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08 APR 2001 BAI TU LONG BAY, VIETNAM
Bowermaster
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East of its better known sister, Halong Bay, this green-glass sea is similarly dotted with hundreds of limestone islands, every morning masked in mist, taking the shapes of the myths that form spiritual Vietnam – dragons, mandarins, giant reptiles, fetching sirens.
We crossed Bai Tu Long during our longest day of paddling, 30 kilometers. We’d been on the water a week and it felt good to stretch ourselves, to push beyond the 3-4 hours of sea kayaking we’d been doing each day, to spend 6-7 hours in the boats. It was especially encouraging for our Vietnamese-American teammate Ngan Nguyen, whose sea kayaking experience prior to being invited on this exploration was extremely limited. I included Ngan for her invaluable knowledge of the country, her understanding of the country’s language and traditions, and her experiences as Asia project manager for Oxfam America. That she is keeping up on our longish paddling days is a signal of her singular determination to do everything well.
Each day we stop and spend time with locals, mostly fishermen, met along the way. At the tiny floating village of Vong Vieng, it was the school teacher whose 60 students arrive by rowboat or raft at her floating classroom, six days a week. In the same floating suburb we paddled up and introduced ourselves to a youthful widow who supported her mainland family by growing fish on a platform afloat two hours from shore. We cruised the crowded harbor of Cat Ba town, where as many as 5,000 people live and work on boats ranging in shape and construction from woven, wooden baskets to cement ships (literally, floating vessels made from cement! One of my quests during these next few weeks is to get to the bottom of exactly how they float . . . .) We spent an afternoon in Cat Ba on the workboat of a man engaged in what is probably the most important business in the fishing industry: Ice-making. Without his service – he operates like a kind of Good Humor man, making floating housecalls, his crew pouring thousands of kilos of crushed ice into the holds of trawlers – this crowded harbor and its one-to-one trading would perish. On another day, in an island town translated as “Victory”, we met a man who had never shaken hands with an American; the closest he’d come was a pair of Navy pilots shot down over the sea near his village in 1966.
It is amazing how warm and gentle all of these people have been with the four of us pale-faced gringos floating into and out of their lives. Each offers rice wine, bowls of fish and rice, endless pots of tea. They lead extremely simple lives, existing on just a few dollars a day often for a family, yet are exceedingly generous. But the scene most incredible is how to a one they warm to Ngan, who was born far to the south, in the Mekong Delta. Women of all ages reach out to her when we come up, touching her arm, wrapping their arms around her shoulders. Men are gracious to her, polite. There is a warmth to her, some kind of kismetic charisma, that draws these people – her native people -- to her. Which is a great asset for us as a team. With her entrée, the people we’ve met have been exceedingly willing to share the stories of their lives. To talk about their work, their families, their attempts to earn their way up (or escape) to a better life.
Two scenes from the past week stand out.
The first, Ngan and I were paddling across a two-mile-long protected bay among pinnacle islands; protected by the five to six foot tides which make it off-limits to all but the smallest fishing boats and our kayaks. We spot a group of children on a small sand beach near the end of the calm reach and paddle into the shallows towards them. It is a brother and sister and three cousins, picking clams from among the coral at low tide. The oldest – the spokesperson – is 13. They had rowed a small boat over from their home, one of 14 floating houses making up a hundreds-years-old town called Cong Tay. They had no school this day; their teacher had gone on an emergency to shore. Instead they were spending the day picking up dinner for their families. Almost everyday a supply boat from the mainland visits the floating village, selling the things they cannot pluck from the sea – vegetables, soap, toilet paper, fresh water.
They giggle at our approach. One of the boys rocks on the pointy front end of my yellow-and-red kayak. They tell us they have never been to Hanoi, only as far away as Cat Ba, an hour away by boat. They insist they aren’t anxious to visit the inland anytime soon, that they like their life on the sea . . . at least that’s what they say . . . .
The other scene was more intimate. During our long paddle we came across a solitary wooden fishing boat, maybe 20 feet long. It is worked by a husband and wife team; he pulls in the net, hand over hand, while she steers the long wooden rudder. From underneath the bamboo-woven canape two small children poke their heads out. We are surrounded only by a glassy, calm sea and the mystical islands of the Gulf of Tonkin wrapped in a late-morning fog. There are no other boats in sight. They talk quietly between each other as the net is pulled on-board: One small crab. Some seaweed. Another small crab. That’s it. Market value: A few cents. With a couple shared words she steers the boat further east even as he shuffles the oft-patched net back into the sea. Bobbing gently on the sea beside them we watch them work, without complaint and sparse conversation. As we put our paddles into the water she shares a big smile with us and waves; within minutes they are swallowed by the mist.
For audio reports from the field go to the National Geographic Society coverage of this expedition.
— Jon Bowermaster, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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