We took another overnight bus to reach Hanoi and if you want the drama of the bus journey, skip to Ben's blog! Arriving in Hanoi at 7am when you're all sleepy, you don't want to put up with the motorbike, taxi and hotel touts that won't leave you alone. We were about 2km from the centre and our coach steward flagged us down a taxi to get to a hostel. We asked the driver how much, he said 'meter', we asked for a guess but wouldn't give us one. 5 minutes into the journey he switches off the meter and demands the equivalent of £9. It's illegal for a taxi not to use their meter for a journey. We tried to get out of the taxi but were locked in. I didn't want to give him anything but you don't know what people are capable of so Ben gave him some of the money. Nice way to start getting into a new place, not wanting to talk to anyone local.
Anyway, our next 2 days were spent tiptoeing through the minefields of booking a trip to the beautiful Halong Bay.There are so many travel agents to book with and many just copy the good companies names so if you look up reviews on the internet you need to be sure you are booking the same tour! There can be shops with the same name next door to each other and about 10 on a street! There are a lot of horror stories on the travel forums-ships infested with rats, cockroaches, people paying double the price of others on the same boat, not to mention a ship sinking a few weeks ago, killing around 16 people, mainly tourists who were trapped in their cabins asleep. So I was keen to do some research before booking! We spent a bit more and picked a 3 day trip. 1 night would be spent on the boat and 1 night in a hotel on Cat Ba island. I was so excited and didn't want to be disappointed.
Our 3 day trip didn't get off to the best start. The night before we went out to a Bia Hoi stall, where fresh beer is 15p per glass. We'd had a few during the day and thought we'd have one more before tea so that we wouldn't drink during our meal and save some money. That was the plan anyway. Then the stall was raided by the police! There were too many chairs and tables blocking the pavement apparently, which is a little rich when you can't walk along the pavement because all the motorbikes are parked on it! So, we were moved onto a table of 3 Vietnemese people, an older Australian couple and a Canadian couple. One of the Vietnemese men was in love with a rich girl and his friends were asking for love advice and once they left we were talking about travelling with the Westerners. Anyway, we were having such a good time that we didn't end up having anything to eat and were therefore a little drunk! We hadn't packed and needed to check out of our hotel and walk to a pick up point before 8am. I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled we were when our alarm went off! A 4 hour bus journey wasn't pleasant either.
Happily, spending a little bit extra paid off. I was relieved to see the boat and our cabin. The cabin was small but clean. The boat had a top deck full of sunloungers, a middle deck with a restaurant, bar, some tables and chairs outside and our cabin, with the bottom floor having more cabins.
There were 10 cabins in total so only 20 people on the boat. 9 people including a few kids were Vietnemese. They didn't speak much English but were incredibly friendly and amused a lot by the Westerners doing things like jumping off the boat, or they all seemed to find it hilarious to have their picture taken with a big Canadian guy!!! The other 9 people to make up the group were Westerners. All couples apart from one American girl travelling alone.
When we boarded the boat we checked out our cabin then headed to the restaurant for lunch. Food was served for us to share. We had said that we didn't like seafood so they gave us an extra pork dish for us. There was also pork spring rolls, chicken and vegetable stir fry, squid, baked fish, cabbage, deep fried sweetcorn?! Tofu (disgusting, they have it everywhere) and mountains of rice. It was pretty good!
Our first stop was 'Surprise Cave'. I was desperate to visit this cave as I'd read that it was a good surprise! Ben googled what it was but I managed not to find out. The cave was incredible. It was massive with different chambers. One had a mineral water pool in, the others had different rock formations that looked like different animals/Buddha's apparently. I didn't see the similarity with most of them! The 'surprise' was at the end, when you came out of the cave high up for a view of the surrounding bay. I wasn't really surprised. They should change it's name.
