Limestone Karsts and Cantonese Karaoke

---

As I start this entry, I am sitting on a boat in Halong Bay. By the time I post it, we will be back in Hanoi - you didn’t think there would be Wifi on the boat did you? I joke but, whilst there isn’t Wifi access in Halong Bay, we never seem to be that far away from mobile phone signal if the captain of the boat having his mobile permanently strapped to his head is anything to go by. Whilst I am grateful that there are pockets of mobile signal freedom on the North Cornwall coast, I did stop this afternoon in amazement when I realised that O2/Orange etc can’t beam a signal to Treyarnon but that Vietnamese telecoms appear to operate uninterrupted in the middle of a Unesco World Heritage site in the South China Sea.

This morning, we arose very early - well for us - at just before 7am. We had set an alarm on Gregg’s watch and therefore specifically not requested an early morning alarm call. To our surprise, we nevertheless received one - fortunately after our own alarm had woken us. After half a second of annoyance, I suggested that we should just be grateful that the hostel were actually concerned that we made our mini-bus to Ha Long after all of the horror stories we had heard about Ha Long Bay scams and we got on with the morning’s ablutions and last minute packing and then went down to our first breakfast at Little Hanoi Hotel.

As an aside, we haven’t seen anything marketed as a Hostel in Hanoi but this place is definitely a hostel rather than a hotel.

There were numerous tours leaving our hostel this morning and therefore a lot of people already up and about. We have left our big backpacks in the hostel’s storage room (and now that we are back I can report that we have been reunited with them and all seems to be in order).

Of the 14 people on the trip 10 are Malaysian and 4 British . We got off to a shaky start with the other Brits not helped by my inability for mornings and the fact that they got off a sleeper train at 4:30 this morning. However, once we had all opened our minds, we found that we had plenty to talk about and I would not hesitate to say that they have been the life and soul of the trip.

Reading guide books it is easy to believe that all Vietnamese are out to scam you but today we have had our eyes opened and have enjoyed the company of our Vietnamese guides who have, without doubt, provided us with exactly what we paid for and have been both friendly and informative. I guess the guide books need to warn travellers of what might happen to cover their own backs but we think it has made us far more stand offish with the locals than is really necessary. So what if we come across difficult, rude or dishonest people, because whatever we discover about those that we meet, we will have experienced rather than merely spectated.

So, we set out on our slightly rickety minibus for Ha Long. We had been pronouncing it Haylong but have quickly discovered that the Vietnamese pronounce it Ha (as in Hanoi) Long. If we hadn’t already decided that we will cover the rest of Vietnam by train, this trip convinced us that, other than by air, this is the only way to stay in one piece in Vietnam. It didn’t feel like we were travelling particularly quickly but, what seemed like every few minutes or so, we would be thrown back in our seats as the driver slammed on the brakes. We should have realised that we were in for a bumpy ride when our guide (Tam) started his tour by explaining that foreigners would not want to drive in Vietnam because of the way that the Vietnamese drive and that we shouldn’t be worried about having an accident because it is mainly those on motorbikes who meet that particular fate.

Nevertheless, we made it having stopped for 20 minutes to ‘shop’ at a massive roadside store. It was sort of a service station cross souvenir warehouse that advertised in every available crevice that they ‘ship anywhere’. It was absolutely not the kind of shopping that budget backpackers would wish to participate in and, to be honest, I seriously wondered who some of the enormous statues would appeal to.

On arriving at Ha Long city we were dropped at the harbour. You remember that we have previously mentioned that we have never seen an effective queue in Vietnam? Well, this was no exception. Tam motioned to us to follow him and, as he sorted out our tickets, we were asked to stand amongst crowds of other tour groups and wait whilst our captain registered us to board. As we stood there, we were both wondering whether we had picked a bad day as the bay was extremely misty and we could barely make out any of the limestone karsts that we had seem so may beautiful photographs of before we arrived. We concluded that Top Gear must have waited for quite some time for a clear day but Gregg later learnt that it is rarely clear in the summer months in Vietnam and that they had obviously not been in Vietnam in September.

We boarded the boat, were given a welcome drink of Fanta and then given the keys to our cabins. As I have already mentioned, there are numerous horror stories about Ha Long bay tours and tour boats and we therefore spent the entire day expecting to be in for an almighty shock. Thus far, however, we have been pleasantly surprised.

