Halong Bay: seen one limestone karst ................

Halong Bay: a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the defining pictures of Vietnam, a must-see for visitors, so obviously I had to go. The standard way to see it is to have an overnight trip on a river boat so that is what I signed up for.

The weather was not as clear as would be ideal but at this time of year it's pot luck as to how good the visibility will be on the day you go. I believe it rained continuously the day after I did my trip so misty on my day was not too a bad an outcome.

It is an impressive sight when you first set off:

I suppose the problem is that once you've been sailing round for a couple of hours you start to think: ok, fine, what's next? It's back to the Trevor principle of - you've seen one (insert suitable object - karst in this case) you've seen them all!

We did tie up to one of the karsts suitably prepared for tourists and a few hardy souls scrambled up to the top. It was a long and arduous climb but the view made it worth the enormous effort:

I had staggered up there with a group of Japanese tourists of the same vintage as me. We all encouraged each other to make it which was useful as we would all have given up otherwise. They insisted in me being in their photos at the top, and also demanded that I take up their standard pose:

Despite 3 months of travelling round Indochina I still do not understand what it is with the Japanese and Bunny Ears in photos, no matter how solemn or sacred or fascinating the location it seems to be obligatory that they all go in for the Bunny Ears pose. It's a complete mystery to me!

Once back at sea level we took off again round the bay and were rewarded with a photogenic sunset:

Then time for dinner and bed:

With a helpful suggestion should anything go wrong:

The following morning it was more of the same, more karsts, shan't bother loading any more photos, you get the general idea. Then a brunch before we set off shoreward, via an extremely large cave cleverly lit and missing the requisite hundreds of statues of Buddha, which meant I was able to appreciate it more. Information about Halong Bay at the entrance to the cave;

Then into the cave, I'm not normally a fan of caves and I've seen so many on this trip, but this one was quite special, although it's impossible to convey the vastness of it with just an iPad serving as a camera ( my camera decided to die on me on day 2 of the trip, not helpful except loading photos onto emails and blogs from the iPad has been a doddle, even for an old technical dinosaur like me!)

And so the trip to Halong Bay drew to a close.

Sadly I wasn't as blown away as I expected to be, maybe a touch of weariness, or disappointment at the visibility, or just too much anticipation. And it's not just me, many back/flashpackers I've spoken to have felt the same. Maybe the major problem is that it's just too busy and crowded and commercialised so the magic is no longer there, and frankly how many of them do you need to see? Plus the situation was not helped by the fact that whatever I was served at brunch should not have been passed by the health inspectors, as the following 36 hours were a nightmare of cockroach infested trains and suspension free buses from Ha Noi to Hoi An where the only thing I was capable of doing was lying in a heap firstly worrying I was going to die, and then worrying that I wasn't!

Hence why you will have no info on Hue, my next port of call, until later, when I treated myself to a return visit 3 weeks later to see what I had missed, and I was jolly pleased I did, as I loved it!