The power of 'Ten' in Ha Long Bay

Late one evening in Hanoi, we were told that, if we wanted to make it to Ha Long Bay, we had to leave at 8am the next morning. There was a storm brewing; the typhoon that had wreaked havoc in the Philippines was whirling its way across the South China Sea and would hit the east coast of Vietnam in three days.

With a UNESCO World Heritage seal of approval, Ha Long Bay sits on the northern ridge of a limestone chain that sweeps up from the Gulf of Thailand and the Angthong National Marine Park. It’s not the cliffs themselves that make Ha Long Bay unique, but rather their sheer number. This huge bay is dotted with nearly 2,000 mostly uninhabited, jagged limestone islands, or karsts.

Meaning "dragon descending" and created over millions of years, local legend says 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 formed what later became the country of Vietnam.

As much as I like this mythical story, it was in fact tectonic forces, not sparring dragons, that slowly thrust the limestone above the water-line. During this process, waves lapping against the stone carved out a number of huge, striking caves and grottos.

Early the next morning, the bus picked us up in Hanoi and zoomed us along, sadly with masses of other tourists, to the coast. In walks Ten into our lives - our terrible, yet terribly brilliant, tour guide, wearing his 4-stripe, 'Adidass' jacket.

The window scene morphed into a dramatic landscape of limestone pillar mountains, jutting vertically up from the water below. The karsts cluster into a mystical array of gray stone, verdant lushness, and boats - or junks - with colonial sails and rudders.

We got dropped at the dock along with the hordes of others. Tour guides scrambled in every direction leading their pack of sheep through the crowds. It was clear our guide was a live-wire from the very start, a hopeless ball of energy, constantly on two mobile phones, who confused us with his directions every step of the way.

After almost losing half our group, we boarded the Chinese-style junk, with its large dining room and upper deck with lounge chairs and potted plants, and started slowly cruising our way around the spiralling crags.

It was nice and quiet on the water —well, except for the dozens of other tourist junks that sailed around us. Oh, and one other thing that just seems impossible to escape in Vietnam. The hawkers. Even out in the calm, quiet waters, tiny women in tiny boats approached, encircled, and surrounded us on a few occasions.

“Excuse me. Please buy something from me.

Oreos? Ritz cracker? I have snack for you.”

These women were the most persistent salespeople I’d ever encountered, rowing with narrow oars well into the night.

Our boat had a great, international contingency and we tucked into a spread of seafood, vegetable and tofu that would become all too familiar over the next 48 hours as we had carbon copies of the buffet at every meal time.

After lunch we headed to the “Surprise cave” (Sung Sot cave) and once inside you can see why. There are three main caverns and each one gets larger than the next, dripping with weird and wonderful limestone formations. Stalactites speared downwards to meet stalagmites all around us.

Next came our abrupt introduction to the floating houses tied together in villages, many of which comprise of just flimsy, wooden structures bobbing up an down plastic-covered polystyrene.

Our boat driver smashed into one of the houses, snapping in half one of the supporting planks of wood. No problem, it would appear. The owners were getting money from us as we all took out their kayaks on the water.

Later, we sat on the top deck of the boat on loungers. The sunshine became softer and softer as it wrapped its rays around each pillar of limestone, bouncing off the moving water. Our boat dropped anchor for the night amidst the sea and stars. Silhouetted against the night sky were the forms of dozens of looming limestone cliffs—it was surreal, and a little chilly!

Ten tried to plan numerous "illegal parties" that night for "the big strong men" and the groups of girls. Despite his best efforts, and hundreds of suggestions that such a party should happen, there were no illegal parties, or at least none that Ten received an invite to.

The next morning we sailed to Cat Ba island, one of the largest islands in Ha Long Bay and home to a dense National Park. And there Ten really came into his own.

"Get on bus," he instructed us in his broken English and pointed. So a few of us start piling on this bus and find a seat.

Ten then looks around him, confused as to where we had gone. "What are you doing on the bus?!" he shouts. This kind of clown comedy ensued throughout the day, including a bemusing boat incident where Med and I nearly lost half our belongings. It was official, Ten was the worst tour guide in Halong Bay, perhaps even Vietnam. But our affections grew.

After a muddy trek to a viewpoint and a trip to Monkey Island, we sat down for dinner in our hotel on the island. In walks Ten, with a huge lump on his forehead and blood coming from his mouth. "What have you done there, Ten?" we ask. He makes a hand-slapping gesture and explains, in between slurping his lips, that he walked into the glass door downstairs. "Do you know what make it better?" he said to the Irish

girls, "I know something." He then gestures to his lip and makes a kissing noise with his swollen lip. You have to admire his persistence.

The next day we floated back to the harbor point as the wind started to come in, back into the scurry of everyone else and back into the racing bus. Ten, in a last bizarre move, gave everyone on the bus a heartfelt apology that he couldn't give us a better trip, before putting a few of the quieter members of the group on the spot by asking how they felt the trip went. All of us at the back of the bus cringed

We said goodbye to the wounded Ten as we arrived back in Hanoi. This time I was prepared for the full-on assault of the city and it seemed just a little tamer than when we left.