Next was kayaking in a double kayak round the islets in the bay. Halong Bay has thousands of limestone cliffs, islands and islets jutting out of the water. The water is an Emerald colour from the limestone which is beautiful. It can be quite foggy or misty, adding to the magical feel of the place. So we could kayak closer to the many surrounding formations and check out a couple of shallow caves. I really enjoyed it though 40 minutes was enough as it's quite tiring on the arms! Later on we met a woman who had been on a different boat and she said 2 Indonesian lads got lost! They were missing for about 5 hours!
After that we had a very peaceful few hours on the top deck, reading, sunbathing, having a beer. Ben was jumping off the top deck of the boat (after the ear incident in Turkey I couldn't believe it!) It was very pleasant. Unfortunately as it was cloudy we didn't get a real sunset but you can't have it all!
There are lots of locals in small rowing boats who go round all the boats to try and sell you food and beer as it's cheaper than on the boats. Some even sell fresh seafood for you to buy and the boat will cook it for you.
That evening after dinner we did squid fishing. They shine a bright light at the back of the boat. The rods you use have no bait on but you need to wiggle them around to make them look like small fish so the squid would go for them. One of the girls was the master and caught 2. It took hours but finally Ben caught 1. I was proud though I did feel a little bad!
That next morning we were woken at 4.30am by the biggest storm ever. It was amazing. It was right above us so the lightening didn't come and go, it was just illuminating the sky constantly with a green tinge to it from the surroundings. The thunder sounded like cannons going off it was so loud. I would have been a lot more impressed if I wasn't so tired and I had no chance of sleeping with that noise!
After breakfast we said goodbye to the boat and landed on Cat Ba Island. The first stop was the national park where we were going for a 'walk' to the viewpoint. When a 'walk' is described as only that I don't feel the need to swap my flip flops for trainers-how wrong I was! Firstly, we all had to pick out a walking stick. I had my suspicions then. Next, on starting the trail, our guide discovered a massive tree blocking the path, knocked down from the lightening in the storm. That was scary! The hike was hard work. As it had been raining it was like a rainforest, so humid and really slippy. I was bitten all over by mosquito's too. We had to climb up rocks and old steel ladders whose handles had fallen off. I didn't enjoy it one bit. I didn't particularly enjoy the Canadian girls with a mini mega blaster strapped to them either, blasting out American rap and Rihanna. Now, I like a bit of Rihanna but we were hiking in a tropical forest! I wanted to see monkeys or other things, it just didn't work at all! It took us an hour to get to the viewpoint. It was quite nice though I was dreading going back down. It was harder in a way because of how slippy it was. I was completely filthy by the time we were finished due to crawling and scrambling. By the end of it my legs were shaking as well. I needed sugar. Ben thought I was putting it on! I decided that my legs are too short for doing anything like that and because of that, I'd done loads of overstretching. The next 4 days meant I couldn't walk up or down stairs. I was in agony and looked stupid! No more hiking for me!
After the leisurely walk(!) we went to our hotel (very pleasant!) for a quick shower, headed to lunch and then got a boat to the nearby Monkey Island. We saw 3 monkeys playing just off the beach and then started walking up to the viewpoint. After 10 minutes of climbing up rocks we decided we'd done enough climbing to last us a week and headed down to chill on the beach for a while. We went to the hotel for a nap then had dinner. Afterwards our group went to a nearby bar for a few beers. It was very pleasant and the people were nice. Everyone is always so impressed we quit our jobs and are away for so long. I expected lots of people to be doing the same, maybe we just don't see them!
The next day we had to be up early to get back to the big boat. It was raining quite a lot so we had to settle for sitting indoors but it wasn't any less beautiful. We both really enjoyed the trip, definitely my highlight of Vietnam. I'm so glad we spent the bit of extra money. I heard someone a few days later on a bus saying that their boat hit something and tilted a bit to one side. Their guide told them to all stand on the opposite side of the boat! And 10 minutes later they had to go and pack their bags before swapping boats. We did an awful lot on our tour compared to what we usually do on our own. I don't think we're suited to group travel. Putting up with people, waiting around for them, having to do things at certain times...we were definitely glad to have a rest when we got back to Hanoi!