Atlantis

I have been especially excited for this part of our trip. Truly unique, Halong Bay (in Vietnamese: Descending Dragon) is located a few hours drive from Hanoi, and sits on the North East coast of Vietnam. Trying to keep things on a tight budget, we gave this one a bit more leeway on cost and booked a top-end cruise for 3 days and 2 nights. It was worth every penny (or Dong – Vietnamese currency).

All aboard

We sailed with Indochina Junk Cruises (Junk being the style of boat, not the rubbish) on their Dragon Pearl I boat, and were part of a company of 19 guests; made up of Americans, Australians, Brits (and expats), Malay and Thai and hosted by ‘Sunny’ our English speaking guide for the trip. One couple from Birmingham were on their honeymoon, and if any of you are thinking of a destination for your own, then I can hands down recommend this tour.

Fishing in the hills 

The landscape is surreal. It’s like the mythical Atlantis had surfaced in the Vietnamese sea. There were hills and villages…surrounded by water. You sail between colossal mounds of rock and herbage that lounging on the water like a gigantic pod of stone whales. And within this landscape are floating villages of fishermen and their families who live here all year round. Children are raised, educated and in turn pick up the trade of their parents. They have the opportunity to go to the mainland for further education but the majority choose to stay in their water-borne homes. It truly is a life like no other.

Teach them young

We were given a boat tour around one such village of 300 residents, which included an oyster farm (and shop) and got to see the dental like operation of inserting a bead like ‘irritant’ into the oyster. The oyster is then grown for 3 years to enable it to form the pearl layers around the irritant, however only 10% of the shells produce jewellery worthy pearls, 20-30% are poorly shaped and thus used for other uses (decorative/medical etc.) and the remaining don’t produce anything.

Begning the pearl making process

One they prepared (3 years) earlier

During our trip we also go to do a bit of sea kayaking, swimming, beach football (well me, an ex-professional American singer and the crew did), squid fishing (or failing on my part) and eating some of the tastiest seafood on the deck of the boat and having a barbeque in a cave. Fun times. Essentially, it was a great opportunity to relax far away from the hustle and bustle of land life.