case the kids (or the adults) were miserable. I read/heard rumors of bugs, rats, bad food, motion sickness, etc. Once in Vietnam, we booked a tour online through Handspan travel:
http://www.handspan.com/
Our overnight tour aboard the wooden junk, 'Aloha,' began on Saturday, June 26th. None of the concerns mentioned above were an issue during our tour. Our overnight tour cost was $100 per adult. This is probably the lower end of a more luxurious junk cruise in Halong Bay. The cost was discounted 20% for kids not sharing the sleeping accommodations with their parents. In other words, we booked an additional cabin and each cabin had two twin beds and a bathroom. The total cost of the overnight tour for our family of four was $360. The discount for younger children that could share a bed with their parent would be 50%.
It might have been nice to stay for more than one night. The commute between Hanoi and Halong Bay was four hours each way on a '29 passenger bus.' The bus can only actually hold that many passengers if you unfold a seat into the aisle in each row, but Handspan limits the number of passengers to 15 and we had less than that. The passengers on our tour were all visiting from Europe, Canada, and USA. The trip was comfortable, except bumpy (during our Vietnam trip we travelled in several buses with bad or stiff shocks). We made one 20 minute stop in each direction at handicraft shops for toilet/snack/shopping. The bus trip to Halong Bay was one of only a few days of rain during our entire journey. When we arrived in Halong Bay, it was no longer raining.
Note: I did figure out from reading the news at some point during our trip that Vietnam is experiencing record heat and drought. I have neglected to mention the electricity outages across the country as a result of low water and its affect on hydroelectric power. Our hotels in Hoi An and Hue were more economical than our hotels in Saigon and Hanoi and some days we went without power and/or air-conditioning for as long as a half day. It seems the larger, more expensive hotels have generators that take over during the outages. This applies to restaurants as well. However, the boat cabins and the bus were air-conditioned and cool!
The Aloha junk sleeps 22 passengers. There were 12 passengers on our tour. After spending almost three weeks together as a family of four, it was enjoyable to share the adventure with others. In addition to our family of four, there were eight other passengers.
Tammy and Allison are a mother and daughter from Pennsylvania. Tammy is an elementary school nurse and her daughter is a graduate student in physical (or was it occupational) therapy. In addition to sight seeing, they are going to volunteer at an orphanage for children with disabilities. Allison had participated in the Semester at Sea program which had included stops at many ports including Vietnam. Since then, she had wanted to return to see more of the country. They were especially jovial with Ivy and Olivia whom enjoyed the attention. You can read updates on their travel experiences at their blog:
http://Summer2010Vietnam.blogspot.com
Tara and Jed are a newlywed couple from Toronto. They had been married in Bali and were visiting several countries in southeast asia for their honeymoon.
Alex is a recent college graduate of Sound Design from London. He manages the sound during theater productions in London, such as Les Miserables and Wicked.
Peter, Mike, and Martin, are all members of the German contemporary music ensemble 'musikFabrik.' Peter is a musician whom plays the oboe. Mike and Martin are two of the ensemble's managers. 'musikFabrik' had performed in Hanoi, including a new song by Vietnamese composer Kim Ngoc. The 'musikFabrik' website:
http://www.musikfabrik.eu/front_content.php?idcat=4&changelang=3
In addition to the passengers, there were about five crew members. Our guide from Handspan was named Khuong. There was the captain and several other people that managed the junk as well as cooking, serving, cleaning, etc. Everyone was kind and helpful.
We boarded the wooden junk, 'Aloha,' around noon and headed out into the bay. After being greeted with a chilled cloth and welcome drink, we checked into our cabins and then we were served lunch. The kids loved the idea of having a room all to themselves on a boat. After finishing lunch while cruising out into the bay, we were paddled to a floating, fishing village, Vung Vieng, by traditional sampan boat. We were able to see how they have a dock system with nets that allows them to farm fish. The kids were excited to feed the fish, especially the large ones that resembled sharks. They also showed us the process of implanting oysters to 'grow' pearls.
After the tour of the floating village, we went kayaking (included in tour cost). This was Ivy and Olivia's first time kayaking and one of my favorite parts of the tour. Ivy still had little energy and mostly enjoyed the ride while Sandy paddled their double kayak. Olivia was paired with me in a double kayak, energized and thrilled to paddle hard, striving to be the fastest kayak on the water.
After kayaking and returning to the junk, we went swimming off of the boat. It took some time for Olivia to get up the courage to jump off of the boat into the water. Ivy joined us by climbing down the ladder. It took a very short time for me to convince them that Sandy and I were not going to be able to 'hold them' in the water as we would sink. They are both great swimmers, but they are accustomed to swimming to us when the water is over their head. Just when they were getting comfortable and having a great time playing together on the anchor rope, Olivia was stung by a huge, white jellyfish. We had seen one while kayaking and only she had known enough to be concerned that she might be stung, a reason why it had taken her a while to warm up to jumping in. It was very traumatic to talk them through swimming to the ladder and climbing it during their panic. Ivy was not stung, but was freaked out just the same by Olivia's screams.
It pains me to recall this experience. It was comforting to have a nurse in our group. Olivia was so scared and in pain. I had been stung by jellyfish after scuba diving many years ago and I could remember the prickly, stinging pain and the comfort brought by pouring vinegar on it. During my episode, we had been warned that we might be stung as it was the right time for the jellyfish to be 'blooming.' We were told to get ourselves to the boat and there would be gallons of vinegar waiting for us to pour on our bodies and soothe the pain. There was no vinegar on our junk. They gave us one small lime to rub on her shins and tops of her feet. We were told to rinse the area with fresh water and dry with a towel, which I have since read only exacerbates the pain. They did have lidocaine to numb the area. I threw a little fit and insisted that they find some vinegar. I really wanted to feel that I had done all that I could to ease Olivia's pain. After what seemed like a very long time to Mom and also to Olivia (but may have been only a half hour), we met another boat that brought vinegar to us. I don't know if it was physical or psychological by that point, but it soothed Olivia and she calmed enough to enjoy herself again (interrupted intermittently by her painful memories). Ivy asked, "Why did this happen to Olivia? Why not me?"
We enjoyed the sun setting before a delicious, multi-course seafood dinner and then were soothed upstairs on the top deck by a moonlit sky afterwards. The kids tried fishing with poles by moonlight (without bait). They love to fish! The atmosphere was peaceful, the water so still, and the sky so big and luminous. We could hear the muffled sounds of celebration and dance music coming from the 30+ wooden junks in the vicinity. That night, Olivia decided she needed to share a cabin with Mom instead of her sister. She was sure that she would have nightmares and she did, jellyfish attacking of course!
We had fried eggs, fruit, toast, juice, coffee, and milk for breakfast. I let Olivia sleep in since she had lost some sleep during the night. Seven of the twelve passengers disembarked to a smaller boat to transfer to a Cat Ba Island resort for one night. There were just five of us left, our family and Alex, a recent college graduate from London.
We docked so that we could tour a cave, Hung Sung Sot (Surprise or Amazing Cave) on Bo Hon Island, which had been discovered by the French in 1901. It was a hike up stone steps to the cave entrance. The view of the bay populated by a myriad of junks was magnificent from this vantage point. The cave was huge with three large chambers, thousands of stalagmites and stalactites along its 500 meter paved passage. Our guide shared several myths related to the formations inside of the cave.
After returning to the boat, we showered and packed. After checking out of our cabins, we enjoyed another delectable seafood meal on our return cruise to meet our bus and drive back to Hanoi. The tour cost included everything except our drinks onboard. The refrigerated soft drinks and small water bottles were about $1 and alcoholic drinks were more expensive.
Warning: If you relish the idea of swimming off of the boat as much as I did, I recommend that you verify the availability of vinegar and also the procedures for treating jellyfish stings before going on a Halong Bay cruise! The staff shared their experiences with jellyfish stings in Halong Bay AFTER Olivia's ordeal and I easily found internet search responses to "Halong Bay jellyfish sting." By the way, we did see the jellyfish from the boat afterwards.
I purchased two ao dais (vietnamese dresses) for myself for $105 USD during our stop on the return bus trip to Hanoi. When I had attempted to have an ao dai made in Hoi An (the silk fashion center of Vietnam), they had given me a price of $280 USD (going down to $250). I found the ready-made ao dai's price more suitable for the limited number of times that I have the opportunity to wear an ao dai.
After returning to the Handspan travel office in Hanoi around 4:30 PM, we took a taxi from there to the Hanoi airport (280,000 VND = $15 USD) to catch our flight back to Saigon.
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