Sunday morning in Haiphong

Our trip began with an early start this morning as my mum, Crystal and I set off by taxi at 5.30am for our flight to Haiphong, the major port town of the north and the gateway to Halong Bay. Ho Chi Minh City was beautiful at this time of the day with the sky still rosy and the streets freshly swept clean. In the suburbs women were preparing breakfasts of pho and banh mi to be sold on the streets, and in the city a lone cyclo cruised the empty boulevards with a family of early-bird tourists. We arrived at the domestic terminal and joined the ranks of Vietnamese travellers carrying babies and sacks of vegetables who were pushing and shoving onto the plane.

We arrived in Haiphong after a two hour flight to be greeted with a pleasantly cool temperature of 22 degrees. The runway of the small airport was flanked with paddy fields where disaffected farmers tended to the land with their backs turned to the incoming planes. This was our first indication that Haiphong is smaller than we had anticipated. Leaving the terminal we approached a flock of taxis where a young man dressed in denim invited us to a Mai Linh cab, arousing my suspicions to the point that I inspected the car for any signs that it was a bogus version of the reliable national company. My mum told me to relax so we climbed in, although it turned out that this man was, to my surprise, the driver (with quite a poor knowledge of his own city!). We followed a wide road lined with dragon-shaped hedges into the sleepy town. We were to take a hydrofoil from the harbour to Cat Ba island, our destination, in the afternoon and had some time to kill in the meanwhile. This was spent appreciating Haiphong's cafe culture and taking in the peaceful ambience of the place. Haiphong was largely developed as a transport hub by the French and retains many colonial-era buildings. As we enjoyed strong coffee we were observed with curiosity and granted occasional smiles by the regulars who don't often see tourists stopping in the city. Around lunchtime we headed to a recommended German-style restaurant and brewery for home-brewed beer, sausage-and-chips and seafood, the latter being something Haiphong is noted for.

A street barbers' shop in Haiphong

Mum loves Ca Phe Sua Da

Street life

In good time we took a taxi to Ben Binh harbour where we encountered the first tout of the day in the form of an excited woman who began yelling at us the moment we exited the taxi that the boat we were looking for was further down the street. Taking direction from the uniformed woman behind her we passed the tout and entered the ticket office for the hydrofoil. Our boat was filled predominantly with a lively bunch of stylish Vietnamese youth and a group of middle-aged French tourists. The journey, supposed to take forty-five minutes to the island, in fact took twice this long and dropped us off at a different harbour to the one I passed through on my last visit here. The bus that connects to the town and is included in the boat ticket did not materialise and soon after disembarkment most of our fellow passengers had dispersed away on motorbikes.  We could not take bikes as we were handicapped by Crystal's heavy suitcase which proved to be quite a burden over the day. Those who remained were the French group and a handful of other, equally confused, stragglers who stood in the street with us waiting for somebody to come and help us. My mum noted afterwards that throughout this unexpected experience we maintained every confidence that something would work out. And, as ever, it did. At first the French group were met by a minibus and I made an attempt to hitch a ride for the three of us with my rough French. The woman I spoke to delivered a reply that I couldn't quite follow, but her stony disinterest was very clear. We were rescued by a kind Australian-Vietnamese family who ordered a van for 250,000 dong and invited us to come with them. The luggage and bodies of around a dozen people were carefully packed in for a short, tight journey to the town. On arrival, the cause of the changed transportation schedule became obvious: there is a large festival on the island today that has drawn in crowds. We were later to find out from our hotel's manager that the cause of the celebration is the anniversary of Uncle Ho's two-day visit to the island in 1959. Remarkable.

Festivities in Cat Ba town

Three girls share a bicycle

Police officers join the audience of the show

Back street of Cat Ba town

As we entered our hotel the lobby TV was set to a national channel showing live footage of the festivities just outside our door. We went up to our rooms, from where we could see a dragon-boat race taking place in the bay to the cheers of the crowds. We spent the afternoon booking a tour of Halong Bay for tomorrow as well as our transport to Hanoi the same day. In the evening I had the idea of walking up to an old fort I had read about to see what is described by Lonely Planet as the best view in Vietnam. It didn't take long to escape the noise of the celebrations on the front strip and we soon found ourselves on an almost rural street where chickens clucked in vegetable patches beneath the beautiful purplish karst mountain that defines the unique geology of this area. As we ascended, stunning views of the bay came into vision on all sides and I felt overcome with a sense of peace. We had to pay a fairly dear entrance fee to pass the barrier up to Fort Cannon but at the top it was wonderfully deserted. The only other people up there were a pair of men doing their evening exercise in a sublime location, and the ticket inspector who chased after me with real urgency in order to fulfil his job duty (not that we could have got up there any way without purchasing a ticket; but this is communist Vietnam).

A friendly warning as we ascended to Cannon Fort

The beautiful Lan Ha bay, part of Halong Bay

It felt like a real privilege to have this experience and we felt very grateful that we had not stayed in the town and missed out. It was dark as we descended back to the lights of the town and Crystal decided she didn't want to eat dinner, retiring to her hotel room instead. My mum and I went out and shared a tasty tea of fried spring rolls, chilli fish, stir-fried spinach and steamed rice, washed down with Hanoi beer and topped off with a sweet bun bought from the neighbouring family bakery, which we ate as we strolled along the front.

We have travelled a fair way today and have found ourselves in one of the world's most special and beautiful places. I can't wait to introduce the magic of Halong Bay to mum and Crystal tomorrow; I know they will love it.