As a first-timer, i find kayaking damn fun (though chunwee might beg to differ… then again maybe he’s ok with ‘kayaking’ and not ‘kayaking with zihao’). once we stepped off the main boat onto our kayak and started paddling, we headed off in the entire opposite direction, and the boat crew were shouting/gesticulating wildly at us, while chunwee was virtually screaming ‘right’ or something like that.
as usual, i probably was confused as to whether ‘right’ meant ’stick the oar into the water on the right’ or ’steer the boat rightwards’ – in which case, ’stick the oar into the water on the left’. then again, most pple probably have some kayaking exp. and know all this. amidst all the din, with our kayak heading in totally the opposite direction, further out to sea, part of me was flustered, while another part of me was finding the situation rather amusing.
i found it quite a challenge to steer through the waters dotted with large junks, smaller speedboats and other water-craft carrying goods for sale, a few bobbing tourists and many other kayaks around. we had a few near misses, and a couple of knocks into other kayaks. for example, there would be this huge junk behind us, blaring at us to get out of the way. there was still time for us to cut across, and we attempted to do so. suddenly, a bobbing head appeared some distance in front of us, and we steered left to avoid it. we heard the junk’s horn again, and there wasn’t time to cut across its path, so we had to paddle back, and did one circle while the junk sailed through. not that close a scrape, though chunwee’s frustration probably destroyed whatever tranquility was left.
another example invovled a near head-on collision with another boat, but both sides steered right in time to avoid any trouble (learnt the steer-right thing from a fellow Singaporean hallmate).
We finally caught up with roger and elgin [i sit in awe as to how they cruise along so smoothly; stability in sharp juxtaposition with the semi-confusion in our boat] in the little cove (may be mis-using names of geographical features here…), and proceeded to have a cam-whoring session, nicely sealed off by towering rocky cliffs, save for a small opening (in which i nearly crashed chunwee into a rocky outcrop). photo-taking wasn’t easy, as both vessels had to be still, relative to each other. it was harder still since i was the one supposed to stabilise our boat.
When we got back to the main boat, roger and elgin went for a little dip in the pool (ok, a large, endless pool), jumping off from the top deck. it looked quite fun, but after the usual vacilliations, eventually i didn’t dare to jump in. perhaps a mixture of soreness in the legs and expectation of poor treading of water. or maybe just too hum-ji. ah well, as some great procrastinator i know often says, ‘maybe next time ba’. the tranquil scenery of the halong bay is certainly worth another plunge.
