VIETNAM – PART II
Ha Long Bay
Ha Long Bay was one of the places whose reputation preceded our visit. Lolo had been previously. She could not stop talking about how breathtakingly beautiful it was. I recall making the reservation very late one night before we left Cayman, for a 3-day, 2-night cruise from Monday 27 November to Wednesday the 29th.
Our transfer from the Sofitel Legend was scheduled for 11:30am. As always, the hotel staff were beyond generous, agreeing to store our luggage until our return. The drive by road was about 2.5 hours, with one mandatory, well-orchestrated rest stop. I was somewhat looking forward to this cruise. Apart from Lolo’s continuing ringing endorsement, I was happy to leave Hanoi’s smog and urban chaos behind. There was also the billing – “Balcony cabin on one of the TOP VIP CRUISES IN ENGLISH.”
Ha Long Bay is also the name of the town/city. It is quite built-up, having undergone, we were told, much recent development.
Our meeting point was Tuan Chau Port. We were met by Ben (easier for us foreigners, I guess), our well-dressed, well-spoken, English-speaking Vietnamese tour manager. He went through the formalities with, let us say, much formality, but we certainly felt assured of our safety and upcoming enjoyment.
Ha Long Bay is definitely a natural wonder of the world. It comprises over 1900 limestone islands, each a mountain springing sharply and steeply from the water, and being so close together, form an impressive cluster. They are as dramatic in their steep rise from the sea as Les Pitons in St Lucia (though typically not to such dramatic heights). That by itself, especially with the sheer multitude of islands, makes for a spectacular view. Combine that with a clear blue sky and clear blue water and the sight would just jaw-dropping.
I had not looked at photos before the trip – why should I? I wanted the experience to unfold. As our cruise boat set off from port, I was anticipating a true spectacle. I did note that we were not going to have the bay to ourselves. There was a multitude of other boats in port, and several more heading out just as we were. It was like an armada. As it happened, the sky never turned blue throughout the cruise, even though you could see the sun struggling to peer through. And the water, rather than clear blue, seemed a murky dark green.
Our vessel dropped anchor after around 40 minutes. We were to explore the caves and inlets by kayak. To do that we boarded a much smaller tender which took us, accompanied by multiple similar tenders, to the designated area.
The kayaking was quite fun indeed, once Lolo and I worked out a workable rowing pattern. Although I cannot recall encountering any form of marine life, the little sorties behind the islands were memorable in their own right.
Once the signal was given, we went towards the dock where we would moor our kayak and board our tender back to the large cruiser. Given the number of kayaks, we were in a bit of a holding pattern, slightly more difficult than you imagine, as we kept drifting away with the current, and the wake from the other rowers.
Before we had left for our kayak adventure, I recall Ben very clearly warning us to ensure we secured our valuables. Preferably, he said, leave them secured on the cruiser or the tender. Knowing that I am a bit of a klutz, I did not require any further persuasion. Photos be damned. Where, and how, in fact, could one secure a mobile phone on a kayak?
Needless to say, whilst out on the kayak, I did notice that Lolo produced her phone. Yes, the same Samsung Galaxy Z Fold that had fascinated the trainee Geishas, and was taking those must-have pics. She is a lady of great skill, and I am never one to question matters such as that.
Now, after finally getting our signal to bring in our kayak out of holding pattern, we managed to manouvre it up to the dock, from which we would be assisted out.
“Whyeeeep!” I heard a shriek coming from Lolo. “What had I done?” I thought. Did I rise too soon causing her to lose her balance?
“My phone!” was the next cry. Admittedly, the thought of the phone plunging to the depths of the Ha Long Bay seabed was not the first thing that came to mind. I was already shrinking into Steve Urkel mode, thinking, “Did I do that?“
To my great relief, I did not do it, or contributed to it in any way. Lolo had tucked the phone into her life vest, only for it to be dislodged when she was about to climb from kayak to dock.
Her shriek was however enough to get the locals who were around to spring into action. A lady who operated her little cook shop alongside the dock, without prompting or hesitation, sprinted across with a white China plate. Now what is this? She dropped the plate into the water, just about where the phone fell.
Then, one of the men living in the permanently floating village nearby, came up purposefully. There was some amount of talking and pointing. He then went back towards his village pulling a long rubber hose. Through the mediation of Ben, there was a quick negotiation on the fee (really, not much negotiation on our part), after which Aqua Man plunged in. The long rubber hose was in fact a snorkel, which allowed him to go deep and remain long underwater (even Aqua Man must give a nod to modern technology).
About two to three minutes later, Aqua Man emerged with the plate in hand. “All that for a plate?” I thought. I had started to wonder if this was a lost cause, when I saw him hold the phone aloft – to much cheering on the dock. Something told me, this had happened before. That rescue mission was well practised.
Retrieving the phone did not however mean it was rescued. Would it still work after its submarine voyage? Not to worry, Ben was full of advice, the main one being to soak it in rice, at least overnight. Whether because of that remedy or not, the phone did work after that, but if the repeated complaints I have heard are anything to go by, it does not appear to have been the same since. It finally died just before this publication, but not before I was able to save the pics to the cloud.
We got back to the main cruiser before sunset. It was to be a period of leisure before the seven-course dinner later. A large trampoline was set up in the sea beside the vessel. People took turns jumping on, and falling off, into the water, limbs flailing.
My turn. I jumped on. Instead of bouncing up, I slipped on the extremely slick rubber surface. I tried to get up, to get in at least one half decent bounce. As I raised one leg, the other slipped from beneath me. On the next attempt I was flailing over the edge. As I had no intention of making that graceless premature entry, I ingested a bit of sea water. The smell and taste of petrol was as strong as the salt. Everyone had a good laugh. As usual, I made it seem as if I did the whole thing deliberately.
That night, after we cleaned up, we all sat down to a massive Vietnamese feast. Some of it was on a buffet. Some items were brought out by the wait staff.
The food just kept coming, and as I had no intention of disappointing our hosts, I kept eating. At one point, I thought I was buckling under the pressure, but dug deep and kept pushing through the final course. There was much to drink as well.
In the end, I cannot say whether we were the last to have arrived, but we were definitely among the last to leave. On returning to the cabin, it did not take long to fall asleep.
But it also did not take long for me to be roused by a rather sick feeling in the stomach. That was the last I slept for the night. By morning I was quite weak and dehydrated. Let us just say everything from the meal, and perhaps everything else eaten within the previous 24 hours, had gone down the drain – literally.
It was only in the morning that Lolo realised my plight, as I was careful not to have caused both of us to lose a night’s sleep. She was, as ever, extremely concerned, loving and caring. Breakfast was brought to the cabin, together with several messages of concern and wishes for my speedy recovery.
Ben, unsurprisingly, had a remedy for me. He did add the caveat that he is not a doctor, and was only suggesting what he had taken himself when he stomach problems. He produced some very tiny tablets, which he told me to take 12 at a time. Not having many options out on the high seas, I complied. They definitely seemed to have the desired effect.
I cooled my heels on the boat that morning. The other passengers went out on the tender for some activities, returning by lunch time so that those who were only booked for one night could have lunch and then head back to port.
By the evening, I was able to go the dining room, not with much of an appetite, but with a little more life. Ben was keen to assure me that no one else had been ill, no doubt his way of ruling out food poisoning as the cause of my malady. I was not in fact entertaining the thought. My own mind was going no further than the fact that my stomach was feeling a bit beyond its limits following dinner, the only other likely candidate being the ample supply of sea water I ingested on my graceless plunge from the trampoline.
Next morning, I was determined to be active again. Ben’s multiple tablet remedy had worked sufficiently for me to join a morning tour of one of the islands. The main features for me were all the fruit trees I was so familiar with in Jamaica, including, yes, you guessed it, the jackfruit, naseberry and one we refer to in Jamaica as the otaheiti apple. Coconut water was a great refreshment, not to mention a welcome source of electrolytes for me. Admittedly, I was relatively subdued for that tour, led by a bright young kid named Henry, who possessed much enthusiasm, but had only just started on the job, and admitted to ad libbing some parts of the tour. I was able to make the cruise back to port, the drive back to Hanoi and even the flight later that evening to Ho Chi Minh City, without any unwelcome interruptions.
Ho Chi Minh or Saigon?
Our stay in Ho Chi Minh City was to be a mere three days, from 29 November to December 2nd. Our accommodation for the stay was a King Room at the Park Hyatt Saigon. The Park Hyatt is very well located. The rooms are classically furnished with plush, colorful rugs, a writing desk and luxurious bathroom. The rate, at just over the equivalent of US$340 per night, inclusive of taxes, was an absolute steal for the quality accommodation and level of service.
Our stay was however overshadowed by two less than pleasant issues, hence probably, my lack of a more detailed recounting of events. The first was that my stomach bug which, even though by then sufficiently subdued, had rendered my immune system quite weak and vulnerable. I duly picked up something, which had the manifestations of an allergic response – lots of sneezing and sniffling. There was no headache or fever or any other manifestation of the flu or, or Covid, for that matter. I was also not particularly weak by then, once I had regained my appetite. That meant I was still in shape to partake in our planned activities, but just a bit miserable, annoyed, and annoying, as Lolo will testify.
