Day 46: 24/7/13
Another early morning. I'd been requested to wake one of the lads at half six and I heard him rushing around the room trying to put on clothes before he answered the door. There had been reports of him wearing no clothes in his room so that was a lovely mental image, at least it wasn't the image I got when he answered- that would have been awkward!!
We went back to the restaurant that we were at last night for breakfast. They had American and English breakfasts so we were happy out! We got the bus to the ferry then- like yesterday it was like driving in Peru- around little roads with big mountain drops!
The ferry was wedged with people. We got off the bus and walked on. Lots of people seemed to be staring throughout the whole long journey as I don't think they see too many tourists. The view of the bay was nicer than yesterday as it was less cloudy. It's full of big mountain type green and stone islands. There's lots of boats around too- ferries, tour boats like we had yesterday and little fishing boats too. Lots of good photos!
I was taking photos at one stage and a woman came up pointing at Ann-Marie's camera for her to take a photo of me and the woman. She hadn't a word of English so I didn't really know what was going on, but she seemed to be very happy about rubbing my skin. She rubbed my arms, kissed me on the cheek, had her arms around me so that she was practically touching my bum, she even rubbed up my legs! Another friend came over aswell for photos and then they were both rubbing me. I must have been the whitest person on the boat anyway! I wasn't sure aswell if the width of my leg was what they were looking at or just the colour!! They seemed to like it anyway! They sang a Vietnamese song for us and we tried to sing the song that Khoa taught us yesterday. They didn't know it at first, but then the first woman sang it and we joined in for the chorus. Then they kept pointing at the cameras and their bags, so we didn't know what they wanted. We were guessing they wanted the photos and I attempted to get an email address from them to send them on but they didn't seem to know what I was talking about! I had to bring them to our guide to see what was wrong with them! I was afraid they wanted money or something. What was wrong was that they wanted to take us to a camera shop to get the photos printed immediately but he said we had no time. He told them we'd send them through Facebook and he took their names. They were worried then that it would cost us money and were willing to pay!
Where the guide was there were lots of Vietnamese people and all of a sudden they all wanted photos with me, Steph and Jo who are almost as white as I am! There were men coming up shaking our hands and taking photos, I felt like a celebrity!! It's definitely the most interesting ferry I've ever been on! The guide just explained afterwards that they don't see many tourists and they think we are beautiful because we are white! The first woman that had come over to me held my hand going off the ferry and there were four of them waving us off then when we drove off on the bus!
We had a two hour journey then to a rest stop where we had lunch. Most people slept the whole way so any one of us that was awake took loads of sleeping photos!!
We got back to the hotel around 3 and had a few hours to chill. We went to the market because a few people were looking for last minute gifts. The stalls were starting to pack up though so we didn't see anything interesting. They are the biggest markets in Hanoi- but they didn't look too old today! We tried a few streets nearby to see if they had anything, but then just gave up and went back to the hotel.
One of the guys was organising the tip for the guide so I wrote him a bit of a letter and put the money inside it. I felt he'd been really good to me as I asked him a million questions about life in Vietnam because of Huyen. I even got him to say her name for me in the proper accent, which is ever so slightly different but I can't say any different to what I always say! In Hoi An too, he organised the My Son tour because he knew I wanted to go. Also, Steph and I were joking with him all the time and he'd a similar sense of humour to us, so I felt we got on really well and I made sure he got a good tip from us! I went upstairs to give it to Andy who was collecting it. He thought it was his wife coming back from shopping and opened the door with no top on! He got the fright of his life!!
As it was our last night all together, we all made a bit of effort to dress up and put on make-up and stuff. I even brought out the wedge heels for the first time in Asia- I don't know when I wore them last!! I don't know if I'll be able to manage proper high heels at the races!! I had intended to wear the pink dress I have with the ruffles. There were a few tiny stains on it from the last time I wore it, which was our last night with the last group. But I had to go with it anyway. I went to have a shower and hung it on the back of the door and of course the shower flooded the whole bathroom and wet the bottom of the dress! Luckily stuffy bathrooms and air con mean dressed dry very quickly! People thought when I went down to the lobby that I had gottent the dress made, so I'll take that as a compliment! Good job I looked like crap on the ferry or I would have been molested altogether!!
We had our final dinner anyway in a nice restaurant. We had a choice between a good restaurant and a posh restaurant- we all picked the good one. Only one or two of the UK people could be classified as posh- definitely not us!! The guide ordered dishes for us all to share- fish type spring roll things, duck, chicken, pork- way too much food as usual! Unfortunately he had a bit of a sick tummy so couldn't enjoy the meal as normal. Also, he had to catch a train back to Hue or else he'd have to wait around until tomorrow night to go there and miss an extra night with his family. He showed us his wife and kids too- they are gorgeous!! So, we got Heather and Sarah to make a speech. They thanked him of course but then they added funny things that they had learned during the trip: when you're told to wear suncream, wear suncream (Iain), when you sleep on a roundabout, be prepared to have your watch stolen (Geoff), when something is optional it means we're all doing it, but we just have to pay for it! They had some other things too, but they were the funniest!
Khoa went round the table then and asked us all to say our highlight. I was last so everything was said a few times before it got to me. Everyone loved Hoi An, the bike rides and Halong Bay. I added that I liked meeting the locals at the homestays and home dinners. Everyone laughed that I met enough locals today to do me a life time!! We are all dying to hear what Iain would say as he often skipped activities and didnt always seem to enjoy himself but we all missed him! Apparently he just said Hoi An and then let the next person speak. No wonder we missed it!
We had to say goodbye to Khoa then, which was really sad. We all took photos with him and gave him hugs! I felt sadder saying goodbye to him than our last guide Channa. She was an excellent guide too but her trip was way easier to organise and she was a very confident person anyway. Khoa was a worrier and worked really hard to please everyone and have many different options available. He reminded me of myself as he was quite shy at first, but a talker and someone who loved to sing and joke around when he got comfortable with us. So, I think being a tour guide was a lot harder for him than it was for Channa, even though he was brilliant at it! Andy commented afterwards that never have so many people wanted to adopt a 35 year old man!! He's right!! Khoa is tiny so everyone thought of him as a younger brother or son! Steph gave him one final piggy back and he was gigging with embarrassment that the restaurant staff would see! He seemed to be really upset to say goodbye too and looked like he was going to cry, but I've a feeling he would be that way with every group!! He literally had to run then as he only had about half an hour to make his train! He didn't even if he would be able to get a bed in the train, or if he would just have to sit in the corridor for the whole 13 hours. Sitting in a corridor with a dodgy tummy would not be good!!
We went for a few drinks after that then. Khoa had told us to go to Hair of the Dog but we couldn't find it. We found another bar in the same direction called Bubble- it seems Hair of the Dog had changed it's name!! We had a good few drinks and good fun on the dance floor. More locals were coming up telling me how beautiful I was- all girls though- there's something in the air today!! I need to get a tan before I come back here again!! There were four of us just buying a drink when the music stopped. We had just gotten it when the police were in to kick everyone out, so we had to down it!! Steph and I wanted to find another place to go then. Some other people did too, some didn't. The people that didnt kept walking with us though telling us we should go home, instead of just going home themselves! They haven't really seen me being really talkative so I think they thought I was well on it, when I wasn't. I was just up for a good night out for our last night! We did find another bar/nightclub with lots of tourists and had a drink there and then that one closed too. Everything seems to close really early here! It took us ages to get a taxi and we were about twenty minutes drive away from the hotel and we were still all tucked up in bed by 2am!