Xin chao and welcome back to northern Vietnam.

So on Monday morning (26/10) we stepped onto the bus outside the front door of the Hanoi Guesthouse and set off on the (roughly) three hour journey north-east to Halong Bay.

The bus we were travelling on was advertised as ‘a modern tourist bus’. It turned out to be a Ford Transit minivan packed to the rafters with people and luggage. If health and safety from home had a look at it they would have been excused for having a mild seizure.

We ended up sat next to an ex-pat Brit, now resident of Hawaii, called Michael, who just so happened to look like one of Led Zeppelin. Turned out that he had retired from his job and gone travelling for three months - minus the wife. Nice bloke.

If we had thought the drive from the airport to Hanoi was frenetic, well then this was just plain madness. I’m convinced the driver was suicidal. He definitely seemed intent on killing himself - and the rest of us. I was absolutely 100% certain that we were about to die, at least a dozen times. A quiet calm came over me as we stared into the whites of the eyes of the drivers of the 12 tonne arctic lorries hurtling head on towards us, beeping and flashing wildly. A bright light seemed to appear from nowhere and beckon me towards it.

Strangely the driver, along with our tour guide ‘Hoang’ (meaning ‘King’), or ‘Mr.King’ as he instructed those of us unable to pronounce his name to address him as, were a picture of calm. This, it appeared, was perfectly normal. Its what you do, surely. If the vehicle in front is not driving to the speed you desire then, well, just pass him. On a blind corner, with a scooter/car/bus/lorry coming at you the other way, pedestrian crossing up ahead. No problem. Just beep your horn and they‘ll move. The golden rule of driving in Vietnam is to beep your horn. Lots. If you do that then you’ve done your part. People should then know that your coming. It doesn’t matter if your on the wrong side of the road on a blind corner, if they don’t get out of the way then its their own fault. You beeped after all.

Mr.King also gave us another insight into life on the roads in Vietnam as he leaned over from the front seat and explained how, if the police stopped us for whatever reason, that we were all to look away, and under no circumstances at the officer as they would then become “shy“. This way the driver could politely bribe the man in blue and we could be on our merry way. Simple.

Somehow, defying all reasoning, we actually made it to Halong Bay at about 11:30. We dismounted our coffin on wheels, into the hordes of local sales women with fists full of what seemed to be fake pearls, muttering our now mastered “Com, Camon” and following Mr.King towards the ticket office for the endless rows of ‘Junks’ lined up in the harbour. After a few minutes he returned and passed us over our ticket for a night trip onboard a Junk, including all meals. The price on the ticket read “60,000 VND” (2 GBP).

Along with the other 18 or so passengers we then boarded our vessel to be served lunch. The food was pretty good and the cabin was fine as well, although we did end up next door to the engine room, which by the sounds of it was a clapped out diesel engine constructed in the early seventies. It was ok when they turned it off though.

After lunch we hauled anchor and set sail for one of the biggest naturally formed caves in the area. It was about an hour away so we chilled out on the top deck, “ooh”-ing and “aah”-ing at the breath taking scenery that was appearing all around us. There are around 2000 vegetation covered islands in Halong bay along with countess isolated sandy beaches and caves created by the wind and the waves. This place is now recognised by UNESCO as a world heritage sight and its easy to see why.

The only negative thing I would highlight about Halong Bay and Vietnam in general is that they do have a very real and very obvious litter problem. Nobody seems to either recognise or care about the dangers and problems that littering causes and this is evident everywhere as you pass countless plastic bottles and wrappers on the ground and in the waters. The Vietnamese are attempting to persuade people to vote for Halong Bay as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Until they do something about the litter problem though id like to think that people would choose not to. I certainly would anyway.

So, after an hour or so we arrived at the cave, which consisted of three or four chambers, the final two being particularly huge and impressive. One of the main attractions was a natural formation in the shape of a penis. They had even added to this natural marvel by placing a red light underneath it. Very classy.

