Woolly says – I’d been up for hours with my trunk pressed against the window praying for the rain to stop, as each droplet fell I sighed, this wasn’t the weather we wanted for the day, I sighed again.
I felt like joining in with the sighing but as the weather wasn’t going to change there was no point in letting it dampen our spirits, having handed my small friend a snack we climbed onto our mini bus and set off.
Woolly says – The days adventures included a guided tour, not our usual thing but having tried to work out the details of the trip on our own it had been cheaper to book with a company. I sat watching the traffic stream past and counting the raindrops on the vans window, there were a lot of them. As more and more people climbed on board we finally reached capacity and left the city behind us. The journey to the coast gave me a chance to look at life in Vietnam, paddy fields seemed to be the focus of agricultural life whilst the houses were thin and tall, cheaper to build up than buy more land. As we arrived at our comfort stop the drizzle had stopped leaving us with a grey sky, not great for pictures, I sighed again, Jo gave me another snack, I wondered if she was giving me a snack for each and every sigh or whether I had to sigh a set number of times before receiving my next one!
Anything to stop the sighing was my method for the day!
Woolly says – The bus set off and after several hours of relentless rice fields we finally seemed to have arrived. Pulling into the marina our guide disappeared while we all climbed out and stretched our paws, holding our tickets aloft he reappeared and led us onto our vessel for the day, Violet. Violet was a fine boat and once filled with our tour group plus another one she set off into the green waters, I looked at the clouds and sighed again, lunch arrived, I seem to have sighing down to a fine art! Lunch was a feast and to be fair would have lasted even me for several days, with plates of tofu, spring rolls, noodles, rice, cabbage, bread rolls and chips I could hardly move from the table let alone climb the steps onto Violets viewing deck. It might be grey and cloudy, but it was a spectacular place to be, Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various shapes and sizes. Covering an area of around 1553 km2 with around 1960 islets, most of which are limestone. As the first of the rock formations came into view I delighted in the beauty of the place, some small some large we cruised past one after another, Jo snapped away keeping her fingers crossed that we would get some decent shots even with the bad light.
I was doing my best but knew that nothing I could take would look as wonderful as the pictures I had seen online, I tried different filters for better light but wasn’t hopeful.
Woolly says – The rest of our tour were a friendly bunch and I sat admiring the view and chatting to a group of young New Zealand lads about our travels, it was most pleasant drifting along with the prehistoric formations and good company. Being a guided tour there was no chance of just sitting and enjoying the scenery and as we pulled into one of the larger islands and dismounted we duly followed our guide into an immense cave. Sung Sot or Surprise Grotto is on Bo Hon Island and is one of the widest grottoes of Ha Long Bay, it had been used for shelter during the war as well as a hospital which given its walls was a great place to stay safe. Inside was lit with a variety of small lights to highlight the stalactites and the pathway, it was cavernous and not the most peaceful of places, but given the number of tour groups chatting away that was hardly surprizing. The whole of Halong Bay seemed to be filled with boats all following each other in fact I’ve seen the M6 with less traffic! The cave itself has some lovely formations and shapes but compared to some we have seen over the years it wasn’t the highlight of the trip. Having been herded round like sheep (no offence to my bestie Sion) we blinked in the light as we arrived back outside again, Violet had gone and I wondered how we were going to leave when Jo having surveyed the areas around the bay spotted her in the distance at the end of a long winding wooden pathway, we set off towards her.
Having boarded our ship we had a short journey to our next activity and one that I was really looking forward to, I wasn’t sure how the small one in our party was feeling about it though.
Woolly says – Kayaking wasn’t something I had ever contemplated before and I had the dilemma of possibly getting wet or more than probably missing something great, it was a hard decision and having ignored Jo’s suggestion of putting me in a plastic bag to keep me dry I mammothed up and followed the women towards the small plastic tubs that bobbed on the water. Zoe climbed in first and having sat down announced that she had sat in a large puddle of water, as I gingerly climbed in I realised that avoiding water wasn’t going to happen and as Jo told me to sit down before we all fell in I hastily plonked my bottom onto the nearest point and felt a wetness start to soak onto my fur, I squeaked in dismay but rather than comforting me Jo told me to sit properly or get off and before I had a chance to made a decision the paddles were swishing past my ears and we were paddling under a rocky bridge.
Having navigated our way past the many boats and other kayaks we found ourselves in a large open area surrounded by immense rocks, monkeys played on the side of the water and once we had paddled away from the rest of the tourists we stowed our oars for a while and just enjoyed the peace, quiet and view.
Woolly says – It was rather lovely and so nice to be away from people even if only for a few minutes. The women seemed quite adept with the paddles, so I left them to it and sat admiring the tall rocks that surrounded us, all to soon we arrived back at Violet and set off for our next destination.
Ti Top Island got its name from the astronaut, Ghermann Titov, a former Soviet Union hero in the second World War. As Violet fought to dock with the thirty of so other boats it didn’t live up to my drams of being a deserted tropical island, it was teeming with people. Jumping off our vessel we queued to get through the barrier and onto the white sand, I looked around at the tourists paddling and swimming in the sea and lying on the beach, it reminded me of a seal colony with the amount of bodies. There was a viewing point that our guide had told us about but having only twenty minutes to climb up and down it seemed like a bit of a hike so having found a few inches of beach to sit on we licked at ice creams and people watched.
It didn’t take long for us to grow bored and having tried to clean as much ice cream off the mammoth as possible we walked the short distance back to the docking area only to find that Violet had gone.
Woolly says – I panicked and frantically searched for Violet along the rocky outcrop, the thought of being stranded on this island was too much to bear, plus I had already consumed the last pistachio ice cream they had available, so food rations would be finished before it became dark. Just as I was considering boarding another boat and stowing away our trusty vessel came towards us and I leapt on board in delight. We set off to cruise back towards the marina, the light had changed but it was still grey and gave the magnificent rocks a slightly ghostly feel as we sailed past, if the sun was out it would be one of the most spectacular places in the world, maybe we can come back on a sunny day!
