Man overboard!

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I made it through the night last night without the resonance of rats scurrying about under the beds nor waking with a bite. Even so, I slept on the top bunk; I wasn’t taking chances.

I left Ha Noi today to head out to Ha Long Bay on an overnight trip. The ride out was in a minibus, where I was joined by a few Canadians, a guy from Japan, a few Aussies and some others from who knows where. The Aussies, who would only be on the bus ride with me, and I got along splendidly as we shared a similar dry sense of humor.

The temperature remained a bit cool and the skies overcast with a touch of fog along the water. Our guide told us he thought it would clear though I think he was just being an optimist. It remained very cloudy all day.

We caught a small ferry to our boat where I checked into my room. Although there were two beds and I could have been assigned a roommate, the boat was not at capacity so I maintained my private quarters.

After checking in I headed up to the deck where I talked with a few of the people from Canada who were on my minibus. They were here for a wedding for one guy’s cousin who married a Vietnamese girl. The married couple was also on board as well as the guy’s wife’s cousin.

We then were called to lunch where I joined a few people at my table - Elliott and his girlfriend Kylie from Sydney, Australia, Wee and his girlfriend Marie from Winnipeg, Canada and Ashu from Japan. Wee and Marie are of Vietnamese descent. Wee was born in Saigon and was sponsored to move to Canada when he was 10. Marie was born in Canada but still has many close family members in Vietnam, especially up north where much of her family is from. They’ve spent much of their holiday over the past few weeks hopping from family member’s home to family member’s home. This would be one of their few tourist breaks.

Lunch consisted of numerous rounds of food (and a few beers) brought out one at a time. We began with whole shrimp and some cucumber. Everyone looked at each other wondering if this was the extent of our lunch. Then came out some rice, followed by tofu with tomatoes, chicken, spring rolls, squid and watercress, all one at a time like courses. We went from being worried about going hungry to being overly full.

After lunch we went back on the deck before taking an excursion to a large cave. To get up to the cave we had to climb a long set of steps but the effort was worthwhile as we were treated to fantastic views of the area. Below us were numerous Vietnamese boats and rock formations just like those I saw in Thailand.

Inside the cave, our guide took us around, pointing out numerous rock formations that looked like Buddhas, dragons, people and even a giant phallus, balls and all.

Following the cave tour we took our shuttle boat to a platform where we would set out to do an hour’s worth of kayaking. The kayaks were made for two people so I went with Jill, the fifth wheel in the Vietnamese wedding group.

It’s at this point that I should give some background on my tendencies and Jill’s propensity for bad luck. If “Hurst” were to appear in a dictionary, something like this would surely follow - Hurst (noun) one whose overt curiosity causes him to seek out adventure without properly assessing the consequences of action. The men in my family tend to be this way, especially in their youth, a state of life where I clearly remain.

Jill told me she tends to be much more cautious, yet she still has a way of ending up in trouble. Just the other day she and a friend were the two in a large tour group that got lost and the group had to go searching for them. My childlike curiosity and Jill’s being a jinx proved to be a lethal combination.

We set out on our kayak with no real plan, wandering around the bay aimlessly. This was unguided so I suggested we head out and find some beaches and caves to explore. We found a few and continued on our journey. The whole time I made sure to keep my faculties about me to remember where we were in relation to where we need to finish.

We got ourselves out of the main cove but still saw numerous other kayakers so we knew we wouldn’t be anywhere we shouldn’t be. I suggested we paddle around a cove where there weren’t any other kayakers and then continue on around a bend through a narrow channel. This all went fine until I saw a small passageway that looked like we could paddle under it. Plus it looked like it would get us back to where we started. We started to head in that direction before we heard whistling from a makeshift hut on the water. The men there signaled us to come over and we thought we were getting in trouble. Through hand gestures they informed us we could not go that way, even though there were numerous other kayaks emerging from the passageway.

The whole time, in typical Hurst fashion, I combined my sense of adventure with my predisposition to do everything quickly and often excessively. Today I would ensure that we would be the fastest moving kayak on the whole damn bay come hell or high water.

We turned around to head back and rejoin the group. As we were coming through the narrow channel we had to traverse a few large boats coming through in the opposite direction. With the large boat to our right, our kayak started to get closer and closer to that boat. Within about 20 feet, I yelled to Jill - “right forward paddle”, just like they did in my whitewater rafting trip, so we would go left. She continued to row forward from both sides. Adding to the dilemma was a current of water brought about by the boat that seemed to suck us in like an ocean vortex. “Row backwards!” She either didn’t hear me or was too scared to react.

