An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
Wow, this place is brighter in the morning than our tents in Africa! The breakfast buffet was a bit strange — it was in their large auditorium (with big, closed purple curtains) but we were the only ones there. In fact, we think we may be just about the only ones at this hotel.
We set off for the dock, and boarded our very nice (or so they said) boat. It wasn’t exactly the Sea Goddess, but the seats (couches, actually) were padded (the toilet was interesting, though — it was a regular bowl, but when you peered into it you just saw the bay below!). We motored quietly and slowly away, stopping after 30 minutes or so at the first large limestone “island” to get out and explore a cave. As it was low tide, we had to take a smaller boat up to a long rocky walkway to the entrance. The cave itself was enormous and beautiful, with the usual panoply of bizarre shapes and drippings. We walked back through a few cavernous rooms, appreciating them as well as the sight in the distance of the light pouring in the entrance. Then back in the boat to explore the bay.
What a magical place!! The bay covers about 1,000 square miles and contains over 2,000 “islands” (or “karsts”) sitting in the emerald green water. The islands are all made of gray limestone, most are several hundred feet high and range in size from a few hundred feet wide to a few thousand, some are covered with trees, and some are completely nude, a few also have areas eroded away along the bottom where they rest in the water, resulting in extraterrestial-ship looking shapes. As we cruised around and between, there were always these huge karsts rising up all around and appearing off in the distance like an endless, craggy, miniature mountain range. It was also blissfully quiet, as we were about the only tourist boat among the few tiny local fishing boats (some of which would pull up alongside us, attach themselves to our boat with ropes and try to sell the live seafood they’d caught and had swimming around in big plastic bowls on their decks). Clearly, this is one of the most fascinating and beautiful places on the planet, all the more so for how unexploited it is at the present.
After a few hours of peaceful amazement, we stopped at another, much smaller, cave. This one was easily accessible, and we woke up the ticket sellers and went in. Wendy even did some cave-tunnel crawling, as we emerged high up on one of the karsts and had a great panoramic view of the bay and of an enclosed deep green lagoon. We then returned to the boat to find a table set for two and another fabulous seafood feast. As we enjoyed the delicious fish, squid, crab, shrimp and spring rolls, the boat chugged along through the wonderland.
A few more hours, and we docked at the fishing village/market area of town. Milton and Cheung got off the boat to sightsee, while Wendy relaxed and read on deck (the english language Vietnam News), appreciating the milder temperatures as opposed to the heat and humidity we’ve been living in. The market was sprawling, with, not surprisingly, endless vendors of many different types of fresh and dried seafood. There was also lots of fresh produce, but not a huge variety. We also saw women putting handfuls of small crabs into meat grinders which they were cranking to get some greenish goulash-looking substance; evidently, these are smaller crabs found in the rice-paddies, and they grind them up, shells and all, to make crab soup. We bought some Jinnys (the local M & Ms) and headed back home.
We docked around 4:30 and were happy to relax in the hotel room, the fresh sea air, grand lunch, and lulling motion of the boat combining to make us both need naps. We spent the evening reading and watching “”Dumb and Dumber” (which is what we felt like for actually having watched it!) which was just the sort of vintage Americana we needed after these past few weeks.