The second issue was that after a seamless month on the road, with hardly a serious hiccup in the itinerary, the flights, the transfers, the activities, or with our payments, we had our first credit card issue. The main card we were using for our expenses was declined for some trifling amount. I still remember the day, December 1st, a day that shall forever live in infamy. It was one of those days where, with no major activities planned, I considered that I may as well try to sort out the issue, especially since, with the Butterfield Bank 24-hour service, we did not have to overcome the very huge time difference. I had a Plan B, a Plan C and a Plan D, but did not wish to depart from Plan A, which had worked so well over the past month.
When I telephoned the credit card centre, they put me through to their fraud department. Now this was not looking good. The lady I spoke to was very thorough, professional and friendly. She advised that my card was temporarily blocked because of a suspicious transaction, and they had not been able to contact me on my usual phone number – turned off of course to avoid astronomical roaming charges.
The subject transaction seemed innocuous enough, some purchase online for about $500 from a business in some Trump-voting US state. How they picked that up as suspicious, I have no idea. We duly went through all my transactions. I was able to identify all, except that one transaction. I tried hard to remember the transaction I must have effected, but forgot about, because the unavoidable consequence would be that the card would be cancelled if I could not. Try is I did, I could come up with no recollection of the transaction, which meant they cancelled the card, and I would not see a replacement until I returned to Cayman in January.
So on to Plan B, which was to start using a card issued by another bank. Let us just say our payment experience after that was not always seamless. There were multiple declines for reasons such as, the merchant is not on their authorised list. These merchants include established businesses such as Expedia.com and the venerable Melbourne University. And there was no way of knowing the list of merchants in advance. You find out when you present your card, and it is declined, and you call to find out what the hell is the reason. It just meant that there were multiple occasions of resorting to Plan C or Plan D.
Our main planned activity in Ho Chi Minh City was a full day tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels and Mekong Delta. This was to be by “Private Limousine Van”. We were picked up at 7:30 on the morning of December 2nd. Lolo and I were the only parties on the tour, and we had to ourselves the driver and our English-speaking guide. I will call him “Michael“, which is not his “real” English name, which he gave us. My reason for this should become clear.
Michael was polished, articulate and affable. It did not take long to realise that his perception of the outcome of the Vietnam War is not the same as that of our guides in the North, one of whom bowed in deference to a portrait of “Uncle Ho Chi Minh”. For Michael, Ho Chi Minh City was still Saigon, and what the people in the North celebrated as a great victory, he and the people of the South regarded as an embarrassing defeat followed by an occupation. For the first time we had someone in Vietnam who dared to go off script, even though, as he said, there were spies everywhere. I guess he had full faith and trust in his driver, or trusted that he truly understood no English.
The tour though, played to a script. The Cu Chi Tunnels are an elaborate network of underground tunnels used by Viet Minh (disparagingly called the Viet Cong by the Americans) to great effect during the war. The tour was a mixture of celebrating the ingenuity of the guerilla tactics of the Viet Minh, and a way to mock modern day Americans who are only too pleased to pose beside disabled tanks in the jungle, or to fire a series of guns used by the Americans during the war. We joined in that as well, but with the knowledge that the joke was definitely not on us. We even got to traverse a section of the tunnels, specially modified to accommodate much larger Westerners, if even just to make it clear that the Americans had no chance of locating the Viet Minh in a labyrinth ultimately designed to escape even the ravages of the gas used in the attempt to flush them out.
After that tour, we had a traditional Vietnamese lunch, then traveled to the Mekong Delta. Here we did a cruise along the Mekong River through lush vegetation and rich tropical farmlands. We then had the pleasure of riding on a sampan boat piloted by a robust little lady whose experience showed in the pronounced lines which defined her face.
On the way back we stopped at a very well organised marketplace, which doubled as a rest stop. I was initially a bit put off by this deliberate herding into and through a commercial centre, just so you could take a pee. That was until we saw the merchandise. This was a very far cry from the rudimentary artifacts we had seen in Cat Cat. This was exquisite stuff, obviously done by highly skilled artisans, some of whom we were able to watch in action. We were particularly impressed by the ceramics, elaborately adorned as they were with depictions of various aspects of Vietnamese life and culture. We made a number of purchases, including a piece so large it had to be packed as a separate piece of luggage, which we have had to take from country to country, ultimately to its new home in Jamaica.
That night we discovered, for the first time, the 2 Lam Son Bar, a very chic, sophisticated joint in our hotel. There was a female DJ playing some really nice tunes and the atmosphere was really great. Except, I still had not fully recovered from my afflictions, and was not good company, so we packed it in a bit early. In a way, that felt like a bit of unfinished business. Hopefully, I would recover fully when we got to Bangkok.
Sabbatical Odyssey 
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