WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE DRUNKEN SAILOR

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We were up early to catch our bus to Halong bay. The drive took us through many towns and villages all looking a little tired and warn down, but each busy with people and buzzing with mopeds. After a while the bus pulled over and we were ushered off, we were not told why, or what would happen next, so we all stood on the roadside with our bags looking a little lost. It took some time for us to realise that we had been dropped at another bus station. It was just an open front shop with a lady sat behind a desk with a telephone so it was a little difficult to tell. After a 45 minute wait another bus turned up and the driver waved us on. We were driven down a very long and bumpy road to the jetty where we were told to get off the bus and led down a rusty looking ramp. The whole thing looked like it would collapse into the water if too much weight was put on it, but was more worrying was once we had braved the ramp we still had a rather unsafe gap to jump to get on to the boat.

There was a rather drunk local man who took it upon himself to help people onto the boat. For one girl he turned out to be more of a hindrance than a help. She was trying to get her footing on the slippery boat, but the man kept trying to pull her aboard before she was ready. This caused her to slip over, land on her back on the ramp with her rucksack still strapped to her back - she reminded me of an upturned turtle struggling to get back on its feet. Even after she had fallen, the man was still trying to drag her on the boat pulling at her legs. She finally stood herself up and got on the boat, but she looked very harassed and a little embarrassed.

During the boat journey the drunk man was pestering the driver to let him have a go. Eventually he gave in and we spent a rather stomach churning few minutes weaving from side to side. I’m pretty sure the only reason the driver gave in was because the drunk man kept leaning all over him - we caught a whiff of the drunk man's breath earlier at the bus station, he stank so strongly of alcohol that you could have got drunk from the fumes!

Health and safety was practically non existent, much as we had expected, but the sight of a small child hanging out of an open door was a little unnerving - although not to his father - the drunk man steering the boat!

Getting off the boat was just as tricky. We had to step onto a narrow metal ledge with our heavy bags on our backs. We only just made it, so full credit goes to Gretchen who managed it with a walking stick and only a little help from us.

When we booked our tickets we were told that once we got off the boat, we would have to make our own way to the town. Everyone else was getting on a bus, so we followed expecting someone to come along and collect the fare. Unfortunately we were sat in the seats behind the drunk man. When he boarded the bus he made a b-line for a local lady sitting on her own. He sat himself down and spent the entire journey leaning all over her and talking rubbish - even though he was speaking Vietnamese we could still tell he was talking rubbish. We felt so sorry for her, because it was obvious from the way she was acting that she was not interested - he was talking and talking and she was looking the other way out of the window only giving him the occasional nod. When she finally reached her stop, she grabbed her bags and got off the bus as fast as her legs could carry her.

No one mentioned paying for the bus, so we kept our mouths shut and got off. We were immediately pounced on by hotel touts. Despite telling them that we had already made a reservation they still tried their hardest to convince us that their place would be better.

When we found our hotel and were shown to our rooms we were pleased with our choice. Our rooms were massive and had a fridge and television. At $12 a night we were more than happy.

Opposite the hotel was the bay which was full of fishing boats, fish farms and floating restaurants. Well that’s what we were told, but we were unable to see most of them due to a very thick mist coming from the sea. All we could see was the faintest outline of some of the closer boats, which looked very mysterious bobbing up and down shrouded in spooky looking fog. We just hoped that it wouldn’t be like this every day, as the bay was one of the things we wanted to see.

After walking around we discovered that there really wasn’t much to Cat Ba town. It was just one main road with cafés and restaurants and some small roadside stalls selling anything you can imagine made from pearls. After ten minutes we had walked the length of the road, so we found somewhere for dinner and tried some of the local beers.

The longer we sat there the thicker the mist became. By the time we had finished our meal it was so heavy that we couldn't even see the middle of the road from the curb. We were not expecting the weather to be so cold so we needed to head back to the hotel for some more layers. On the way back to the hotel we all decided not to go back out again. None of us would sit outside in thick fog at home just to have a beer, so why should we be mad enough to consider it now!

As we approached the hotel we could hear the most awful noise. It sounded like someone was waling out in the most excruciating pain, but in fact it was just someone singing karaoke. The singing in itself was bad enough, but more concerning to us was that the closer we got to our hotel, the louder the noise got. We were grateful to find that the party was not at our hotel, but I was coming from the building next door so it couldn't get much closer. You could clearly hear the karaoke from our rooms - when I day clearly I mean every painful word - so it didn’t take us long to put on another layer and head out into the fog to find a bar. We spent the next few hours in the Green Mango bar. The beer was the same price as everywhere else, but compared to anywhere else in town the surroundings were pure luxury.

After a couple of hours the mist was making our clothes feel damp. We made our way back to our hotel wondering what we would do if the party was still going on. Thankfully its was blissfully quiet when we arrived back. This was a relief to me because had the party still been in full swing, apart from putting our heads under the pillow, our only other option would have been to join them!

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