TUESDAY AND A TRIP AROUND THE BAY

Tuesday posted Thursday

The throb of the engines have altered just slightly and there will soon be the sound of chains sliding against metal as the anchor breaks the water. We are at rest for the night now and can just make out the shapes of other boats as their sounds drift across the water of Ha long Bay. This is a vast areas of water with some one thousand nine hundred rocky outcrops that appear to drive through the water like icebergs. 

We had boarded out boat at lunchtime and lunch itself was a delicious selection of fish. Ha Long Bay is a  World Heritage Site. Our boat makes its slow passage through this scenery of jagged near-vertical rock ‘teeth’ covered for the most part in trees and scrub. Rather like the backcloth of a child’s puppet theatre, the view changes constantly. 

After a while our boat pulled up and emptied us (we think there are twenty or so in our group) into a smaller boat whence, all life jacketed, we were ferried to one of the fishing villages that are situated in Ha long Bay.

Each village is collection of single storey dwellings on pontoons, which are strung together. Once deposited on the main pontoon we were ushered, four to a boat and then in convoy set off. 

Each boat with its highly expert female oars person, took us around this water village and closer to the sheer cliffs. 

We left the village of Ba Hang and were back on board the mother ship for a welcome drink of red wine and dragon fruit.

Soon after the sun set, spilling pink and gamboge light across this huge peaceful mill pond with its cliffs getting darker still, bird cry stops and the light is turned out.

On board a boat somewhere a dog barks and the sound of our fellow passengers just permeates our cabin.