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Flying the flag
All smiles now...the guide got off lightly and we later saw the funny side!! The overnight train arrived in Hanoi at 5.40am, it was a bit too early to do anything so we hung around the Lake area and had breakfast. We got a taxi to take us to Gia Lam bus station which is apparently 2KM (if the Lonely Planet book is correct). Our driver must have fancied the scenic route and took us on the 10KM foreigener ride - robbing git!! He then wanted a tip....unbelievable!!! We booked a ticket on the local bus to Bai Chay in Halong City. Before buying the ticket I inspected all of the buses in the car park to make sure that they sold me a ticket for the best bus, unfortunately there was only 1 bus going to Halong City - a 27 seater designed for small vietnamese bums and legs. The ride to Halong was approximately 4 hrs they said (165 KM) and cost 40,000 dong (1 pound 25p). It actually turned out to be a very eventful journey, one which we both enjoyed. The highlight for Barry was being taught Vietnamese by the conductor who took a bit of a shine to him and kept stroking his hairy arms. The highlight for me
Day Trippers - Halong Bay
Boats moored at the entrance to one of the caves......a bit like Asda's carpark on Saturday afternoon came 2hrs into the journey when we stopped on the roadside to let more passengers on the bus - an old lady took this as the perfect opportunity to hop off the bus and squat for a wee by the side of the road......big mistake, the bus started to drive off without her, she started running after the bus with her pants around her ankles and everyone on the bus burst into laughter...........poor old gal, she did see the funny side though and had a good old laugh with us all when she eventually caught us back up!!! We were the only 2 foreigners on the bus and I think we were a source of amusement to them all, we tried to teach the conductor some English words (Alex Ferguson, Wayne Rooney, Champions etc), and the whole bus joined in. We had a great time and when the bus got really packed they brought out the plastic stools for people to sit in the aisles....it was just like Shooters on Quiz Night!!!
When we arrived in Bai Chay we took a taxi to the centre of town and inspected a couple of Hotels before settling for the Van Nam
Halong Bay at dusk
The perfect end to a not so perfect day....what a hard life it is!! $8 - bargain! The room was really nice, clean and had recently been re-decorated. We showered did some laundry then went off in search of a boat trip on Halong Bay - the only reason for us being in Halong City in the first place. We were quoted $60 per person to board a big boat with lots of people or $80 for a smaller boat with fewer people. After much hagling with several touts we booked ourselves on a 2 day 1 night tour of the Bay for $30 each. We later found out that these Tours never live up to there promises no matter how much you pay or which agent you use, we sat next to a young lad from Oxford who had paid $92 for his tour!!!
Today we had a bit of a lie in as the pick up time for the boat wasn't until 11.30am. However when it got to 11.50pm and there was no bus we resigned ourselves to the fact that we'd been well and truly scammed. The bus did appear eventually and took us to the ferry point for our wonderful tour of the bay with 15 people onboard......except it
Shipmates
Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of cheap Vietnamese plonk, or two, or three??? wasn't 15 people, it was more like 45 people and we weren't the only ones who were expecting fewer passengers - the guide was pulling his hair out because his 40 person boat had been overbooked and apparently his Company do this to him every single day!! Anyway we decided to make the best of it and sat with a couple of girls from Quebec and a girl from Chile who was travelling alone. The boat should have left port at 12pm but at 1.30pm we were still not going anywhere. Eventually lunch was served and the guide asked the 5 of us if we would mind sitting up on deck to have our lunch as it was a bit cramped below. He led us up top where the rain had left puddles on the sun beds but he promised to bring a towel to wipe them when he brought up the table and food. Ten minutes later and there's still no sign of anything happening so I'm cold and hungry and decide to go back down to get my fleece, now this is the part where I flipped. The table that we had been sitting at now had 3
View from our cabin - Halong Bay
A nice scene to shake off the hangovers!! new tourists occupying it eating their lovely hot food, as you can imagine I was not a happy girl!!! I pulled the guide to one side and let off a bit of steam, told him how I thought he had some nerve shoving us up onto a wet deck when it might rain again and leaving us to our own devices. Anyway the guy PROMISED me that it wasn't going to rain again and I said "How the hell do you know - are you God" He walked off with his head in his hands and I swear it was the best move he ever made otherwise he might have been walking the plank!!! Eventually Barry sorted it all out, we returned below deck and managed to squeeze onto the ends of tables and finally got fed and the boat set off.
Halong Bay is a World Heritage Site, it's incredible, there are approximately 3,000 islands rising out of the sea creating the most amazing scene. It's a bit like Krabi in Thailand only much bigger. Some of the islands have caves, we visited one as part of the tour but it was so packed with people that you
Floating village resident - Halong Bay
You can't get fresher than this.... straight out of the sea and into the pot.....delicious hardly got a chance to take it in - plus our guide had decided to settle his nerves with a can of beer and a fag on board and left us to do the cave ourselves so we had no idea about it's history etc. After the cave we sailed again for about 1/2 an hour before entering the floating village and having a look around there - our boat almost knocked one of the houses into the sea......the house owner was not happy - nice to know we have a competant captain as well as a competant guide eh!! We sailed on to Cat Ba island to drop of most of the passengers and then we finally had the boat to ourselves (along with 13 other people as promised). This was the nicest part of the tour, at last it was peaceful and quiet which is how we imagined it would be. One final snag - Josefina the girl from Chile was told when she booked the tour that she would have to share a bunk with somebody else - not a problem for her so long as she shared with a girl, the agent promised that this would
Fruit seller Halong Bay
The man from Delmonte he say "NO" be the case but unfortunately for poor Josefina she was given the key to a bunk and was told by the guide that her room mate was Howard from Norway!!! Luckily for the guide he got off in Cat Ba and spent the night in a nice hotel with the other tourists........run, run as fast as you can!!!!
We enjoyed the rest of the evening on the boat with the remaining group, we had a nice dinner and a few drinks up on deck in total darkness - apart from the lights from the other 25 boats moored next to us!!
An early start to the day saw us eating breakfast and sailing back to Cat Ba to pick up the others. By this time we'd had enough and decided to jump ship. Cat Ba was on the agenda anyway so we used the opportunity to get a lift into town on the tour bus (at last the guide redeemed himself). He also recommended a good Hotel and arranged for a cheap rate for us. So it was goodbye to Halong Bay and Hello to Cat Ba Island.
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