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Published: June 24th 2007
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Hello again...
We just arrived back in Hanoi from Halong Bay, and we will be leaving for Sapa (the mountains) tonight. Halong Bay was far more beautiful than we imagined. We thought there would only be about 10 islands our boat would cruise around. However, the islands actually went on for miles and miles!
For the first night of our tour, we were to sleep in a cabin on the boat. For some reason, our tour guide gave us a special deal for our room... A room right next to the engine with exhaust fumes wafting through our window! We also soon learned that our light and fan did not work. In the end, we decided to sleep on the roof of the boat instead. It turned out to be a popular alternative with many other passengers! It was really cool watching the stars among the island peaks of Halong Bay. We also spotted the Big Dipper too! Despite it being a pretty young crowd on the boat, we all were lulled to sleep pretty early with the sound of party boats echoing around the bay.
We were lucky enough to have a young Vietnamese boy and
his uncle on our boat trip. A very spirited young boy of 10, he quickly became our trip's mascot! Apparently, Timmy won a Halong Bay boat trip through his school for getting top marks in school. While he was too shy to tell us his name, he started to respond to "Timmy", a new nickname given to him by some Austrailians. Very early in the morning, we were pleasantly awakened to Timmy singing songs, standing on a wooden chair, arms on hips, and watching the fishing boats in the bay.
The next day we went to Cat Ba Island where we trekked to its tallest peak (about 480m). It also required us to drink at least 3L of water each within an hour! Talk about climate adjustment...I think we broke some records for the amount of sweat produced on a trek. Everyone on the trek looked like they all had gone for a swim fully clothed. Timmy, of course, never broke a sweat as he hopped from rock to root to rock along the steep hike. The view was well worth the work! The peak offered a 360 degree view of Cat Ba Island and surrounding mountains...Incredible! Our guide
mentioned that US bombing and Agent Orange was used on these mountains, contributing to deforestation problems. After the trek we headed into Cat Ba town for lunch and got excited for some snorkeling and kayaking at the desert beach mentioned in our itinerary. Or so we thought...
After lunch we inquired about about the next part of our trip. Our tour guide was arranging for the Austrailians to go to Monkey Island. We assumed that we were going to be on the same excursion, however, we quickly learned that our "desert beach snorkeling and kayaking" would be a pipe dream. Instead we were offered some kayaking in the muddy water around the big boats in the town harbour. When we asked about going to Monkey Island instead, our guide quickly responded with "$5 more". Luckily we had a copy of our itinerary with us and we tried to explain that if one part of our tour wasn't going to work out, what could they offer us instead? We were very confused since the Aussies paid the same price we did, how come we couldn't go to Monkey Island too? Our tour guide, now nicknamed"Skacey" by the Aussies (after the
infamous Austrailian conartist who robbed millions from Austrailians), replied that although we had booked the same trips, they were actually different..."Same same, but different", a phrase, we learned, is used right across SEAsia and a core philosphy in business ventures. In the end, we were able to go to Monkey Island, ONLY because we had booked more than one tour with this particular company. Monkey Island turned out to be beautiful with white sand and turquoise water. We were even lucky enough to score a kayak for free for about a half hour, so we kayaked across the islet to another little beach and floated in the water with our life jackets...Bliss! Nothing is for free around here, when our Aussie friend, Barry, laid out on a hammock in the shade, someone quickly showed up saying "10, 000!"...Pennies, really. We can't complain.
Back at the hotel we looked looked forward to having cold showers and chilling out for the evening. However, Skacey devised another interesting plan for us...Making us room with two male strangers since there weren't enough rooms available for the whole group. He didn't understand our concerns and in the end we had to negotiate with the others in our group. They were happy to oblige. Doesn't it make sense to put males with males and females with females? Sketchy Skacey didn't seem to think so. Despite the trials and confusion, Skacey did manage to get free beer for the group! We hope it wasn't because we were women. It almost feels like the tourist industry has different deals for different travellers, the couple, the guys group, the co-ed group, the two girls group. We have a feeling the latter group is the bottom of the barrel.
All in all, the landscapes and adventures were awesome. And it was a great chance to get know some other travellers. We are learning the ropes day by day
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Jim
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All this talk about monkeys
So was this Isand infeasted with monkeys begging for bananas?