Day Seven : Around Ha Long

Karsts to the right of us, karsts to the left of us ...

 


Ha Long baby,
Ha Long must I wait?
Can I get you now,
Or must I hesi-tate ...

--JJ and the Red River Rockers

(For those of you who think the lyrics farfetched, be advised that I scratched my idea for "Hue down Upon the Perfume River" when I discovered that popular singer Pham Duy had beaten me to it some 35 years earlier.)

Our scheduled boat ride around the bay almost ended before it began, as a fierce squall blew in, driving everyone off the piers and causing the vendors to unfurl sheets of plastic over their stands. The winds were so strong that we were thinking typhoon or a day-long monsoon, but it petered out after 40 minutes and we left the safety of the bus for the vagaries of the waves.

The boat was a comfortable seasoned wooden tub, the passenger cabin ringed with windows, so we didn't have to miss any of the scenery because of the weather. The sky cleared nicely as we went along, past rows and rows of those curious limestone karsts poking up from the sea floor. As it grew warmer and more humid, we slid the window sashes up to let the air circulate. When we lost sight of the harbor and land, we had no way to tell where we were in a wilderness of several hundred islands.

As we made our way through the bounding main, we were buzzed by the occasional motorized sampan with coral for sale. Being the eco-sensitive type of tourist, though, we refrained from purchasing any of the subaquatic infrastructure. Not too long ago, these approaches would have been alarming -- before the government cracked down, robber/pirates commonly overhauled tourist boats in the bay.

Of more interest was the one boat that approached us with live fish, crabs, and squid for sale. The sea creatures were scooped out of a live well into ceramic bowls for our inspection. A few of the squid and at least one of the fish were swiftly added to the menu.


We docked at one island that had an enormous cave on a par with the one we had visited in China. It was similarly adorned with colored lights to enhance and highlight the imagined animus in the rock formations. From the deck at the entrance, we could see far, far below a raised platform with chairs and what looked like a bar for refreshments. This was promptly dubbed "The Hard Karst Cafe." (Inspired by the REI literature, which used the term "Karsts" without temperance or mercy, the group had vowed to include the word in every sentence that day.)

I struck up a conversation with a tourist next to me, who had been speaking a German dialect that was familiar to me. As I had suspected, it was Switzedeutsch, and she related in excellent English that she was from Basel, my mother's home town. In addition to the inevitable Chinese and the ubiquitous German travelers, we also passed visitors from places as disparate as Malaysia and France. It was easy to exchange greetings or just eavesdrop on the tour guides because the common tongue seemed again to be English.

One of the things that we discovered, overhearing the other guided parties, was that one of these caves was reputed to have been used to hide the wooden stakes used to repel Kublai Khan's invaders in the 13th Century. The story has it that the stakes were planted at the river mouth, so that when the tide went out, the Mongol warships were skewered and unable to retreat.

 


BUSINESS CARD FOR ONE JOHN JENNINGS, ESQ:

Specialty Advertising Sales / Media Advertising Sales / Non-Media Sales / Photography / Video Productions / Real Estate / General Contractor / International Hot Air Balloon Pilot / Cameron Hot Air Balloon Dealer / Bar Manager / Short Order Cook / Liquor Store Operator / Sweepstakes Winner / Red Neck Humorist / Pimp / American and Foreign Gigolo / Soviet Negotiator & Ambassador / Escort Service / Borderline Legal Dope Pusher / Crown Prince of Tutwiler in exile / Arbitrator / Mediator / Gladiator / Agitator / Endurance Record Holder / Member-Curb Service Rock & Roll Band / and God's Gift to Women


 

From the cave karst we trolled over to a small bay where we anchored for lunch. Again, it was brought to us in an ostentatious series of courses, one of which was the squid that we had picked up along the way. The luncheon course provided further opportunity for banter and learning about the peculiar avocations and adventures of our Southern travelers. (While I must count myself a southerner, I felt it necessary to defer to the richer pedigree -- and accents -- of the gentlemen from Mississippi.)

And what adventures they were -- Johnny and Richard shared a passion for hot air ballooning that had carried them to places as distant as the Soviet Union. Johnny wore many hats in Greenwood, as a member of the town council, the host of his own cable channel, and leader of a rock and roll band, among other things. (By his own testimony, we might add doting father and bon vivant.)

To our dismay, as lunch progressed a sampan carrying a mere two pieces of coral pulled up alongside. The coral was a pretext for some high-powered begging, as the woman successfully climbed over the gunwale and began her pitch through the window.

