It's now Wednesday morning and we are on the van heading to Halong Bay. We were met this by Ruby Le (his Vietnamese name is Ngoc) who was waiting for us with his camera body and with the box of new pots and pans etc for our kitchen needs aboard the Junk.
The Seder hayom today is that we have a three hour drive to Halong bay where we will board our boat for a 24 hour cruise. Along the way we passed very typical Vietnamese scenes; overloaded motorcycles, and many rice paddies with workers wearing the traditional conical shaped straw hats.
From what I have read, the huge area consists of a very calm large bay which has over 2000 karsts or limestone mountains emerging from the water. The boat (The Prince 3 Junk) has four bedrooms, air conditioning, each with private bathrooms. We will be able to swim and kayak from the boat which is staffed by an English speaking guide, 2 captains, a waiter, a barman and 2 cooks. We get to see local fishing villages, caves that are within some of the emerging mountains and you get to enjoy the sunset and sunrise. That is what we have been promised ...read on to see if they deliver.
The weather thus far in Vietnam has been quite warm and cloudy most of the days coupled with occasional rain. Yesterday was mostly hazy and we are hoping that the relatively clear weather this morning will continue for the time we are on the boat.
We will return to port tomorrow at noon and be back in Hanoi in mid afternoon Thursday.
I am now continuing this post at 5:20 pm after a most amazing day. When we pulled into the port of Halong Bay, (population 300,000), we were met by our guide Zhee, who thankfully speaks English fluently, definitely the best of all the guides so far. They sent our luggage ahead and then led us to a tender (small boat that takes you out to your junk) and we were off on a 2 minute trip to our boat. At the same time, there were people all around boarding other tenders for other boats. There are 200 similar boats in the Halong Bay Area.
For those of us old enough to remember the Vietnam War (which, by the way, in this part of the world is called the American War) the part of the sea that we are in is the Gulf of Tomkin which, if I remember correctly, was where American Naval vessels sailed to provide support to the ground troops.
Once we boarded, they gave us a welcome drink of fresh mango juice and a cold towel. Zhee told us a bit about himself, and the company that owns the boats, the IndoChina Sailing company. He explained that there are two main areas of Halong bay, one which is populated by many boats and the other which is a bit less travelled. His company owns 14 boats of various sizes and they basically dominate the route that they have chosen, because it is a more intimate and less touristy area.
He reviewed some of the safety measures and some history about the area and then asked whether we had any questions. We immediately told him that we wished to meet the kitchen staff as we were concerned that they not begin anything without us.
He took us down to the kitchen and we met the two cooks and the wait staff.
If you have ever watched the reality show Top Chef where chefs are given ingredients and from that they are to create the meal, this was it. The chefs had clearly never had a challenge like this. To their credit, we saw the box of pots, pans, knives etc that they had purchased for us and everything was in its original wrapping. We were shown the fresh live carp and as the official mashgiach, I was able to easily remove scales and certify that this was a kosher fish.
They then asked many questions as to what they could use from their kitchen. We okayed the salt, pepper, sugar, flour, eggs, and all the fresh fruits and veggies that they had brought on board. We nixed any and all sauces that they had sitting on their counter and provided them with olive oil, butter, milk and soy sauce, mixing bowls and vegetable peelers. We told them that as far as spices, only salt and black pepper could be used. They were not happy with the olive oil because it has a higher smoking point and has a flavour that they are not familiar with; but they used it.
We also told them that we love to cook and that they would have to have us in the kitchen whenever he was preparing or cooking anything and that we would have to place the pots on the gas burner.
He began to prepare the meal and we stuck around as he cleaned and filleted the fish and cleaned and chopped the vegetables. Every now and then, he would ask Zhee who was our interpreter to ask us if they could use this or that. They were most cooperative.
Stay tuned for the rest of our amazing day....and the adventures in the kitchen....
To be continued....
All the best,
Fran and david
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