I got off the mororcycle in front of a hotel that was right in the heart of the high end tourist area of Hanoi, practically on the lake. And so began the tour. We gathered in the bar to meet each other and our two guides, Huang and Christoph. I discovered that I was the only single member of the group. They were 9 couples: 4 from Germany, 2 from England, 1from Brazil, 1 from New Zealand and 1from Italy but German speaking. I could also tell at a glance that I was the oldest; I discovered as the tour continued that they ranged in age from about 45 to 60. So I became a bit of a mascot for the team. The guides were very solicitous and the couples always made room for me. But I had to be careful not to impose my presence on any one couple too much. It worked out, but I will think twice before travelling alone again, especially on a tour. I've had reservations about tours since I worked for Brewsters at the Chateau Lake Louise. Being young and judgemental, I thought the people who came off the tour buses and directly to the Brewster desk to book their tour to Lake Louise, not realizing that it was a short walk across the lobby from them, were brain dead. The fact of being guided dulled my wits too. I'm a ready follower. I'm most alert when I'm alone and have to be. Even at that I don't know where I am half the time, but I have some of my best times then because I have to pay attention, and that's usually when I discover things and eventually find out where I am. At least Houang did not carry a flag or have us all wear the same coloured cap. From the beginning he brought us together by calling, "My Family" in a booming voice. That night we followed him to the Water Puppet Show, where puppets are moved around, under and over water, acting out traditional scenes originally created by rice farmers for their own entertainment. Now the shows are quite elaborate and accompanied by very skilled musicians playing traditional Vietmanese music. After that we walked together to dinner at a restaurant by the lake. A good beginning.
The next 4 days and nights were spent on a junk in Halong Bay. It was wonderful. I discovered that the landscape there is similar to that in Guilin, carst topography. The bay is a maze of pointy limestone islands. Huang said that nobody could count them but the Vietnamese say there are 1,969 because Uncle Ho died in 1969. He told us many stories, some of which were true but all of which were entertaining, except when he sometimes got carried away on long bus rides and slipped into a rant. But he was a humane, well informed and entertaining guide who conveyed to me a sense of the strong family feeling of most Vietnamese and their determination to live in peace and remain finally free of foreign domination.
The junk was an old one that had been fixed up just enough to be comfortable. The bedrooms were air conditioned but the rest of the boat was not. I was still able to take the heat a bit and didn't want to sleep in the artificial air conditioning, but the windows in my room were not made to be left open so I had to rig up a system of knee high nylons attached to the window latches and chairs so that I could have a fresh breeze off the bay at night. The crew was all young men and women, even the cook was only in his 40s. His food was not only delicious but also artistically presented. On two of the mornings different young men dressed in loose fitting white shirts and pants led us in a session of Tai Chi on the deck before breakfast. I really liked that; it confirmed my sometimes wavering commitment to continue with the classes in Vernon. The bike rides around different islands were not too difficult, I only had to walk up 3 hills pushing my bike, and I was not alone. We rode through rice fields where water buffalo were tethered and family grave sites were placed, seemingly at random. Only once did we all have to push our bikes over an area of stones that had rolled down to the path from a site where a big new highway was being constructed. We kayaked and swam on two of the days. I was the lucky loner who got to be in the bow of the guide's kayak. Halong Bay is such a maze that you really need a guide. Sometimes he would encourage me to paddle as hard as possible so we could pull ahead of the rest, aiming at a spot of light in the rock that only he knew would be a tunnel big enough to go through. Just before we entered, I would realize that we probably could make it, and then we'd break through to the other side, turn hard left and try to conceal ourselves before the others appeared. That was fun. We had a delicious shore lunch one day with fish and large shrimp, but the highlights were fries cooked in a big wok over an open fire and peanuts roasted in the same wok but without as much oil. Another highlight of the time in Halong Bay was the day on Cat Ba Island. We biked to a village of the Viet Hai minority people. Houang introduced us to a man and his wife who had both been part of the resistance during the war against the Americans. We left our bikes at their place and climbed up to the highest point on the island where you get a wonderful view of the bay and then returned to have lunch at their place and bike back to the dock where we took the tender back to the junk.
Our junk in Halong Bay
The table at one of our dinners on the junk
Boats that people live on in Halong Bay
We left the junk to take a bus to the airport near Haiphong and then flew to Da Nang where a shuttle drove us to a hotel/resort in Hoi An. According to Huang, North Vietnam is the centre of politics for the country, the central part is religion and culture and the south is the heart of commerce and agriculture. The countryside around Hoi An is beautiful and easy to bike through. We passed immaculately tended gardens and stopped at one for lunch. The owner was a chef who took us on a tour of his organically grown vegetables, herbs, cumquats and passion fruits. The latter were a highlight of my trip. I first tasted them in Guilin and either drank or ate them whenever possible after that. Later he showed us how to make some dishes which we later ate. Hoi An itself has been recognized by UNESCO. It's a fascinating old town with a fairly large, distinctly Chinese section separated by an old covered bridge from a Japanese neighbourhood. The huge open market is wonderful to walk through in the early morning. From Hoi An, we took a bus back through Da Nang, stopping to walk the long beach where the Americans first landed and to climb around the Cloud Pass which used to mark the border between North and South Vietnam. We spent the next two days in Hue visiting pagodas, which Huang told us have seven stories and house many spirits, and the citadel of the Nguyễn Dynasty. It was in Hue in 1963 that a Buddhist monk burned himself as a protest against the S. Vietnamese Diem government's treatment of Buddhists. Diem, his brother and brother's wife were practicing Catholics. Consequently, it was the place where Buddhists took there revenge in 1968, killing many Catholics after the Viet Cong had pushed south and before the South could push back. I could tell by the way Huang told this story that it was a very dark moment in the history of Vietnam. We had a really good bike ride around Hue one day, returning in rush hour to ride our bikes through the crush of motorcycles. I made sure that I stuck to Huang like Velcro for that part of the trip.