So our merry band of low-rent adventure travelers suddenly found themselves wealthy tourists conspicuously consuming a meal that could have fed a flotilla of sampans. Johnny tried to distribute some portion of our courses, but there was no convenient way to do so, as all the containers were porcelain and belonged with our boat. As the meal wound down, the boat revved up for a swift escape, but to our even greater dismay, the woman on the sampan managed to tether fast to our railing. So she was along for the ride to the next island, which had a small beach and cordoned-off swimming area.

My shorts were the quick-drying synthetic kind, a perfectly acceptable bathing suit, so I didn't need to change. We had tied up to another tour boat, and had to cross through its cabin to get to the dock. Once ashore, Johnny was intercepted by another posse of children selling bric-a-brac. He allowed as how he was out of small bills, but he still had been successfully engaged. I saw a woman on a sampan back by the dock signaling to another child on the pier to our left to close distance with the American benefactor.

I took my shirt and shoes off and went into the water. It was warm like bath water and nearly as calm. Ha Long Dong was enjoying himself, freed from worry over his charges.

"They've ambushed Johnny," I said, nodding towards the beach."

"I don't think it's good to give them money," he said doubtfully. It wasn't the sort of thing anyone could sound sure about. But I was feeling more comfortable with the observation that this was not a question of survival. It was a job like any other, and perhaps more lucrative than many, if you had the right skill set.

The rest of the cruise went smoothly, passing from crag to crag. Sailing through a cluster of islands, we came to a restaurant floating on the water. Several dogs ran out onto the pier, barking and frolicing. It occured to me that these were probably not watch dogs but part of the dinner menu.

When I mentioned this, Bee became involved in a conversation with Dong about dog meat. At first Dong tried to distance himself from the subject, perhaps knowing something of the Western sentiment towards dogs. But when Bee said that she'd like to try it, his face brightened in a peculiar way. He said that that was something that could be arranged, though I had the feeling that it probably would not come to pass.

Johnny and I spent a little time on the upper deck, standing in front of what I guess you could call the bridge. The deck had a couple of potted plants, giving it a bit of a domestic touch. The atmosphere was darkening; the sky clouding over. When rain drops came splattering, we headed downstairs. It was a light rain but enough to drive the fishing sampans to the shelter of some overhangs in the karsts.

 


Music being one of my principal interests, I was very glad to finally hear some of the traditional music of Vietnam. The t'rung is one of the more popular instruments -- we might refer to as a xylophone, though it is made of hollow bamboo rather than slats of wood. Because of its distinctive appearance -- a curved "ladder" with narrowing rungs -- small versions of the t'rung are a popular tourist item.

That night we were bussed elsewhere for dinner, with the promise of traditional music. When we walked into the restaurant, I was somewhat concerned by the Yamaha keyboard in the middle of zithers and xylophones (t'rung). Synthetic devices usually do not augur well, but the ensemble stuck for the most part to the traditional acoustic instruments. The opening song had a bit of pop inflection, but the rest of the tunes seemed closer to the folk style. After a brief set, maybe a half an hour, the performers started packing up and headed off to their new gig. I tried to get some information from Dong about recordings in that vein, but he wasn't in the least interested.

 


Charles, Stephanie, and Richard cybersurfing at the "Emotions" cafe in Ha Long.

 

The evening ended for several of us back at the Emotions cybercafe, listening to "King of the Road" and checking my Web site at work to see if the new directory of low-income schools had been posted. When I saw that it had not, I fired off an e:mail demanding an explanation. Then I thought I 'd try an experiment to see if there was any filtering software in place -- I typed in "Free Tibet" and connected to that Web site with no difficulty.

It was another languid stroll back to the hotel, past candlelit open cafes and the occasional group sitting in a circle cooking dinner on the sidewalk. There were a half-dozen darkened places along the way with signs proclaiming "Karaoke" outside, but it seemed that the business was so unlikely that none of them would have enough patrons to have both performers and an audience. As it seemed elsewhere in this service economy, there were simply too many shopkeepers chasing too little dong.

There was also a discreet sign or maybe two advertising "Thai massage," a code phrase that means exactly what you would think throughout Asia. But the promenade was quite understated and pleasant, not nearly the tawdry spectacle promised by the Lonely Planet guide. (Which likely referred to another part of Ha Long.)

 


| Getting There | 1 >To Nanning | 2 >Around Nanning | 3 >To Fengcheng | 4 >Border Crossing |
5 >To Tien Yen | 6 > To Ha Long Bay | 7 > Ha Long Bay | 8 >To Sau Do | 9 >To Hanoi | 10 > Around Hanoi | 11 > Leaving Hanoi | Notes & Sources