Inle Lake

We travelled for eight hours in a tightly packed minibus from Bagan to a small town called Nyaungshwe on Inle Lake. While the town was bustling with tourists, shops and restaurants, it did not feel overrun with tourists as is often the case with small towns located near big tourist attractions. The town still had a lot of character and charm, and the bars were populated mostly by local residents rather than tourists. I imagine this is what Thailand was like 50 years ago.

We checked into our hotel at dusk and went for a walk around the entire town, which took less than an hour. We were unprepared for the chill that descended once darkness fell; at an altitude of 1,000m, Inle Lake is cool at night and we both woke up the next day with sore throats and stuffy noses.

We were up at the crack of dawn to take a day trip out on the lake and by God it was freezing. The icy predawn wind bit at our cheeks and blasted through our thin clothes as we motored through the canals towards the 116km² lake. I was so grateful for the blanket given to me by our boatman.

We stopped just as the sun was emerging from behind the mountains around the lake. I greedily soaked up the sun whilst watching the local fisherman defy gravity as they balanced on their narrow canoes, carved from a single piece of wood. They have a fascinating way of rowing their boats with one leg whilst standing on the other, casting their nets with their hands. 

Fishermen on Inle Lake.

Keeping warm at dawn.

The remainder of the day involved stopping at a lot of naff tourist traps: a silverware workshop with a souvenir shop, a weaving mill with a souvenir shop, an umbrella-making workshop with a souvenir shop. It was all very pre-packaged although I enjoyed the chance to leave the boat and sit in the sun outside the shops, drinking the free hot tea.

At one of the stops Kayan Lahwi tribe women we were working at the looms weaving scarves. The women wear brass rings around their necks giving them the nickname the Long Necked Women. The rings were originally worn to discourage the men from other tribes from stealing or raping the women. They do not actually stretch the necks, rather they gradually crush the muscles in the shoulders, pushing the shoulders down and leaving the women unable to support their heads without the brass rings. These women have suffered greatly in the name of tourism; they have been taken from their villages and forced to work at tourist sights in Burma and Thailand, such as the one we visited. I took a photograph of the women and then instantly hated myself for partaking in their exploitation.

Shwe Indein

Among the more interesting stops on the tour was Shew Indein, a mountainside covered with thousands of stupas in various stages of ruin and restoration. We visited a monastery known as the Jumping Cat Monastery, where the monks used to train cats to jump (apparently this is of interest to tourists). Thankfully some animal rights activists stepped in and the cats are no longer required to jump. Finally we passed some floating gardens and stopped at a cigarette factory where Ric had a go at rolling a cigar with banana leaves.

All in all, the trip was a bit short on culture and a bit too heavy on ridiculous tourist attractions for my liking. The highlight was seeing the fishermen at work and watching the sunrise, even in spite of the cold.

Cigarette rolling.

We Stayed At…

Good Will Hotel: Decent budget room in the centre of town, $20 for an en suite double. 

Typhoon Kalmaegi on Cat Ba Island

We'd planned to travel from Ninh Binh straight through to Ha Long City but a conversation with another traveler lead us to add Haiphong to our itinerary; before we even arrived we decided to skip the city and head out to Cat Ba Island for a few days of relaxation. We arrived early evening and watched the sun set over the bay from our waterfront hotel.

Fishing boats in the bay at Cat Ba Town.

We awoke the next morning ready to hit the beach to find the harbour empty of boats and the town deserted. The owner of the hotel was busy boarding up the ground floor doors and windows and bringing in all the tables from outside. He eventually informed us that there was a big typhoon coming and we'd already missed the last boat leaving the island. Typhoon Kalmaegi ('seagull' in Korean) had already hit the Philippines, Hong Kong and southern China. Throughout the day a tannoy announced the imminent danger and warned people to stay indoors.

The winds got stronger and stronger and by 6pm the electricity to the island went out. We were safe and warm in our hotel with a stash of typhoon survival essentials: chocolate biscuits and crisps. By about 9pm there was water flowing down the stairs to our floor like a waterfall, water was running down the walls and coming in through the windows in our room. We pushed our bed as far away from the windows as possible and tried to ignore the ominous creeks and crashes going on around us. 

The next morning the worst was over and we ventured out to survey the damage. There were a few fallen signs and the odd cracked window, branches and leaves covered the street and sea was wild. Fortunately nobody on the island was hurt and the locals seemed to have prepared for it really well. 

The promenade along the bay.

After a couple of days sitting around doing nothing, waiting for the typhoon to pass, we were finally able to get out and explore the island.

The three beaches were strewn with debris and missing a lot of sand following the typhoon, and the sea was too rough to swim in, but the walks around the karst cliffs and up the mountains to Canon Fort were lovely.

Karst scenery of Lan Ha Bay.

Viewpoint overlooking the bay after hiking 177m up to Canon Fort.

