A Fake Tour?

For all those years and months I spent dreaming about my travels and planning where I'd go I'd always thought of one place when I'd picture Vietnam: Halong Bay. For those of you who haven't been (and for those who didn't watch the Top Gear Vietnam special!!) Halong Bay is a collection of nearly 2000 limestone islands and islets off the Northeast coast of Vietnam where pillars of rock steeply protrude out of the water creating an almost mythical quality to the area's outstanding beauty. Any visitor to the area must comb their way through the multitude of tour groups and travel agencies to avoid getting a 'fake' tour; companies in Asia don't often strive for originality, instead copying whoever is doing best at that time resulting in ten hostels in one city with the same name, restaurants with identical signs right next door to each other and an awful lot of confused travellers scratching their heads whilst standing in the street scrutinising their Google Maps apps. We'd been recommended the three day 'Castaway Tour' by many people our age along the way and scoured the streets of Hanoi for what we were sure was the real deal. We took a bus from the capital to Halong city where we boarded a boat and headed straight for a limestone cave inside one of the islands that make up the UNESCO world heritage site. Our guide didn't explain the cave to us very thoroughly so we proceeded to make up wild stories about its possible history, much to the amusement of other groups who overheard!

When we arrived the mountains were shrouded in mist which only added to the mystical atmosphere.

We kayaked through a tiny eroded archway in the rock and into an echoey, secluded cove; it was flanked by giant pillars which were peppered with trees.

On our first night we had a lesson on how to make spring rolls. In fact, we were informed by our tour guide, Jeff, that Vietnamese men look for good spring roll-making skills when choosing a wife!

Halong bay is a popular tourist attraction however the uninhabitable shape of most of the mountains means that the majority of it remains untouched.

The next morning we were woken up early by Jeff who announced he had a day full of activities planned for us. Let me paint a picture for you - we'd had a free bar for three hours the night before, we'd had only a few hours sleep, we were hungover....we did not feel like activities. Nevertheless we dragged our weary bodies out of the boat and to a pearl farm. There we saw oysters being gently cut open and stuffed with tiny white objects or 'irritants', nobody offered us an explanation as to why they were doing this but we later found out (thank you, Google) that the pearl is formed as the oyster tries to protect itself by forming layers of nacre over the foreign object and cultured pearls only have about a 10% success rate. Next on the agenda was a four mile bike ride and I could almost hear the mass *groan* from everybody however this turned out to be incredible!

It was fascinating to watch the oysters being cut open however we left the farm with more questions than when we arrived.

We biked around an island past mountain goats perched on imperceptible ledges, rice paddies, wild puppies and tunnels. 

What a great way to clear out all the cobwebs!

Halong translates as 'descending dragon' and the legend is that a mountain dragon created the bay with its tail.

Finally, we were taken to 'Monkey Island' to do some rock climbing. Yes, this paragraph is somethingaboutmonkeys! Wahey! I had one flip flop on and one trainer (a cunning footwear plan designed to allow one foot to get wet and the other to climb over sharp rocks) and as I was posing for a photo on a high part of rock a monkey came along and swiftly grabbed the bag I had with the other two shoes in; luckily I was able to snatch it off him and run away otherwise I'd have been stuck with my strange choice of footwear for a while! That evening we docked at Cat Ba island, a large, inhabited island, where we stayed for the night before heading back the next morning. The trip was lacking a bit of information and organisation here and there (at one point the boat drove away from an island leaving two people behind accidentally...) so we can only speculate as to whether we got a 'fake' Castaway tour or not. That aside we had an unforgettable three days and who can complain when you're surrounded by such incredible scenery?!

Scaling the side of the cliff.

Something about monkeys following you (check out who's lurking in the background of this photo).

Our climb was rewarded with amazing views - we plonked ourselves down at the top and had one of those completely contented moments you only really get when surrounded by breathtaking scenery.

Our boat passed a fishing village, these people live and work on these floating platforms which are loosely arranged into streets and some even have pet dogs.