Journey to Ha Long Bay

As expected I slept until 2 AM and then was wide awake, not even close to being adjusted to the current time. Around 6 AM I showered, packed and headed down to the lobby where I found an English version of the Vietnamese paper. This was a great read, wow, according to the Vietnamese government everything was great in the world, it was actually quite uplifting. Unlike our own news where when San Diego receives a single drop of rain and all the news channels have special logos and graphics detailing Storm Survival 2007 and how all of California is now under water. This morning was my first introduction to Vietnamese coffee. It’s extremely strong and thick, and I’m from Seattle. It’s a very slow brewing process, in fact they bring you a cup with this little thing sitting on top of it that contains more coffee grounds then you would use for an entire pot, and you wait as it slowly drips and gives you a morning cup. It’s almost chocolate, and only luke warm as you had to wait so long for it to finish, but I soon grew to love it. After a while my ride arrived to take me to the docks. This would be a 3+ hour ride, it’s not that it is far away, its more that the roads don’t really allow you to go very fast, crowded and in poor condition. Once I got there it was total chaos, there are thousands of people trying to find one of hundreds of boats. The background was filled with horns and Vietnamese jibber-jabber. I showed some official looking guy my ticket and he asked for my passport, which he took. He showed me to a smaller boat and said it would take me to the boat I booked and that the captain would have my passport after he checked me in. I was now greatly concerned as he left me sitting in a small boat without my passport and the bay was filled with ships that all looked the same. The captain of the smaller boat spoke no English and was constantly bouncing the boat off of other boats in the crowded bay as he made his way out.


It took me two tries before I was able to get to the boat that had me on their passenger list. Is this the right one? Nope…


But I finally made it to the correct one, now where is this captain with my passport? It would not be until we were way out in the maze of limestone islands before he came around and gave my passport back, man what a great feeling that was, and man it’s still hot here. These are very old boats and very awesome, hand carved furniture, beautiful wood floors, amazing plants in hand painted pots, and thousand year old engines, it was great, it really brought you back in time and gave you a feel for the past. My cabin, one of six, as we had 10 passengers and 4 crew.


The boat and my home for the next two and a half days.






The boats are hard to sail with limited visibility and anytime we went close to anything to go to shore we had to take the bamboo boat. Literally a boat woven from bamboo that was “water sealed” with some kind of tree sap, however it often required manual draining with buckets to remove the water that seeped in.


The limited view for the captain. The deck he looked out on was cluttered with the sail and chairs so I don’t know how he ever saw anything.


But we managed to leave the bay along with a bunch of other boats and then we all split off heading in different directions.




And as always, flying the communist flag.


I can’t believe how lucky I am to get to experience this, sailing aboard an old ship like this, it’s just magical and fills you with emotion. The ship, the scenery, the moment, it can’t really be captured with words or images, you need to make this journey.


Our first stop was Sung Sot cave, these limestone formations are filled with caves, everyone more amazing then the last.






Once you got to the top of the cave an out of it you could see the Cap De Islet, a kind of lake that was totally enclosed by the rock formations.


We then moved on to this Temple high a top one of the mountains.


A few hours later we would see another one of these. We asked the one English speaking crew member if it was the same place and he said “No”. But it looked too familiar for me and I got out my video camera to review earlier footage. I was convinced it was the same one, and after some pressing, the English speaking crew member smiled and said “Sometimes captain gets lost too”. We had gotten lost in this seemingly endless maze of limestone islands and made a circle, the GPS salesperson has not made it out this way yet I guess. But it did not matter to any of us, the beauty of this place captured the very essence of us and we treasured every second our eyes could absorb it. Who could ever believe such a place could actually exist and that Mother Nature could create such a reality.

The food on this trip was the best ever, and how could it not be, they caught everything fresh, using fishing poles during the day.


And at night using spot lights to attract and catch squid. I enjoy seafood, but have never before experienced it. This was real, no fancy restaurant sauce here to hide the flavor, you tasted fish and it was great, maybe because of where I was, maybe because of the people I was with, or maybe just because this was how man was meant eat and live.

How else could another amazing day end then with an amazing sunset, here, miles away from everything the whole world suddenly makes sense and you find peace and understanding like you have never experienced before.








This is very hard for me to put in to language but that night I experienced the unreal. My fellow passengers and I sat around playing cards and drinking a beer or two, talking in to the late hours of the night, sharing our experiences and ultimately our lives with each other. We represented Cuba, Germany, Malaysia, Vietnam, and of course America. As an American we see the world as us and then everyone else, where everyone else just sees the entire world, so to them it was not as powerful as it was to me. Americans are closed and seem to believe that we are better than everyone else, we are not. We really need to travel more and see that there is a whole world out there, and that the people in this world are in a lot of ways just like us. I had no idea how poisoned I was by our government and media. I thought Cuba was a bad place that we as Americas are forbidden to visit or even purchase merchandise from. But that all changed tonight as I now saw Cuba just as my fellow travelers did from outside the US. We are from different backgrounds, bought up under different leaderships, yet we are all the same, sharing the same values, searching for the same things. Which leads me to believe that if we just got rid of the government bullshit this world would be a more peaceful place. As our conversation continued I found out that the girls from Malaysia had been scuba diving the same sites I had in Australia off the Great Barrier Reef, Cod hole, the Pinnacle, etc, and was amazed how we all remembered the same things we saw. I hate to keep saying this but tonight's experience is something I cannot explain, you have to experience it for yourself. The hour was late and it was soon time for bed, it took while but finally the rolling waters rocked me to sleep.