The front of the kayak struck the boat, pulling us under and capsizing us. I maintained my sense and came up from the water, grabbed onto the kayak, saw the boat had passed (he appeared to have continued at constant speed) and was joined by Jill a moment later. “You alright?”, I asked. She was fine, as was I.

We were joined by one of the other kayakers, an Eastern European couple, who attempted to help us get the kayak turned over. We easily got it turned but it was filled with water. They helped us try and get our kayak onto theirs so we could flip it to drain the water but it was much too heavy, being filled with several gallons of water.

We got back in and would struggle to keep it afloat as the water level was above our thighs. Our only alternative was to use our hands to scoop out the water. After several minutes we got the level down to about halfway up our thighs and decided to slowly make our way back. A tour guide from another group was nearby and asked if she should call for help. We opted to just head back as we felt we would be fine.

Along our way back, we were picked up by a motorized raft, as the guide must have called for help anyway. We got onto the raft and had the kayak towed behind us.

The raft guys took us back to the hut where we were told to turn around earlier. As we got off the raft and went into the hut, my mind wondered what would happen to us two troublemakers, as they could clearly recognize us as the ones they scolded earlier and now the ones who capsized a kayak. There was a calculator on the desk and a megaphone in the uninviting structure. Would we be reprimanded? Fined? Interrogated? Tortured? To break the tension, I leaned over to Jill and said “Whatever happens, don’t name names.” I don’t think she saw the humor in it.

It turned out that the people there were very nice. They used the dock to turn over and drain the kayak and set us on our way.

At this point we were clearly late in getting back to our group so they were going to allow us to go through the passageway to get back. We had just started off when, on the shuttle boat, up pulled our tour guide and a few other members of our group, dubbed the “rescue party”. We would board that boat and make our way back to pick up the others. The story made for great dinner conversation later on as everyone was curious what happened. Their number one reaction - “How did you get so far away?”

The shuttle boat took the entire group back to our larger, overnight boat. When we pulled up, there were three small boats packed with food and beverage for the guests to buy. While we have plenty of drinks on board, they are relatively expensive ($2 a beer) when compared to the prices paid back on land (as low as $0.25). We had heard earlier that if we bought drinks from these vendors we would have to pay a tax (in essence a corkage fee) on board. Even with this fee, the beer was still much cheaper and the bottles were larger. A handful of us picked up a bunch of bottles that we thought would last us the evening.

The beer that we purchased, called Bia Gold, was a bit questionable but tasted just the same as all the others here. It was analogous to Schlitz in America, with Tiger beer representing the Budweiser side of the equation.

After getting a hot shower and warming up from my impromptu swim, I joined the rest of my table for dinner on the boat. Dinner was served much like lunch and we dined on a white table cloth, with proper cutlery, linen napkins, stemware and almost a case worth of bottles of cheap beer - complete with peeling labels - scattered throughout the table.

While we drank for the next few hours, we shared numerous travel stories and talked about our experiences thus far. The most interesting story was brought up by Wee. His uncle, who has been living in Canada for years, came back to Vietnam, met a beautiful Vietnamese girl and married her. When he brought her back home and lived with her for a few years, she disappeared. Apparently he fell victim to a very common scam. Many Vietnamese girls, looking to get to a western country, will seduce western men into falling in love, marrying them and taking them back home. There, the personality changes and they eventually divorce, having proper paperwork to reside in a much more appealing place.

There is also a variation of this, known as a fake marriage, where both the husband and wife are in on it. A girl’s family, if they can come upon the means, will pay upwards of $30,000 plus expenses to a man to take the girl as his wife. Then she gets the proper paperwork to live abroad and, even after their divorce, can send savings - which would go a long way - back to her family in Vietnam.

With proper drunk food not available - surprisingly the people don’t row around from boat to boat with makeshift kebab stands - Wee and Marie broke out some sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and filled with smoked fish and bits of fruit. This was something they picked up over Chinese New Year as it’s a very traditional New Year’s meal.

We eventually all grew tired and headed off to bed. One by one our group grew smaller. It was only as I made my way to bed just before midnight that I realized that today was St. Patrick’s Day. We celebrated properly without even realizing it.

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Photos

Boat
The boat on which I'd cruise and spend the night.

Quarters
My bedroom on the boat.

Ha Long Bay
Working our way past numerous islands on the bay.

View from the cave
The climb up the stairs was worth it to get a great view of the area.

Island
One of the very tall, steep island hills.

Dinner table
My group - Tung (our guide), Kylie, Elliott, me, Marie, Wee and Ashu.

Canadians
Wee poses for a picture with the Canadians at dinner. Jill, on the right, is the one that I kayaked with.

Late night crew
A photo of us after everyone else went to bed.