Ha Long Bay

Ha Long is where a dragon came down to the sea: the legend says it spat jade and jewels to build a wall against invaders, and the wall is still there — one thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine islets of limestone, some the size of a house and some of a hill, standing straight up out of green water across fifteen hundred square kilometres of the Gulf of Tonkin, hollow with caves, feathered with jungle, and, in the mist of winter, exactly the ink painting everyone has seen. Fishing families lived on the water in floating villages for generations; a few remain. To the south-west the big island of Cat Ba keeps a national park and the quieter bay of Lan Ha; to the north-east Bai Tu Long keeps the same rocks with fewer boats.

The traveller sleeps on the water — a junk for a night, two if the budget allows, chosen carefully — and gives the bay its dusk and its dawn, which are the whole reason; kayaks through a tunnel in a rock into a lagoon with no other way in; climbs the four hundred steps of Ti Top for the view that appears on the money; walks the Surprise Cave with its stalactite theatre; passes the kissing rocks and the floating village of Cua Van; and, if the days allow, goes on to Cat Ba or Lan Ha, where the same limestone rises over water with room to breathe.

The Guide's honesty: the bay is one of the most visited places in Asia and the classic route is a convoy — hundreds of boats follow the same loop to the same cave at the same hour, and the water near the port carries the wake of all of them; choose the boat, not the price: a smaller one, a route through Lan Ha or Bai Tu Long, an operator who says how many cabins; the mist of January and February hides the islets and makes them — decide which you came for; typhoons cancel sailings from June to September and the port authority's word is final; and Ha Long city, on the shore, is a resort with a cable car and a Ferris wheel — the bay is the point, and it is out there.