Advertisement
Published: March 31st 2012
After a quick 45 minute flight to Hanoi airport from Viantiene, compared to the 26 hour bus, I stepped out into noticeably cooler air and soon found the airport shuttle which takes people the 30km into town for a measley $2. My first taste of
Hanoi and Vietnam traffic came as somewhat of a shock and it wasnt long before I was cowering behind my backpack wondering how on earth we were going to make it into town alive and also how anyone still had their driver's licence in this country. There appeared to be no rules on the road other than 1. You are not allowed to use your brakes at any point 2. Indicators are to be replaced by the use of the horn and 3. Cross roads and T-Junctions are not places to stop, they are merely inconveniences where you dont stop but just weave around whatever traffic happens to be crossing in front of you. They had no visible lights or right of way indicators and so everybody just went at once in an enormous game of daredevil
or some kind of urban destruction derby. Yet for all of the craziness, I didnt see a single accident.
We made it into the city and I located my hostel after a short walk. The Hanoi Backpackers Hostel, run by 2 Ozzies was buzzing with activity but I wanted food so I headed round the corner and found a place to eat overlooking Cathedral St Joseph. I was very surprised to see a large Christian church in Hanoi, despite the French history to the country. The place was full and plenty of locals were sitting outside for the service that was in progress. I just sat on my balcony and watched the world go by before retreating to the hostel and booking myself onto their 3 day 2 night trip of Halong Bay, having decided that at least with the hostel I knew what I was getting and wouldnt be scammed by some tour operator, as appeared to be pretty common in the town.
It had been a while since I had stayed in a hostel and to be honest I wasnt looking forward to it. Top bunks, noisy people and restless nights are not exactly what I was after on this trip but I slept soundly enough, thankfully there were no
snorers! I was up early
and spoke to the guy on the desk to get some tips as to things to go and see. As I set out into the streets I soon discovered that there was no real way to get across a street and that the key was pretty much to close
your eyes, pray, make a run for it and trust that the many motorbike riders and car drivers were sufficiently aware to avoid me.
First stop was the train station to book my ticket out to Hue on the overnight sleeper train for after the boat trip. I soon discovered that as well as not knowing how to drive, the Vietnamese had no idea bow to queue like a Brit and a number of small people were ducking their way into the queue in front of me. Having been passed around a few desks I eventually managed to book a bed, a hard sleeper in a 6 person cabin as no soft sleepers were left.
Having got that out of the way I headed round to the nearby Hao Lo prison. On the way I passed by a random local just having a pee in the street....a small reminder
that things arent the same everywhere! The prison was built by the French in the late 1800's and is now a museum. The prison was used during the Vietnam war to hold American pilots, who named it the Hanoi Hilton. The museum was quite interesting with displays showing the appaling conditions in which prisoners lived. There was also some fairly amusing propoganda from the war, with a number of photos and tags showing how well the american pilots had been treated while they were POW's. The photos showed them happily playing basketball, being treated by doctors, decorating for Christmas etc. I suspect the reality when the cameras were not their was somewhat different!
After a good nosy round the museum I set off to the other side of the Old town and walked around Hoan Kiem Lake. According to the legend, emperor Lê L?i handed a magic sword called Heaven's Will which brought him victory in his revolt against the Chinese Ming Dynasty back to the Golden Turtle God (Kim Qui) in the lake and hence gave it its present name. The lake has a tower on a small island in its middle, The Turtle Tower and is home
to a species of small turtle but I didnt see any as I walked round its shores. After a quick stint as a local pineapple salesman (see photo) and some excellent fried rice I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the many streets of the old town, stopping here and there for a beer or to watch some of the crazier road junctions and take video clips. It was great wondering through another market, soaking up the smells and sights of the various foods on offer, from enormous quantities of shrimp and mushrooms, through to peanuts and then knock off clothing and accessories.
