Hanoi, Halong Bay & Hue - Peter Likes Vegetables

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Hi All,

After the last blog we spent 2 days in the mad city of Hanoi. It rained constantly the whole time we were there, which as I hadn't planned to be cold and wet in Asia meant I had to find a rain coat! After forcing a grumpy Jonny to walk up and down a damp busy street in the centre I did the typical girl thing and went back to the first shop we'd seen and bought a "North Face" jacket for 800,000VD (about 25GBP.) The rest of our time in Hanoi was spent gawping at the ridiculous traffic whilst trying not to get run over. Neither of us have ever seen anything like it. At first glance it's a mess of unorganised, selfish driving and you think it's astounding that they don't all crash into each other. But if you sit and watch it for long enough you realise that somehow it just works! Although nobody indicates or sticks to the normal rules of driving everyone gets to where they need to be - we saw no crashes, shouting or swearing (apart from out of Jonnys mouth - yep he even gets pedestrian rage!) The sheer number of motorbikes is unbelievable though, we later found out that this is because the Vietnamese government add a 200% tax to all imported car purchases which means that the Vietnamese people just cannot afford them. The monthly rent in Hanoi is around 6,000,000VD but peoples wages can be 4,000,000VD a month so saving for anything, let alone a car, is impossible.

A quick mention about our hostel in Hanoi. We booked online in advance, as we have all along, with the Friendly Backpackers Hostel in the Old Quarter. We arrived after getting a taxi from the airport (approx 450,000VD in rush hour) got to the reception to be told that actually we were booked in at their other hotel across the road. Turns out Friendly Backpacker actually only has dorm rooms so if you book a private room as we had you will be over the road at The Elizabeth Hotel. Now we both realise that we are staying in cheap places but baring in mind that Jonny has packpacked Europe and been to South America - he said this was the worst hostel he'd ever been in. The room was damp, the sheets were damp, it smelt of piss everywhere, the bathroom had a shower/toilet which caused a flood - it was just dirty. We asked one of the guys in reception to get a gecko out of the room, he was more scared than me and managed to lose it. I was told that they wouldn't be able to swap us to another room because they already had to move someone who found a cockroach in theirs... not the best sales technique I've ever heard. After being promised that at 8am the next morning we could swap to another room we eventually got there at gone 11.30am - the guy even checked with Jonny that we didn't find any croc-o-diles in the new room. To be fair the next one was much better but we'd already been put off - we also spotted our passports sitting on the computer desk in the foyer when we were walking past with noone watching them. Just wanted to mention it so that people can avoid it!

Whilst in Hanoi we wanted to book a trip to Halong Bay. We went on the advice of the Lonely Planet guide as there were an endless amount of tour operators in the city and chose to go with Ocean Tours. They werent the cheapest we could have found but we wanted to be sure that we remembered the experience for all the right reasons - we paid about 145GBP each for 2 nights 3 days which included a trip to Cat Ba Island. After our second night in the smelly hostel our trip started at 8am with a 4 hour bus journey to Halong Bay, the smiley guide gave us a bit of historical information about parts of Hanoi which was actually really interesting. We caught a day boat around 12.30pm out into the bay to the boat we would be staying on. Although the weather was grey and miserable (much like England) the Bay was beautiful, like nothing I've ever seen before. As soon as you are on the water its as if you are surrounded by the islands (of which there are nearly 2000), sometimes the boat looks as if it's going to sail straight into one of them but when you get closer it opens up and you're surrounded by loads more!

That afternoon we were taken to the largest cave in Halong Bay before getting the chance to go kayaking. Me, Jonny and all our valuables (including passports!) got into a kayak and paddled round some of the islands trying to avoid speedboats and flicking water on ourselves. An amazing experience which I would recommend to anybody - most of the people in our group chose not to do it but it's been one of my favourite things so far. After working our arm muscles (who needs the gym anyway??) we were given dinner on the boat. The next day started early, we took the 1 hour trip to Cat Ba Island on a boat just for us. A gentle 5km walk to a little village in the middle of the National Park reminded me that the dogs I kept saying were cute were purely looked on as food by the Vietnamese people - our guide Juan kept laughing at me. I found it weird at the start until Juan told us that very rich Vietnamese people have a monkey caught, strapped down and the tops of their heads cut off so they can eat the brain raw whilst the monkey is still alive... it's supposed to make them clever. (Sorry Linds!) Next was the 10km trek up Navy Peak. I would like to point out here that although I clearly made the mistake of never asking anybody what the trek would entail nobody ever offered the information either. We spent an hour trekking, walking, climbing, crawling up nearly verticle stretches of the bloody peak. If it had been hot and sunny I would have melted into the earth and stayed there. Although it was something which usually given the option I would have avoided the view we were given at the top was worth it all. Sitting on the edge of a building at the top we could see the whole of Halong Bay right over to Halong City. It looked as if someone had painted a picture and put it infront of me. After catching our breath we took the more difficult journey down with Jonny falling over twice after being cocky (karma.) Home cooked local food in the village gave us one of the best meals we've had in Asia before the boat trip back to the main Bay.

Our last day on the boat was mostly spent trying to soak up the small amount of sun trying to peak through the clouds whilst admiring the view. We also learnt to cook spring rolls and were rowed into a cave to see some monkeys. Around 12pm we took the bus trip back to Hanoi, arriving slightly earlier than planned we had 3 hours to kill before we needed to catch the train so we walked about (as it actually wasnt raining for once) and had an early dinner. From 7pm - 8.30am we spent our time cooped up in a tiny room on a sleeper train from Hanoi to Hue with 4 other people. Somehow we'd managed to get both the top bunks which meant that without a ladder we had to sort of climb over the other peoples beds to get there. Unable to sit up, unable to get down without too much trouble, uncomfortable and tired we did well considering and got a few hours sleep! We arrived in rainy Hue, got to our hostel and went in search of breakfast. For some reason we then thought that in a sleepy daze whilst it was pouring with rain we would attempt to walk to the other side of town to see the Citadel. We got there, damp and fed up to be told that we actually had to walk all the way round the other side to get a ticket then walk all the way back to where we were. As I'm sure you can appreciate, we just went home!

The second day in Hue was slightly more successful. It wasn't raining however a combination of Jonny feeling rough and the humidty didn't help our walk up to and around the Citadel and Imperial City. The actual place was ok - not amazing. It used to be where the Emperor lived so you can imagine that the buildings were beautiful at the time. It was then bombed heavily by the USA and they are slowly starting to restore the buildings which means at the moment you really have to use your imagination! We also visited the market. Watching Jonny trying to buy a tshirt from one of the stalls was hilarious. First he was disgusted by the fact he was being told he would need an XL (the sizes in Vietnam are smaller apparently!) then the women was helping him take off the tops - I think he was more uncomfortable with this than the "massage" in Luang Prabang! Through our hostel we booked a bus for the next day to take us to Hoi An. A 4 hour bus journey at $6 each - not bad!

UPDATE

So, turns out I never actually explained who Peter is or why he likes vegetables... Upon arriving on the first boat in Halong Bay we spotted a weird group of people - they consisted of an older man, his son (Peter) and a young Phillipino girl, the son clearly having some sort of issue. When it came to lunch time the tables were set out so that you had to sit with other people, as soon as we realised this we knew just who we'd get stuck with at dinner. Sure enough along comes Peter, his dad and Peters 'girlfriend' and we spent the rest of dinner listening to Peters dad trying to big him up by telling his girlfriend that Peter likes vegetables! Good bloody job he likes vegetables as he ate barely anything else except when he kept snatching the bread and shoving grilled tomatoes down him. Weird.

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