The Wanderlust voyages of a Laura: Climbing and Kayaking in Lan Ha Bay

On March 8th, I hopped on a bus which took me to a boat, that took me to another bus, that dropped me off on Cat Ba Island on the northeastern coast of Vietnam. This island is the jumping off point for a huge number of boat cruise outfits that take you around the most popular tourist destination in Vietnam: Ha Long Bay. What makes the bay so popular are the thousands of limestone karsts of various shapes and sizes covered in tropical flora that jut out of the water, creating a beautiful, otherworldly seascape. The name Ha Long Bay translates as "Descending Dragon Bay". According to local legend, the rocks were formed long ago when Vietnam was just developing into a country. In order to help defend it from Chinese invaders, the Gods sent down a family of dragons who began spewing out jewels, pearls, and jade, forming great islands that stopped the invading ships. Once the country was safe, the dragon family decided to remain on Earth. Mother dragon settled in Ha Long Bay, while her children settled near the surrounding islands where they had more space to wriggle their tails violently, creating the white foam seen in the water. Supposedly, the dragon family still resides in the depths. Way better explanation than plate tectonics.

Since it was March, the weather was uncomfortably cold and damp, but that was ok with me since it meant fewer tourists to clog the place. My first order of business upon arrival was to find a place to stay. I thought I had found an ok hotel, until I discovered, upon pulling the blankets away from the bed, that the sheets were covered in mold (some type of Mucor, if I had to guess--samples are on their way, Brenda). Then I noticed that the walls were also covered in mold. Ew. Moved to a different hotel that had no mold on the sheets, and only a little on the walls. That's about the best I figured I could do, considering this place is persistently cold and damp this time of year, and it's the off season, so a lot of the hotel rooms stay empty for weeks at a time. At least I had a nice view of the bay from my window:

My main goal for this visit was to see the famous rock formations, and also to do some rock climbing. Luckily, I was able to do both at the same time with the good folks at the Asia Outdoors adventure company (formerly Slo Pony Adventures). On the morning of March 9th, we set out on a boat through the ethereally-clouded karsts of Ha Long Bay on our way to nearby (and less touristic) Lan Ha Bay. The boat ride was spectacular. Though it was cold and damp, the clouds and fog made floating through the karst-laden waters seem like something utterly supernatural. Once we reached Lan Ha Bay, we switched to a much smaller boat to go do some deep water soloing. What is deep water soloing, you ask? Basically, it's taking a little boat up to one of the karsts, pulling yourself onto the rock, climbing around until you get tired, and then leaping from the rock into the ocean below, where you then swim back to the boat and start all over again. In short, F*#%ING AWESOME! It was a little difficult for me to pull myself upright onto the rock (yay for no upper body strength), but once I was up there, it was just incredible. Such an amazing rush to be clinging so tenuously to one of these incredible structures, and then to turn around and see a whole sea of them rising up before you out of the blue water and disappearing into the fog. Then, fighting the roaring army of butterflies in your stomach and resisting the overwhelming urge to cling ever tighter, you loosen your grip, push off with your feet, and soar through the air until you plunge into the ocean below. Woohoo! There were seven of us climbing that day: Pietro--a 19 year old Italian boy, Salome and Carlos--a young couple from Switzerland, Helen and Dan--newlyweds from London, our guide Matthew, and myself. You could tell we all had a fantastic time, because despite the fact that we were all sitting on the boat shivering while our lips turned blue, we each had a big stupid grin on our face.

After deep water soloing, we went back to the big boat for a delicious meal of Vietnamese food made by the boat crew and some much needed hot coffee and tea. After lunch, we divided into pairs for some kayaking through the karsts. I got paired up with Pietro, which turned out to be pretty scary when he decided he wanted to climb the karst named "Polish Pillar" and almost capsized the kayak in his attempt to get onto it. Fortunately, the boat stayed upright, and I was able to take some cool pictures of him climbing.

All in all, my day out on the bay was one of the best of my trip so far. I'll always remember looking out over those beautiful rock formations and screaming with delighted terror as I leapt off.

And now...photos!

This isn't my picture (I stole it from Google), but I wanted to show a photo taken from higher up so you can see just how abundant the karst islands really are.