Another quiet night was had to try and save some money after paying for the train and the boat trip and the only source of
annoyance was 3 spanish lads playing shit music on their mobile phones for a while.
The boat trip meant an early start, up at 6:30 to pack and get breakfast before the minivans arrived to pick us all up. We were all soon chatting away and Taco, the tour guide/rep had us all giving introductions. I was sat with 4 English girls
and 2 Canadian guys and an Israeli
lad and we chatted the length of the 4 hour trip to Ha Long Bay. As we pulled into the drop off point we had our first site of the numerous limestone karsts in the bay, hazy and far off but still looking impressive. The two minivans of people were split up into their respective boats and I was pleased to find myself on the same boat as the people I had gotten to know on the bus and even more pleased when I discovered we had much the better boat
of the two.
We boarded the boat and were immediately told to buy a beer and head to the top deck where Taco got us all to shotgun a beer before talking us through the plan for the next few days. An excellent lunch was had in the bar/dining area and then we had some free time to sit on deck and admire the majestic view of the bay while we all chatted and got to know each other some more as there were 30 of us on board. The karts came and went one by one, each a different size and shape but all equally impressive to
see. The only disappointment came from the overcast weather, which felt distinctly cool at 22C when compared to the 35C I had come from in Laos.
Our first stop came after a couple of hours in an area packed full of other boats, many of which were a lot more costly than the one we were on but they seemed fairly quiet and lifeless. Unlike ours where, after more beer swigging, we all changed and spent some time jumping into the cold water off the top deck of the boat. I didnt quite manage a swan dive but it was a good laugh nonetheless.
Straight afterwards we paired up and jumped into some kayaks for a 90 minute trip to some caves and a floating village. I was with Hannah, an English teacher currently on holiday from teaching in Saigon. The group paddled round the bay together, stopping first at some caves for our Vietnamese guide to explain the geography of the Bay and also give some background on the floating villages and the people that live amongst them, who are the reason why the Bay is a UNESCO world heritage site.
After a quick stop at
the village, we were soon back on our own boat and paired up into our cabins to grab showers and change. I was with Aviv, a really nice guy from Israel who had just finished his national service as a comms officer and was now travelling before beginning his studies in September.
The evening was spent in a blur of drinking games, clothes swapping, shot downing, dancing and general crazy stuff. Everyone had a great night and got fairly mashed. Due to too much red bull I was wide awake most of the night and even got up for a pre brekfast work out on deck at 6:45. Not sure it helped!
Seeing everyone come into breakfast with a hangover was good as it showed it wasnt just me with one and I could still get amongst it with the 20 somethings! After a chilled morning, 11 of us transferred to another smaller boat for our trip to the private island we would be staying on while the rest of the boat headed back to the marina as they were only on the 1 night trip. Left over were a group of girls travelling together from the US
and Canada, who had all been teaching together in Korea, me, Aviv, Hannah, a young Finnish lad and 2 Canadian lads. The island was beautiful with high cliffs at either end of a small secluded beach. A number of wooden sleeping huts and a bar/seating area were located in the middle of the bay.
The rep for the island, Dustin, emerged wearily from his bungalow to come and meet us, clearly heavily hungover from the previous day's party. He explained the facilities on the island, which I was surprised to discover included hot showers and
talked us through the plan for the day. After an hour of lazing around and playing some beach volleyball, we had an excellent lunch and then hit the speedboat to try some wakeboarding. I was first up but couldnt quite manage to get stood up on the board during the 5 goes i had, think I wasn't leaning back enough. Only Jared managed to get stood up, first time, which was very annoying for me given how competitive I am. It looked great though and I would love to have another crack at it somewhere, maybe once I get to the islands and settle
in.
