Ha Long Bay
Our 3rd day in Vietnam started early with a drive to the Gulf of Tonkin and the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ha Long Bay. We traveled on a modern superhighway with very light traffic after leaving Hanoi metro. Our journey got a glimpse of life outside of the big city, but we were promised a return trip via an older road that would take us into the countryside.
We drove past the massive port city of Hai Phong and onto Ha
Long city. We stopped at a place where
they seed oysters for making pearls. We
got to observe the entire process from making a catalyst membrane from another
oyster and the “seed” which is from mother of pearl. We then watched them implant the membrane and
seed and finally the extraction of the pearl.
We were told that pearls grow in about one of three oysters that are seeded
and only 20% of those produce a jewelry quality pearl. That means only 6-7 pearls per 100 oysters
seeded.
Nothing is wasted.
The meat is used for food, the imperfect pearls are ground up and used
in cosmetics and the shells are used for a variety of decorative purposes or used
to create more seeds. We walked through a massive pearl jewelry mart, but were
not tempted as the prices were 4x to 5x higher than we have paid in Manilla.
On to the marina! We
had a one-night cruise booked aboard a 24-cabin ship, the Peony 2. We took a tender from the marina about 25
minutes out to where it was anchored in the bay. There is no way I can provide justice to the
beauty of this bay. Legend has it that
when Mongol invaders came to Vietnam, dragons dropped pearls into the bay that
sprouted as teeth and formed a barrier that protected Vietnam. Ha Long means descending dragons. The bay features 1,969 limestone
outcroppings. These typically rise in
elevation from 150 to 300 feet. Formed
100’s of millions of years ago from sediment from aquatic life, plate tectonics
has pushed these above sea level and then erosion has created the weathered
crags.
I've tried to keep many of the boats out of these pictures, but every day, as many as 600 boats like ours do overnight or day cruises in the bay. Many, like ours, were built to replicate the fleets of early 20th century.
Our room aboard was the largest cabin I’ve ever stayed in
aboard a ship. We had a king sized bed
with plenty of walking room all around,
a bay window couch, a huge bathroom with a soaking tub and a delightful balcony
with mahogany chairs and table. We
mainly stayed in our cabin, as the dining room and activities were on the upper
decks, but the crew brought us four wonderful meals during our brief stay.
Our ship's sister, the Peony 1 
Our spacious cabin
Our ride back to the Hanoi airport went an alternate route…kind
of like taking highway 99 instead of I-5.
We drove directly through many small towns, saw rice fields and water
buffalo, but also many signs of the burgeoning Vietnamese economy – including the
largest Samsung factory on the planet.
On our ride back, we stopped at a facility where people impacted
by Agent Orange are taught traditional Vietnamese art forms: eggshell painting, lacquer painting, silk
embroidery, limestone carving. We toured the factory and purchased an
embroidered piece of Ha Long bay. We
were saddened to hear that the affects of Agent Orange continue on. Those directly impacted during the war have passed
on defective genes, so that children and grandchildren are still being born
with birth defects. About 3 million
Vietnamese are impacted (3% of the population).
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| Entrance to the workshop guarded by limestone carvings created on site |
We said good bye to Phil and Hao at the airport and headed for Seam Reap, Cambodia – the next leg of our journey.
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