After leaving the cave we continued on to one of the many water villages here in the bay to hit the water in kayaks for an hour or so. The water villages are amazing in themselves, with houses actually built on decking and floating on empty barrels. People are actually born here and live here all of their lives, never leaving. Their definitely an opportunistic bunch of folk the Vietnamese as well. I had expected setting sail to be a temporary end to the constant sales pitch of the locals. How wrong I was.
Every time we slowed sufficiently a flock of boats manned by frail looking girls rowing away like the clappers and filled to the brim with everything from beer to Oreo’s swarmed us.

“Sir, beer for you? Cold beer?”.

“Water? 20,000”.

“You like Oreo’s?”.

Fair play to them though, their persistant if nothing else.

We arrived at what appeared to be a floating kayak rental establishment guarded by a ravid looking dog. One by one we climbed into the two person kayaks. Aimee was a tad reluctant but came in the end. With one and a half paddles between us (one end of my paddle had half of it missing) we set off in our attempt to circle the island that was directly in front of us.

Just to point out that at no point did our guide, or anyone else for that matter, enquire as to whether we could all swim, give us any guidance on kayaking in general or what to do if we did happen to fall out. Gotta love Vietnam.

Anyhow, we made it a fair distance around, through the floating village, beneath a cave tunnel and back around but it was obvious pretty quickly that we had a big problem.

We couldn’t go straight due to the half a paddle I was stuck with. Basically we veered off to the right, then stopped, corrected and veered off to the left. Stopped again and so on.

We quickly got bored and made an about turn before heading back zig-zag style towards the water village.

Back on the junk we were fed again (much squid and prawns), had Mr.King make a big show out of drinking dogs blood (much to Aimee’s outspoken disgust), and then partook in a touch of squid fishing off the back of the boat with what was effectively a piece of bamboo with a hook attached to it.

Aimee was the only person to catch anything although, thanks to a vet being on board, we were guilt tripped into throwing it back. Unfortunately for the squid it was too late.

After a good nights sleep aboard the junk and fully fed from breakfast we departed towards Cat Ba island for a spot of cycling and a jungle trek.

Just to point out as well that any sea sickness sufferers thinking about giving Halong Bay a miss - don’t, its so still and calm you really don’t even notice your on water. Which was good news for me!

So anyway, on Cat Ba island we were given a bike each, which looked like something straight out of Mary Poppins. Proper womans bike, complete with basket and bell. The works. Its got to be said, it didn’t do anything for our Led Zeppelin lookalikes street cred.

With the sound of bells in the air we set off behind Mr.King on the 5km path to the village at the edge of the jungle. As we sauntered along, through stunning, almost untouched natural scenery, scattered with the odd local villager working the rice paddies in the valley below, complete with the traditional wicker lamp shade style hat to keep the sun off their heads, it was hard not to just stop and spend some time just taking it all in.

It was really, really nice. Much like, in my head, what I had imagined Vietnam to look like.

After about 15 minutes we arrived at the village and stopped for a break with the locals before heading into the jungle. There were puppies everywhere as we passed through the village, some playing, others sleeping under the afternoon sun. Predictably we were straight over taking pictures and playing with them. The locals were watching us, no doubt curiously wondering why we were taking pictures of lunch. We tried reasoning with Mr.King and explaining that, to us, a dog is almost the equal of your brother, a part of the family and most definitely NOT on the menu. Ever. I don’t think he quite understood.

The bushwalk took about 50 minutes and passed through a stretch of the jungle, across a couple of streams courtesy of the locally built bamboo bridges, and up towards a cave of which, it was explained to us, was used as a refuge by the Vietnamese army officers considered too valuable to risk being on the mainland during the war. They actually lived here in the cave for years. You can still see piles of snail shells all over the floor, which is actually what the officers had eaten and in turn disgarded 50 or so years ago. It was quite interesting thinking of them in here, camouflaged as they watched the American bombers pass by over head.

After descending back down through the jungle to our very own Mrs.Mable mobile, we headed off back to the boat and to our next stop - Monkey Island.

Monkey island, as it is referred to, is actually a part of the Cat Ba national park, with a small shop and a stretch of (tragically littered) sandy bay along the front. As we walked the dangerously steep and slippery plank thing - that they drop over the end of the boat for you to walk down - and onto the beach, Mr.King informed us that we would have to wait a while for the monkeys as “they’re sleeping”.