Next up was the rockclimbing, another sport I had never tried before. The climb was probably about 30/40m, difficult to judge from the ground, with some easier bits and some much harder sections. The Canadians described it as a 6-8 but that didnt really mean anything to me. After getting my harness on and watching a few others go up, some failing some succeeding, I got stuck in. The start was fairly easy but once I got to a trickier bit I soon found my arms were getting full of lactic acid as a result of my lack of trust in the ropes and harness. This was because I had never abseiled or anything before so wasnt use to putting my trust in the ropes and instructors and resulted in me using my arms for support much more than I needed to. After a quick rest when I got a good foothold, I managed to get past the first difficult section but then got stuck with about 12m of tricky climb
to go. I just couldnt see where to go next and couldnt seem to find the right footholds to go on. Russell, the instructor, tried to explain
it to me but I just couldnt seem to maneuvre myself the right way and by now my forearms were totally pumped up and burning from the effort I was putting in. Reluctantly I called it a day and abseiled back down the face. It was a great experience and, like with the wakeboarding, I would love to have another go at it....shame I have waited to hit 30 before I tried it! We watched Russell do some crazy climbing for a while, displaying ridiculous finger and forearm strength to move around the face and up and over some overhangs.
I then sat and chatted with him about his plan, which is to try and open a school in Asia where free thinking is encouraged and there are no strict lessons. He wants the world to move away from the use of money and talked at length about the debt burden, the attitude of the world population and how things need to be changed. It was really interesting listening to him talk and, despite the fact that I work in a very capitalist job, I found myself agreeing with a lot of the things he was
saying. The key
to it all is the attitude of people and I think that is what he is hoping to try and change through his school. Apparently there are similar places in Russia which have produced a number of brilliant students through their alternative methods. I wished him well and would love to find out how he gets on someday.
After everyone had attempted both activities, we settled down for a few quiet beers and some chat before another excellent dinner. Dustin told a few funny stories from his youth back in Canada and then got some drinking games going. I played a few but wasnt really feeling like another big session so mostly sipped my beer on the sidelines and watched people get progressively more drunk and carefree.
At one in the morning, we all got our swimsuits on and went back out to the water to swim in the phospherescence (sp?), tiny plankton which glow when disturbed at nighttime. The effect was spectacular and one I had always wanted to see. If you threw sand into the water in a sweeping arc then as it touched the water it was like ripples of blue fire spread across the
water racing away from you. In the water itself it was like having millions of blue fireflies swimming all around you, lighting up your body and the wake around you. Sadly I couldn't get any photos or videos due to the lack of light but it is something I will always remember doing. We stayed in the water for about 45 minutes messing around before people got cold and we headed back to the bar.
At 2 I called it a night as I was still shattered from the night before and headed off to one of the open sided huts to get some kip. I was still sleeping soundly when the gong went for breakfast at 7 and we all wearily headed down to the seating area to get our fill before the small boat took us back to the main boat for the journey back through the karts to the marina. The boat was very quiet all the way back as everybody was shattered from the partying over the past two days. I lay on deck watching the bay float by, soaking it all up knowing I probably wouldn't ever be there again. The minibus back to
Hanoi was uneventful and I slept most of the way. We all said our goodbyes as we headed off to our various hostels and I sat with Henry and Aviv for a while before heading to the station to get the night train to Hue.
I had an absolute blast on the boat trip, met loads of great people and to do all the stuff we did with the backdrop of the karsts in the bay was immense. It was a shame that there were so many boats in parts of the bay and I doubt it will get any better but despite that, all I can say is that this place should be on everybody's bucket list, it is spectacular and I am so glad I have seen it with my own eyes. As I boarded the train I thought to myself that Hanoi was a great city but that I was glad to be making it out on the railtrack and not on the roads! Now for a whistlestop tour through central and southern Vietnam, time is against me to
get to Koh Tao and start diving.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0566s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Ollie
non-member comment
Trend setting
Looks like the pink vest trend is catching on - well done! Also, looks like you've lost about a stone in weight.... You're not quite at Fricke's level when he went travelling, but give it a couple of months!