Day 2: Hanoi to Halong Bay

Perhaps a map might be needed at this point. We have been in Hanoi with a trip today east to Halong Bay near Hai Phong on the map, then for coming days, we are heading north-west on the train to Lao Cai and Sapa to visit the Hmong tribes up in the highlands of Vietnam. Then a flight to Hue in Central Vietnam followed by a roadie to Hoi An and a further flight south to Saigon or HCM City. More later.

Back to today's activities. It's a long bus trip (well, 3 hours) to Halong Bay, but anticipation is high.

Streetscapes in Hanoi vary considerably. The only constant with housing is that space is clearly a premium. There were pockets of what we would call poverty, but the residents seem happy and cheerful.

Large rivers are around Hanoi and there are numerous bridges over the flood plains and rivers. Also, the sands and gravels from the floodplains are great sources for building materials in the cities.

As we moved further from the city, more crops became apparent, mainly rice but some fruits and vegetables as well.

Typically most of the roadside is fronted by buildings (shops, markets and houses) with intensive agriculture behind the buildings on every available piece of land. Nothing is wasted.

Further to this point, many buildings are multi storey, presumably to preserve agricultural land.

As we travelled east towards the coast, the distinctive shape of the Halong Bay Islands became apparent on the horizon.  There is massive infrastructure spending occurring in the region with highway development, and the reason became all too clear when we got to Halong Bay and saw the massive scale of tourism in the area.

The massive foreshore development includes large hotels and resorts as well as marinas and associated piers etc. The bus-parking bay and bus-park was too large to photograph with tens and tens of buses (perhaps 'hundreds' is not an exaggeration).  The scale was mind-boggling .... and one hopes that the goose laying the multiple golden eggs is not in imminent danger.  Anyway, enough introspection! So onwards with the holiday.

The boat, the good ship Pelican, on which we will cruise for the next 20-22 hours or so.









The dining room is fitted out in dark timber and the bedrooms (probably should be called something a little more nautical, like 'cabins') are quite comfortable. 

The upper deck is well set up for relaxing with a quiet drink or two.



Rather spacious for a boat cabin.



There were two large tenders dragged along behind the cruise-boat. These were for transferring passengers from the ship to onshore activities....

.... such as a gentle hike up very steep steps to a lookout at the top of Ti-Top island.










In climbing to the top, we believe there were about 430 steps (which equates to about 25 'storeys' or flights) with dodgy handrails and a few impatient travellers intent on overtaking at the least opportune times. But exhilarating nevertheless.





Cruise boats everywhere. I thought I heard there are possibly about 4000 cruise craft in this area.  The number is feasible, but not verifiable.












Back on the craft for a visit to the local Pearl Farm for some, while others went for a paddle on hired kayaks.



The pre-dinner entertainment was a cooking class on making spring rolls. The memorable part, undoubtedly, was the crew-member as our host (her name was Tam, I think) who had us in stitches over the three types of onion in Vietnam, white, green and orange. She maintained her deadpan look as one guest commented... "Looks like carrot, smells like carrot, tastes like carrot" etc