17 January - Halong Bay & Mr Success

It’s grey and cold weather, on the only day we can go to Halong Bay, same as last time I was here. Back then I dropped the idea of going to Halong Bay as without a hot clear day, the place would feel sad (for your info, it’s what you see in Indochine, the movie. A bay with thousands of uninhabitable ‘islands’ which viewed from above are a sort of seventh wonder of the world, and viewed from a slow moving junk would make you lose any sense of time/space). I don’t know when I’ll be back this way so despite the weather, we set off to experience the bay. This time it’s several hours away so we avoid expensive own car and driver and get on a minibus with ten other people and our guide, who asks us to call him Mr Success as that’s what he’s set himself up to be. He’s young and pleasant enough and tries really hard to get a conversation going but with the assorted Russians, Korean, Japanese, Romanians on board, whose command of English is scant, and if you add his English which is the typical unfinished words, the only thing they find in common is football. Mr Success is so happy that Vietnam have for the very first time defeated the much stronger Japanese national team. He tells us that the Vietnamese players are not full time footballers and all have jobs and never much have a chance to play at international level and therefore improve. I forget now who their coach is, but he’s a westerner.. It’s remarkable how countries only care for their neighbours. The South East Asians care more deeply to defeat the guys next door, much as the Serbians want to defeat the Romanians more than the they’d want to defeat the Brits who are further away and not subject to years of rivalry local rivalry
As everyone on the minibus seem to care for football only slightly the conversation dies pretty soon.

I go back to watching the factories lining the road for miles and miles. They don’t have catchy logos and it’s hard to tell what they all make (clothing and industrial parts it seems, some are electronic industry parts) but given that half the clothes I turned over to see where they’re from are made in Vietnam (and were bought in H&M, Topshop etc) or China, or India, it’s safe to say Mr Primark is inspecting thousands of goods as we speak. Kind of weird that the women on the street don’t seem to be wearing any of our stuff though. What they wear away from traditional costumes is pretty unremarkable. Like what you find in those tourists shops that coaches stop by… bad paintings, bad ceramics, bad wooden objects, polyester clothes. It truly is dire. It’s sort of better to stick to the basics from rural times perhaps but that’s just me, traveller with passport and dosh and not trying to emerge from feudal times in terms of economy. Ignore me. I’d prefer if they still rode bicycles rather than mopeds but sure as hell they’re happy to be motorised. I wonder what time they have to get up to make it 20 miles out of town to go work in a factory. There are hardly any villages on the roads so the factory workers must commute in mainly from Hanoi…

We arrive at the car park of the port from which the brightly coloured dragon boats depart. They're all the same and a sort of cheap carnival parade, can't tell any difference. A case of 'I'll get in on the act if these tourists want to see our rocks in the bay'. By now it’s properly freezing. Most of us and the hordes waiting to board the respective boats, are well clothed but there’s a quite a few backpackers who clearly were not expecting this weather or they just have shorts to wear and I’m rueing not wearing any socks. I could do with buying socks! However the stalls lining up the car park are offering the usual fare of absolutely dire items. Every stall has the same shit and not an enterprising one offering a hot beverage.

It takes an hour for our boat to depart as it’s waiting for other minivans to disgorge other passengers signed up. This is soooo boring. But on a day like this, having rented a more personal type of boat would have been a waste of money. The trip is ok, I can see that in the hottest months this tranquil sea would be a dream, languid wanderings on an old fashioned junk perhaps, without hearing engine noise. But today, we just make the best of it and the cave we visit, inside an unprepossessing ‘island’ is actually one of the best in the world for sure. True 20,000 leagues under the sea type of stuff. The return is cold and windy and on arrival I excitedly explain to Mr Success how he could become richer very fast. I explain he could with a small investment, purchase some light blankets, shawls and socks and hats and on days like these of which there are many, he would do a roaring trade hiring them out to day trippers who would return them (he’d have to find a way to take a deposit or just lose a few items once in a while). He listens but doesn’t seem as excited as I am, though he thanks me. I think he thinks it’s all too advanced a stage of tourism services….Shame. I feel a bit like ‘these people don’t understand!!!’ bloody natives.

The drive back is unremarkable except for Toph spotting road signs featuring Alsatian dogs and upon enquiring, being told by Mr Success that this road is well frequented by lorry drivers who love to eat dog. He says he likes it, but is aware that we go ‘yeewwww’ at the thought. Toph is fascinated. I know he would like to try. I may do to. After all trying rat in Thailand a few years ago was not that revolting. The shape was rat but it was barbecued to .. any meat really. Granted, I only had a small piece and I had seen them at the market. Dog is described as gamey but smelling of dog shit, so perhaps not that appealing. They must have different taste buds to ours. Apparently it’s one of those pseudo Viagra myths and you only eat dog at certain times of the month.. for potency. Not so funnily enough next to the dog diners we see lots of massage parlours. Eat dog, go shag a bitch… sad…