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Published: February 22nd 2011
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On flying into the smaller city of hai phong to the north of vietnam, from ho chi minh city we were met at the airport once gain by the expected swarm of dodgy, pushy taxi drivers all willing to try anything to take advantage of an unsuspecting foreigner stepping over and on each other to get you in their taxi, dodgy meters that count too fast, refusing to use a meter, demanding extra fees at the end of the trip.. the fun and games of leaving the airport..
after a bouncy, hair raising bus ride and a good nights sleep it was time to set off to the dock in search of a boat to take us for an overnight cruise on harlong bay.. on entering the "tourist information centre" we were approached by a tall skinny man (who to be honest looked like a crack addict) sporting a book of cruise options and pictures of boats etc.. his prices were reasonable and he said he would include bus tickets to hanoi at the end of the cruise, we took a chance and followed the guy out of the tourist information centre to a cafe where he sorted out the
details over coffee. Against every piece of advice id every gotten about traveling, we then handed over 100USDollars each and our passports to a complete stranger and arranged to meet him back at the cafe in 2hours.. (it was about this point when i was wondering how long id have to spend in hanoi getting a new passport)
we returned to the dock to find the guy waiting, ready to take us to our boat.. we walked along the dock and to our surprise the boat was AMAZING! there were 4 of us on the boat, three crew and this thing was HUGE and in reality excessive..
officially harlong bay is a world heritage site, it is amazing, around 1600 tiny islands jutting out of the water for as far as you can see, however, to my disappointment this place is trashed.. garbage lined the beaches, every island we got close enough to get a good view of saw the shoreline littered. Plastic bottles and bags were liberally floating in the water.. very sad to see such natural beauty so polluted..
shortly after setting off we were handed our passports back from the captain (definitely a relief)
served a delicious seafood lunch, and then taken to a cave on one of the islands, we walked up a large set of steps and into a large cave, again, destroyed beyond anything i wanted to see, the floor and natural features had been removed to make way for a lovely tiled path, souvenir seeking tourists had broken off all stalagmites within reach, black hand marks and dated initial graffiti lined the walls, artificial ponds had been created, tacky lighting had been destructively installed, and the highlight for me A WATER FEATURE FOUNTAIN had been installed to make the place just that little bit more tacky..
honestly, what the hell are the people in charge of maintaining this place thinking?! ..very unimpressed..
after more rubbish and another destroyed cave, we were instructed it was kayaking time, even though it was too cold for such an idea we got on the kayaks and started paddling around some islands and we spotted what looked like a small cave on one island, we paddled over onto the beach and went to explore.
The small entry opened to reveal a massive cave which went all the way through the island, and, although
the cave had initials and dates graffitied on the walls it was an awesome site, free of lighting, fountains and walkways it was defiantly the highlight of the boat trip.
another delicious seafood lunch and a rocky ride back to the dock and the boat ride was over.. dont get me wrong harlong bay was an amazing place, but the people maintaining it, as well as tour operators, need to completely change their ways of thinking and get this place cleaned up..
getting back land saw us with a new obstacle, our tour organiser was nowhere to be seen and we still had to somehow get to hanoi that night. with no idea of what bus we were to catch, no tickets or no idea if he had even organised a bus we set off trying to find the him, or at least organise ourselves some tickets on another bus to hanoi..
after a while of walking around no closer to either of the objectives an old man walked upto me and handed me a mobile phone.. i had no idea what was going on so i just said "hello?" and a voice on the other end instructed
me in very broken english "follow this man.. to bus" ...umm? definitely weird "umm bus?" i asked "the bus to hanoi you paid for already" i couldnt believe it, the random dock loiterer had come through with everything he said he would! we followed the old man and stood on the side of the road until the bus came and took us to hanoi, even dropping us right near where we planned to stay.
It now seems that we were one of the last groups to spend a night on harlong bay as a ship sunk around a week later and several people died. the government has now stopped tour groups from staying on the bay over night..
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