Our day started out fairly leisurely as we had breakfast on our junk while cruising to the Floating Village of Vung Vieng. Currently, there are only 4 floating villages left in Halong Bay. These villages are no longer full time residences for people, but they do still come here to carry out their fishing, but the main income from these villages is now tourism. 
Vung Vieng is located in Bai Tu Long Bay and is quite the picturesque setting. The entrance into this village is Luon Cave and is quite spectacular, almost like an opening into a private world. This village's main income came from fishing and pearling farming. However, in the past few years, tourism is the biggest income.
Several years ago, the government put out a directive that the people must move inland for an "improved quality of life" including better educational opportunities for the children and environmental concerns. After visiting this village, it was back to our junk boat for the final journey back to the harbor where we had to say goodbye to our gracious hosts and continue our journey to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City in the North of VietNam.
On the way to the airport, we stopped at a pearl processing place and learned about the process of making cultured pearls and the importance of this industry to the area. We learned about the 3 different types of oysters found here and the type of pearls they produce, white pearls, black pearls and gold pearls. They showed us how they know implant little balls into the live oysters, so as to make round pearls, although even with this process only about 20% of the pearls come out round enough to be used. It was pretty amazing to see the whole implant process - each step was demonstrated to us. Nothing goes to waste either. They eat the meat after the pearl is removed and use the shell for jewelry as well.
From there we headed to the airport in Hai Phong to catch our flight to Ho Chi Minh City where we had to say good bye to "D". While we will miss our new friend, we know that we have another coming into our lives in a matter of hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment