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Published: August 24th 2006
Don't be alarmed by the title - I am alive and well! But it almost wasn't so - stay tuned!
Let me start from Hanoi. We flew direct from Vientiane and landed in the evening, after dark. We hooked up with some other travellers for the deal of the century - a taxi into the Old Quarter (the backpacker haven of Hanoi) for $1 US each. This was how we met James and Ray, two Irish blokes we ended up travelling with for about a week afterwards. We also met Megan from Vancouver (who also shared in the NDE!). We made plans to all meet up later that night, but first Melissa and I went for a tour, some dinner and attempted to meet up with Marcus, our Swedish friend from the Perhentians. Walking around in Hanoi proved to be difficult - this is the craziest country in terms of traffic that we've ever been to! Walking is seriously an extreme sport here. The streets in the Old Quarter are super narrow - and there are cars, trucks, and hundreds of motorbikes all weaving in and out of each other - onto the sidewalks, etc. And the horns! Man oh man - the horns are honking with every metre driven! Drove us crazy by the end of our time here. But other than all that, Hanoi is a nice little place. We were staying right near Hoan Kiem Lake, and there are tons of restaurants and shops, stalls and vendors everywhere. Some good gelato by the lake as well!
We met up with our "posse" later that night for a little tour of the Hanoi nightlife, and randomly ran into them at breakfast the next morning. We all wanted to do a trip to Halong Bay ASAP, so we found a good deal and booked all together, for the following day.
We were up and on the road early, and boarded our boat shortly after noon. The boat accomodated 14 people comfortably - we each got our own bed in two-bed rooms complete with our own bathrooms and hot showers! I was thinking this was going to be like the Whitsundays in Australia - but no WAY! This was luxury! And the food was another story - 8-course meals all the time. Authentic Vietnamese food as well - which is becoming my fav! We toured around Halong Bay for a while, and stopped at some huge caves and an incredible lookout point along the way. Luckily the rain stopped long enough for us to get to the lookout point and snap some quick pics! Otherwise it rained pretty much non-stop, which is too bad because the beauty of the place would be completely unreal in blue-sky weather. It was still nice in the clouds, but not nearly what it could be! Once we anchored the boat for the night, some of us decided to go for a swim. We jumped off the top of the boat (about a 5 metre jump) and were immediately surrounded by ladies in boats stocked FULL of beer, Oreos, Ritz crackers, etc. They harrassed us with "EXCUUUSE ME!" until we caved and bought some snacks. Haha. After an incredible dinner, the Halida beers came out (fav beer of Vietnam), along with the drinking games. We had so much fun with James, Ray and Megan that night. Everyone else on the trip were older couples, and while they found us entertaining, they didn't want to get involved.
The next morning we were up EARLY for some kayaking. The rain was light as we got onto the water around 7:00 am. Megan and I were kayaking buddies, and we all set out to explore the many limestone outcrops, hidden bays, and caves. It was quite pleasant for an hour or two, but then we were all ready to go in. On our way back to the boat, Megan pointed out one last cave and asked if i was up for it. I was kind of over it by that point, but said sure, what the heck. BIG MISTAKE. As soon as we got to the mouth of the cave, we got sucked in. When we realized we were in fast moving water, it was too late and we couldn't get ourselves turned around. We got sucked back about 15-20 metres into the cave (hard to tell as it was pretty dark!). The cave ceiling came down to water level at the back of the cave, and luckily we got stuck under a staligmite (spelling?) just before getting sucked down into some underground waterfall. We held onto it for dear life and screamed and screamed - thank god people saw us go in and could hear us. So the rescue effort was underway fairly quickly. It was only a matter of time, as the water was pushing both sides of the kayak - the pressure of it actually split the boat and it got sucked out from under us. Once I was in the water (sans life jacket - really safe tour company!), i managed to find a ledge with my feet and was able to fight the current for about 20-30 seconds. One of the rescuers (our guide) reached me just in time. Even though the adrenaline was pumping and I was in survival mode, i don't know how much longer i could have held against the water. So he grabbed me (they'd already grabbed the other girl) and we all got towed to shore via rope and a couple kayaks connected to the big boat. Whew! That's the closest i've ever come to certain death...the thought of how it could have gone horribly wrong still haunts me (and Melissa - apparently they were all freaking out on the boat). Luckily, i came out of it relatively unscathed - just sore and covered in cuts from the rocks, and with a renewed lease on life.
As it turns out, Nam (our guide) "forgot" to warn us about that particular cave, as it's known to be dangerous. Nevertheless, he saved my life and I will be forever grateful.
After the drowning scare, we set sail again and due to inclement weather our lunch was moved from the beach to the front room of some guy's house! There were a few boats on the same trip, so there were easily 30-40 people at the table! The kids of this guy were like: who are all you people? Haha. They were very good hosts and managed to serve us all in record time. Very hospitable. Next we set off for another island, where we stayed overnight in these incredible huts. It was another social night, as we celebrated the happy ending to the nightmare of a morning we'd had. I was just happy to be there!
The next day it was back to Hanoi for another night, then off on a night train adventure to Hue (pronounced "Hoo-aay"). More on that in the next installment. And I'll try to make them shorter! 😊
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mommy dearest
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NDE
see why I worry?? I am reading this at work with tears flowing. Thank God you survived! On a lighter note... there seems to have been a lot of beer consumed on this trip...hmmmm . Bigger hugs than ever!! xxxooo