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You are entering another world when you step into Halong Bay territory in Vietnam.
It is a world of legends, fairy tales and magic.
This used to be the home of dragons and what you see now is their work of art. And what a masterpiece it is.
No wonder it is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Some would even describe it as the Eighth Wonder of the World.
According to local legend, the dragons were sent by the gods in answer to the prayers of the people to help them defend their land against invaders.
The dragons spit out gems to create a group of islands, some linking together to form a great wall to stop the invaders. And if that was not enough, rocks appeared as if by magic and sunk many of the enemy ships.
After the war, the dragons settled down here. Halong Bay (meaning descending dragon) takes its name from the mother dragon's home.
The scientific explanation is that the limestone structures in this bay had undergone 500 million years of formation through the forces of nature.
The dragon version sounds more interesting, right?
In our tour, only half a day was allocated for this place and that is definitely not enough. There are nearly 2,000 islands in Halong Bay, covering a total area of 1,550 square km.
We had travelled here by coach from Hanoi and this journey of about 150km took us nearly three and a half hours.
It was late evening when we arrived at Halong city, so we checked into a hotel and started out boat cruise early the next morning.
I was told this was a mistake. The night scene in the bay is spectacular. What a shame we did not book an overnight cruise.
Even so, the four-hour morning cruise left a tremendous impact on me.
The first work of art that greeted us was the Teong Mai rock formation which is shaped like two fighting cocks.
This twin structure, standing in the middle of the sea, has become the symbol of Halong Bay.
Our first stop is Dau Go island, where there are two famous caves. We had time to tour only one cave and Dong Thien Cung or the Heavenly Palace Cave was picked.
We had to hike up a steep narrow stone staircase to reach the entrance of this cave.
The climb was worth it. You are greeted by amazing limestone formations in this huge chamber.
What spoilt it for me were the coloured lights installed all over the place.
According to legend, this was where the Dragon King and the Cloud Princess held their wedding party which lasted for 7 days.
Apparently a host of animals, dragons and genies took part in the celebrations and all these activities have been fossilized all around the chamber.
If you look hard enough and let your imagination go, you can make out the shapes of these animals.
I thought I saw a dragon head while other members of my tour group insisted they saw shapes of snakes, lions and eagles on the ground and up in the ceiling.
Our next stop is to see the lakes formed inside the limestone islands.
For that, we had to go on sampans operated by villagers who lived on boats nearby.
There were four of us to a sampan and the one-hour tour cost us 100,000 Dong (RM20) each.
What a soothing feeling to glide along the calm waters of the lake and be shielded from the outside world by the limestone hills.
We had an extra bonus in the person of our 19-year-old rower. She was smiling all the time and during one part of the journey, she even sang to us.
Reminds me of the gondola ride in Venice. “This is so much better,” said fellow traveller Sim.
We had one more stop to make before heading back, and that was a floating fish farm.
Lunch was served on board our cruise boat, supplemented by the seafood bought by some members of our tour group.
I thought that was all the boating we would do as we were leaving Halong Bay and our next destination was Ninh Binh, the ancient capital of Vietnam, located very much inland.
Surprise! Surprise! We will be taken by sampan again to tour the padi fields there.
Again, this sampan service is operated by a village. That seems to be the business model here.
The charge for this trip was 50,000 Dong (RM10) each but the sampan was smaller and so could only fit two passengers.
This time our sampan rower was a 7-month pregnant woman.
I felt very uncomfortable and wanted to take over the rowing. What stopped me was that I was very sure she was much stronger than me, even in her condition.
We thought it would be a simple boat ride. It was for the greater part of the journey until we came to a tunnel in a limestone hill.
The tunnel was very dark but what made it scary was that the ceiling was very low. We had bow down very low during this entire stretch.
And what made it worse was that we did not know how long the tunnel was.
We could not see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.
And the only light came from the miner’s lamp worn on the head of the sampan rower.
Thank god it was a short tunnel.
And just when we started to relax, we saw another tunnel in front of us.
We were better prepared this time, and fortunately this was a shorter tunnel.
That little excitement is a good way to cap our short but interesting visit to the world of the new Vietnam.
tạm biệt (goodbye)