Journal Day 37 - The Ha Long Saga Part 2!

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Ha Long Bay day 2

Awoke confused as to my location in the world before looking out the window to see the early morning mist settling around the islands and realising that I really did just wake up in Ha Long bay. Went up to the top deck and took in the surroundings. The place really is incredibly beautiful. And the slow turning junk boats with their tall, curved oriental sails fit perfectly into the misty island setting. The bay is huge and there are over 2000 islands. Really unique place.

Over Breakfast we wondered what our itinerary was for today. The guide had failed to tell us. According to some we were to see a floating village, to others we were to do more kayaking, etc. But eventually we pulled up beside a cave and were told that this was the 'James Bond cave.' and it would cost $5 each for entry.

I'm a bit sick of Hollywood movies being the first bit of tourist information you tend to receive about places that have stood for centuries, even millennia and watched the rise and fall of civilizations before movies even existed.
A few examples from my trip so far where the guidebooks refer to movies before anything else;

1- Petra, The Treasury, Jordan. This incredible rock carved tomb is apparently only famous for being in Indiana Jones & the Holy Grail.

2- Petra, the other parts of Petra (45kms of mind-bendingly intricately carved caves) are apparently most famous for featuring for a few seconds in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Crap film by the way.

3- Angkor Wat, the entirety of Angkor seems to be famous mostly because Angelina Jolie ran around in a tight costume in the Ta Phrom temple for a few seconds in Tombraider. Also a crap movie.

And now the James Bond cave at Ha Long Bay at a entry cost of $5.
No chance. In fact no-one in the group went.

So the boat then sailed back to the coast. Without any visits to floating villages, kayaking, swimming etc. And before we knew it we were all standing on the side if the main road waiting for a bus to bring us back on the 5 hour journey to Hanoi.

This is when it really kicked off with the guide. The 2 israeli girls were informed by him that, as he had no receipt to say otherwise, he was not going to let them onto the bus and intended to just leave them by the side of the road at Ha Long. As the 2 girls had paid $50 for the 2 day trip they rightfully disagreed with him. Also the 2 English girls had to be back in Hanoi for 5:30pm to make their bus to Laos. And as we waited for the bus to arrive it looked like they weren't going to make it on time.

The resulting arguments with the guide and his mates was epic. An hour of arguing, shouting, a few tears etc by the girls didn't solve anything and as the guide was so unhelpful we all backed up the girls and ended up getting involved to try to get them onto the van when it finally arrived. Unfortunately this didn't work and in the end they had no choice but to pay for another ticket back to Hanoi and were eventually whisked away on another bus. The whole thing was dodgy, unprofessional and unorganised.

It was a horrible way to end the trip but was strangely quite a bonding experience for all the members of the group. We formed a pretty strong alliance on behalf of the Israeli girls against the knob-head guide and his mates. And we had a good comradery over dinner on the journey back to Hanoi.

My advice is to be very careful when you get an overnight trip to Ha Long bay. If you don't pay much by booking at your hotel in Hanoi then don't expecting. But if you want a bit of luxury and a more professional, well organised trip with a proper guide them go to a proper travel agent and expect to pay a fair but more. But as far as I'm aware that's still no guarantee! On the boat earlier that morning a few of us watched a luxury trip boat sail past us. The rooms all had individual balconies with glazed sliding doors, and on the top deck a load of middle aged tourists were calmly being instructed in a morning session of to-chi. This was completely at odds with the atmosphere on our boat where most people were tearing their hair out. We had to look at each other and just laugh.

Back in Hanoi I meet a couple of English girls Katy and Ali, Pedro from Brazil and Andrea from Italy. They'd been on the 3 day trip and their experiences were totally different. We went out for dinner in Hanoi and to end the Ha Long Saga on a good note, I had an awesome pizza....

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