From Cat Ba Island we were able to do a boat trip to Ha Long Bay, so we didn't have to go to Ha Long City at all. The day was spent cruising slowly through the magnificent scenery of Lan Ha Bay and Ha Long Bay, on an old junk boat. When we weren't sunning ourselves no sun loungers on the top deck we stopped to kayak through caves and arches that have been carved out of the limestone karsts by the ocean. We jumped off the boat and swam in secluded lagoons and explored isolated sandy beaches. The water was clear turquoise and we saw some interesting wildlife both above and below the water.

Kayaking in Lan Ha Bay.

The typhoon had brought in a lot of litter and debris from the ocean, although I'm told Ha Long Bay is littered even at the best of times, so we did our part and filled our kayak with floating bottles and plastic bags that we'd fished out of the water. Our guide didn't seem to impressed with our conservation efforts however, and I have a feeling that the rubbish might have been thrown back overboard when we weren't looking!

   

We even stopped to explore an ancient grotto that was once used by hunters to shelter from storms. Inside archaeologists found human and animal remains, as well as fossilised sea mollusks. The stalagmites and stalactites inside where amazing.

How To Get To...

Cat Ba Island: There are multiple boats going to and from the island throughout the day from Ben Binh pier in Haiphong. The speed boat and bus combination costs 150,000VND/$7.50 and the hydrofoil that drops you directly in Cat Ba Town costs 220,000VND.$11. Only ever buy tickets from the ticket counter at the pier as agents and touts in Haiphong will rip you off, this happened to us and every other tourist we spoke to!

Ha Long Bay: We booked a trip with Cat Ba Ventures in Cat Ba Town. The day trip cost $31/£18.60 per person. The guide spoke excellent English and was very well informed on the area.

We Stayed At...

My Ngoc Hotel, on the water front. The room was huge, the view was amazing. It cost $10/£6 per night. The restaurant wasn't very good.

Making Friends in Chau Doc

From Ha Tien we followed the Vietnam-Cambodia border to Chau Doc, a small transit town that serves as an over night stop for tourists taking the Phnom Penh - Saigon boat. We were happy to find that a least a couple of people in Chau Doc spoke reasonable English but once again we felt like the only foreigners in the small dusty town.

After an afternoon scoping out travel agencies we were feeling quite downtrodden as the prices were astronomical and it seemed we wouldn't be able to afford to do anything we wanted to do.

We drank ice coffees in a shady cafe and then walked along the busy riverside that burst into life as the sun went down. There we met a Vietnamese man called Trung, who stopped to chat to us and invited us to join him for breakfast in a local restaurant the following morning. Another example of the wonderful Vietnamese hospitality.

A Vietnamese breakfast of meat, eggs and bread.

We had a very pleasant breakfast with our new friend and then set about trying to see the sights on our shoestring budget. By chance we came across two awesome moto-taxi drivers called Van and Duc, who saved us a ton of money and took us everywhere we wanted to go for a very reasonable price. 

First we visited the river islands where an ethnic minority of Muslim 'Cham' people live. We visited the mosques and saw women weaving scarves on old wooden looms. It strikes me as strange that no matter where you are in the world, the tourist shops are always full of scarves, even in hot, tropical climates like Vietnam, Thailand and India. That said, I still managed to buy one!

Wooden walkway leading to a Cham floating village on one of the river islands.

Ric with our super tour guides for the day, Van (left) and Duc (right).

We mentioned to Van and Duc that we were disappointed by the prices of the river tours, at $20 each from all the agencies in town, there was no way we could afford to take a boat out to the Cambodian border. But our guides came through for us again, calling on a friend with a boat they arranged for us to go out on the river for a two hour tour for just $5 per person! That's more like it. We saw floating villages, fish farms, floating petrol stations, local fishermen using ancient techniques and we went all the way up to the border in our own private boat. It was fantastic.

Fishing on the river at Chau Doc. The woman rows while the man operates the net.

House boat.

Fish are farmed under the floating house boats.

To end our day we zoomed up Sam Mountain on the back of the motorbikes, speeding around the corners at an exhilarating speed. At the top we sat in hammocks admiring the miles and miles of rice fields that surrounded us, and watched the sunset over Cambodia to the west. 

View from Sam Mountain. The tree line on the far left marks the border between Cambodia and Vietnam. 

Sunset over flooded rice fields from Sam Mountain.

We had such a great day zipping around with Van and Duc, they were friendly, knowledgeable and spoke good English. 

They can be contacted for tours:

    Van: 0918 308 460

    Duc: 0944 765 258

After saying goodbye to them and arranging for them to take us to the bus station the following morning, Ric and I returned to the river for an evening stroll. Unbelievably, sitting on a bench, we bumped into a couple that Ric had met on the Galapagos Islands three and a half years earlier. What a small world. Gabby and Yogi were staying in Chau Doc for one evening before continuing on to Phnom Penh by boat in the morning. Having spent the entire day thinking we were the only foreigners in town, we meet a German couple and they turn out to be friends from another trip many years ago. It really is remarkable. We spent a lovely evening having drinks and catching up with them.

Ric reminissing with old friends, Gabby and Yogi.