Bad weather prevents cruise around halong bay but a trip to cat ba and a ‘terrifying’ cyclo ride around Hanoi helps compensate for the disappointment

Watching the weather forecast on the television in my hotel room in Haiphong, Vietnam’s third largest city, I discover that my trip to Halong Bay has literally gone with the wind. A storm is forecast to hit coastal Haiphong tomorrow, the weatherman says almost cheerfully, and bang goes my much-anticipated four-hour tour of Halong Bay.
The disappointment hits hard, not least because we have come from Bangkok to Haiphong especially to cruise in scenic Halong Bay, a Unesco World Heritage Site that’s known the world over from its dramatic scenery dotted with islets.
“Tomorrow we will visit Cat Ba Island, the largest of the 367 islands making up the Cat Ba Archipelago, and if the weather isn’t too bad, we might have a chance to cruise in Halong Bay,” says Tien, our Vietnamese guide before dinner.
Looking at his rather grim face, I know that the chances are close |to zero.
I console myself with what John Steinbeck wrote in his memoir “Travels with Charley: In Search of America”. “A journey is like marriage,” he opined. “The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”
So I take a deep breath and bid farewell to Halong Bay, turning my attention instead to planning how to spend the rest of our time in Vietnam.
Waking the next morning to light rain and low clouds, we board a speedboat for a two-hour trip to Cat Ba Island then hop on an electric bus for a sightseeing tour. We visit beaches Cat Co1 and Cat Co 2 and enjoy the laid-back town. The highlight of the half-day trip is Cannon Fort, which is less than 15 minutes away from Cat Ba town by bus or motorcycle.
“Cat Ba Island means ‘Women’s Island’ and it was here that our women helped the Vietnamese army fight against the enemies. At the heart of Cat Ba Island, we also have the visually stunning and ecologically diverse Cat Ba National Park, a World Heritage Site designated as a biosphere reserve in northern Vietnam,” Tien explains.
Located on the top of the mountain, Cannon Fort offers astounding panoramas of Cat Ba Island’s dense jungle hills, the fishing boats floating in the harbour and the sea surrounded by a karst landscape.
“The fort was used in the naval defence of Hai Phong during the Vietnam War. The tunnels and guns here were first installed by the Japanese in WWII, but later used |by the French and Vietnamese,” |Tien says.
Some visitors are enjoying the scenic view from the terrace of the small café close to the observatory, while others explore a tiny war museum, underground tunnels, and inspect two well-preserved gun emplacements.
The dark clouds are building up and the wind is starting to gust so Tien rushes us to get back in the boat before the weather closes in and it becomes impossible to leave the island. Our so-called private bus is now packed with tourists and locals who want to board the boat at another pier where the wind is tamer.
We make it safely back to Haiphong where we stay overnight before heading back to Hanoi.
“No trip to Hanoi is complete without seeing our Water Puppet show. That’s the first thing we’ll do when we reach Hanoi,” Tien says with a smile.
Water puppetry or Mua Roi Nuoc is all about making puppets dance on water. Its origins can be traced back to the villages of the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam where, back in the 11th century, villagers used water puppetry to entertain each other in the flooded rice fields.

In front of Thang Long Water Puppet theatre, tour guides with different groups compete with the sound of horns and traffic to let their charges know where to meet after the show.
Tien is right about this being a spectacle not to miss. The water puppet performance shows a series of glimpses into the daily life of Vietnamese farmers, Vietnamese traditions and legends. One minute we see the lively puppets working in the rice fields, tending their buffaloes and ducks and catching fish. The next minute Emperor Le Loi of Annam, founder of the Le dynasty, is returning the magic sword to the tortoise, echoing the legend of nearby Hoan Kiem Lake. And even though the show is in Vietnamese, it’s easy to understand and appreciate.
After the show, Tien has us travelling by Xich Lo – cyclo – the traditional transport of the French and Vietnamese nobles during the French colonial period.
Seated in front of the driver, the busy streets of Hanoi are literally within arm’s reach. It’s a terrifying and deafening experience but still the best way to explore the busy streets of Hanoi.
I want to scream every time I see locals stroll across the street. Sometimes the motorcycles are only a few centimetres from hitting them but they don’t seem to care. Then Tien’s voice comes to my mind:
“When you see a car or a motorcycles coming towards you, don’t run, stop or take a different direction. Keep walking at your own pace and everybody is safe. Otherwise, the drivers would surely hit you.”
And I thought the Bangkok streets were dangerous.

IF YOU GO
www.VietJetair.com.

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