Day 2 of our Vietnam Odyssey saw us sitting on a bus for four hours as we made our way to Ha Long Bay, all the while listening to our tour guide who was enraptured by the sound of her own voice. The monologue went something like…

“And now you can look out the bus and see the rain. Now it is raining, because it the rainy season. We like the rain because it is raining…” etc etc ad nauseum for four hours. Whichever smart arse ever said that bullshit about the journey being more important than the destination was full of crap.

In our case the destination was definitely more important than the journey, as we eventually arrived at the harbour with about 300 other tourists all out for a day on the water, cruising on a leaky boat amongst the nearly 2000 rocky outcrops and islands that make up the world-heritage listed marine park.

Excitedly we boarded our vessel with a dozen or so other aussie and british tourists and headed off into the bay. At least we thought we were until we got about 200 metres offshore and promptly weighed anchor. In their infinite desire to give us a safe and happy lunch, it was decided by the captain that we couldn’t eat our food while he was driving the boat on the glassy water, and so we all had to stop while we ate lunch rather than cruise the islands.

Eventually we got under full steam and soon all on board were left breathless by the stunning scenery surrounding us. We motored around the islands for an hour or so, then stopped to tour some caves where our guide insisted on pointing out every stalactite formation and asking us what anthropomorphic shape it took. It soon got boring trying to guess what each random lump of rock was supposed to look like according to local legend, so after a while when the guide would ask us to guess the shape, we’d starting yelling out “STOAT! No…I got it! is it a…BADGER?”

The highlight of the day (it seems no YMOTG blog entry is complete without a double entendre of some kind) was when we came around an island and into view of two large rocks sticking out of the water. Our guide proudly announced that this was the famous “Fighting Cocks Island” – symbol of Ha Long Bay (see pic below). Embarrassed silence soon followed after my travelling partner exclaimed “They might not be fighting, they might be kissing!”

Kissing Cocks Island…I can see the brochure now. Is it heaven, is it hell – “come” and find out for yourself.

See all the pics from Day 1 and 2 of the trip here.