Dragons Before Geography

Monday 18th January 2010, 2pm, Castaway Island - Halong Bay

The sunshine was nearer than we knew, and I write this from the beach. Not any old beach either, but Castaway Island, a solitary and private strip of 1km long sand, lonely and stranded as it is in Halong Bay. Halong Bay is something of an ecological rarity, more than a rarity in fact. It is so unique that locals are campaigning, rightly so in my opinion, to have the area named officially as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the world. I'm not sure how this works though, why aren't they allowed 8? The National Wonders committee can't very well say 'sorry Niagara Falls, you've had your day, there's a new kid in town and it's got jet-skiing', can they?!

Right, I'll try my best with this, but really can I just implore you to google it for an image or something, in your absence you are missing a sight your eyes deserve to see. For 500 million years off the North Eastern coast of Vietnam, shifting of tectonic plates, the advance of the sea, the raising of the bay area, and climate and water erosion have created a dense cluster of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands, secretly hollowed in their underbellies with enormous caves and each topped with thick jungle vegetation, rising spectacularly from the ocean up to 100 metres high. But none of this tells you how stunning it is here does it. The result of all this geological activity is these series of islands rising from the sea, so vast, weathered, imposing and painstakingly crafted by nature they look as though each one could have filled God's palm as he pulled it from the top of a volcano somewhere on Mars, and then threw it down to Earth's oceans to see if he could make anything interesting with it.

These rocky outposts, dotted sporadically through the sea, have had a strange effect on the water around them which I am afraid I am at a deficit to be able to explain. I seem to remember being too busy in GSCE Geography classes asking for the 153rd time, much to Mr Chapman's annoyance, what the hell is the point of a Demographic Transition Model anyway - I worked this one out eventually but now know nothing about tidal patterns and always lose at the 'Guess the Capital City' game. I digress. The sea is dead, not partially still or calm when the weather is nice, but as flat and as silent as the proverbial pancake and grave. There is not one hint of a wave or tide, the huge, craggy islands do something to interrupt it's course I imagine. It is also cobalt blue, a different shade to the lighter, transparent hues of reefs and sunshine holiday coastlines, this blue is far deeper and thicker - this blue is so undiluted that it looks like you might come out stained and streaked with it yourself after a swim.

We spent yesterday sailing through the quiet richness of it all on a Junk Ship with 30 other 20 something year old backpackers - mainly men, mainly Australian, ipso facto, mainly drunk. Last night we slept on the boat and despite my A. frequent mentioning of the Titanic and the similarity of large rocky islands to icebergs and B. complete disappointment at the lack of any male form even remotely resembling Leonardo Dicaprio, it was incredible to open our cabin door this morning and be greeted with the silent wildness of an undisturbed ocean view. So wonderful waking up on a calm sea, oh it's a pirate's life for me. Yesterday being colder than today there was also a thick layer of mist hung suspended in the air around the islands, hanging omnipotently like Saturn's rings. Maybe you have a better picture of it all now. If you are imagining a scene of tranquil, natural beauty, a multitude of varying flora and fauna, an atmosphere tinged with eeriness to the point where you feel like pirates must have fought and died in these caves, a landscape of sky, sea and mountain so endless and epic that you don't think you could feel any smaller and insignificant than if you were looking at the whole earth from space, if you are imagining this, then I guess I didn't do too bad a job of describing it. Ooh, one more stoke of the brush for you to the add to the composition; over the top of each island soar eagles in large numbers with wingspans of at least 4ft, utterly majestic and mesmerising silhouetted against the violet sky. There you go, painting complete.

Our tour guide told us that the local people on the mainland, although I'm sure respectful for the tectonic plates explanation, have little or no interest in this theory as they are able to explain the existence of Halong Bay without the need for silly old science. What really happened you see, is that when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and the dragons liked the area they had created so much that they decided to stay. 'Halong' in Vietnamese means 'where the dragon descends on the water'. I love this.

In truth I've found Vietnamese people quite tricky customers to deal with in some respects. Although I've met many warm and wonderful people over the past 3 weeks, there have equally been many very difficult encounters - sometimes just cold and contemptuous, others rude, aggressive, pushy. There seems to be an unvoiced suspicion of tourists and perhaps rightly so, given the centuries of White colonisation and interference here I expect they are always on their guard for future invaders and risks to their freedom. But Halong Bay leaves me floundering in affection and admiration for these people all over again, as I felt in my initial love affair with Saigon and it's inhabitants. Leave science to worry about land mass movements and tidal anomalies, how much more exciting and precious would life seem if we could all look at the world the way they choose to; through eyes that can cast off a history of war to still see magic and dragons.