It is absolutely true to say that you get what you pay for with these things and one should therefore only expect quality of the level that you pay. For what we have paid ($65 each) we have not been disappointed but it is not perfect. Had we paid 5* price then we might have a right to expect perfection but, since we didn’t, we are content to put up with the slightly funny smell emanating from the bathroom. We have been fed amazingly well with the tastiest food we have eaten since we arrived in Vietnam and our guide, Tam has been great fun and very attentive. In addition, we have been lucky enough to have great company and have just spent a fun evening chatting to and singing karaoke with all of our fellow travellers (with a few special guest performances from the crew). The Malaysian contingent even seem to know numerous English language songs that we have never heard of and one of the them is even a champion cantonese Karaoke singer. Champion at his University as it happened but enough to impress the British contingent non the less.

We have walked through caves, kayaked, swum in slightly murky waters and bonded with 12 other people over jumping from the sun deck of the boat into the sea , two banquets and listened to our Malaysian friends singing love songs on the Karaoke and had an amazing day. All we can hope is that tomorrow is as kind to us as today as been.

I think I was right to liken the scenery between Nanning and the China/Vietnam border to the Limestone Kasts here in Halong bay. Despite the fact that we are surrounded by numerous boats doing exactly as we are, this is an inspiring and mysterious place. Had we visited on a clear, bright day, I think we would have missed out on that mystery. We might not have any Top-Gear style scenic photos but we do have some great memories.

As I finish this entry, we are back in Hanoi and settling down for our first night in a dorm. We are both on top bunks and it looks like there are only four of us in tonight but I am not sure that I very much like the lack of privacy.

Today has really been about returning from Ha Long and two more splendid meals on the boat. The return journey was pretty subdued and we had to say goodbye to the Malaysian doctors at Ha Long as they returned on a different minibus to us. On arrival back at the Little Hanoi Ho(s)tel we set about the arduous task of relaxing and then said our goodbyes to the English couple who are, as I type, flying to Danang. We stepped back out on to the busy Hanoi streets and had to re-learn the rules of the road here and wondered off to a place recommended by the English couple called Bar 69. We're pretty tired today so we have spent most of the evening relaxing, blogging and reading. It's a hard life!

We are now preparing to move on again tomorrow evening to a place called Ninh Binh. The Lonely Planet has it listed as the antidote to the pace and hard sell tourism of Hanoi. That was 2009, 2010 entries on travellers websites have it pegged as another very busy place but we shall, nevertheless, give it a try if only to break up our trip South.

See you there.

p.s.:

The hunt for Yum Yum Berries is still coming up negative;
We are still Dehli Belly free;
The toilets are still western style; and
Yesterday was the most fun that we have had so far.

---

Photos

Ha Long Bay Kayaking
Watching those that followed us doing exactly the same route. We did enjoy it tho and are both up for repeat performances. Must remember to work together however.

Sung Sot Cave
Our guide asked us to use our imaginations and then pointed with a laser pen to numerous shapes in the rocks which looked like frogs, monkeys etc

Sung Sot Cave #2
out the other side and back to the boat

Sunset at Ha Long Bay
Before I discovered the sunset setting on my camera

At Anchor
The view from the back of our boat as we settled down for the night.

Gregg in his element
explaning to one of the Malaysian doctors how to jump of the boat. At this point I was thinking that she was brave and I was happy taking photos.

Gregg and his protege
not only was she the first of the Malaysians to go for it but she kept going = very brave girl.

Next job
persuading one of the guys to give it a go. He decided that his heart could only take the one jump but we all cheered when he went for it.

And now for the hardest task of them all
I'm looking far from convinced...

Flying solo
ooops, I didn't jump...but, on another note, what does Gregg look like?!?!?!

Finally she goes for it
With eyes closed so as not to lose contact lenses. All in all pretty pointless!

The second bravest girl on the boat
or so Gregg said...

Peddling
Ha Long bay style

Karaoke
Being shown how it should be done!

Top Gear
We stopped at the village used in Top Gear and also, we were told, Tomorrow Never Dies. Unless what the guide was saying was that there is a bar there by that name.