Amazingly, after a number of other tourist boats arrived and the beach was pretty full (It was practically empty when we arrived) the monkeys magically awoke, appearing from somewhere behind the shop building. The cynic in us was thinking this was a little too much of a coincidence. Could it be possible that the monkeys were in fact released as a tourist attraction once a day? And how exactly did they end up on this island anyway? Mr.King reliably informed us that “they swim from the other islands”. Oh, that explains it then…

There were about 5 of them, all opportunistic thieving little sods, managing to snatch one womans packet of crisps from her hand as well as the group of them attacking an Aussie woman from our tour after she (and one or two more of us) got a little too close to them. She eventually beat them off with her handbag. I was gutted I wasn’t recording it at the time. It would have been a classic to send in to “when animals attack” or some other such programme.

Overall we were a little disappointed with Monkey Island though. We spent too long here waiting for the monkeys to ‘wake up’ and it was clearly a tourist gimmick. The Asian chaps here goading and provoking the monkeys didn’t do the place any favours either.

After leaving Monkey Island we were set to depart our junk and spend the second night in a beach hut on one of the islands. We had a choice of this or a hotel on the main island here, eventually choosing the hut as being more of an experience. You can stay in a hotel anywhere after all.

The hut itself was basic (which we were expecting) but nice enough, with basically a mattress each on the floor of the hut covered with a mosquito net, along with a toilet and (cold) shower room through the back. Not bad really.
There was also a central open air bar/restaurant area complete with a hammock and karaoke (for later). There was also the customary handful of dogs and puppies roaming around. Some looking friendlier than others, although I suppose that’s understandable if you’ve seen your brothers become number 16 on the local menu…

The only main downside to the beach hut/resort was that it was pretty much a building site as they were seemingly looking to extend the place with a couple of half finished huts being worked on by labourers as we arrived. I’ve no doubt this place would be truly amazing when finished. Unfortunately the presence of the building site just ruined it slightly.

Either way, after another hearty dinner consisting of more squid and prawns, we actually ended up retiring to the security of our mozzy nets a little after 7pm (shocking I know) and watching a film on our multimedia player.

We were up nice and early ready for breakfast at 6:45. Both of us slept reasonably well although we were informed by the two, rather comatose looking Kiwi women on our tour, that they had endured a night of hell thanks to their hut being invaded by what sounds like several big rats. They spent the night sleeping across wooden chairs outside and were not impressed. They were in the hut next to us and apparently were wailing for help at one stage. We must have slept better than we thought!

Now, one thing to point out is that, the island we stayed on was situated towards the edge of Halong Bay and in turn the security of the surrounding islands. As such the sea here was much choppier, which wasn’t too bad on a decent sized boat with a bit of ‘oomph’. I was getting a little nervous when we were invited, following breakfast, to step aboard what can only be described as an over sized wicker basket made waterproof by melting wax/tar over the bottom of it. So there we were, about ten of us, and about half a tonne in rucksacks, hanging on for grim death as the basket attempted to negotiate the high sea’s.

We were literally up and down, side to side, going no faster than strolling pace for the average OAP. I swear we could have got out and swam faster.

The trip that took us about 20 minutes in the junk took us about 45-50 minutes in the basket. I could feel the colour draining from my face with every passing wave as I considered the consequences of throwing up on the knee of the stern looking German girl sat to my side. It was to be her or the Kiwi woman with the rats to my other side and I reasoned, logically I thought, that she had had a bad enough night as it was so had settled on the German being the unfortunate recipient of my stomach lining.

Thankfully for her, and no doubt for me as well, we arrived at the junk just in time. All that was left to do was head back to the harbour and hop onto the bus back to Hanoi.

The drive back was actually worse than the one coming, if that was even possible. I’m sure there were people on the bus actually praying and phoning their loved ones saying their goodbyes.

Once again though we did arrive back and had no more than a few hours to re-sort our bags, shower, eat and then depart for our first experience of the Vietnamese night trains, in this case making the overnight pilgrimage North-West to the hills of Sapa…