The Cat Ba Mafia

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When does the pursuit of a cheap backpacking holiday turn ridiculous? The subtle transition from a smart, cautious, economical traveller to the self proclaimed ‘stingiest backpacker of all time’. Wearing the title with pride on your sleeve and advertising your pittance of a daily budget to any traveller in earshot. What do I know about this ridiculous, self-indulgent behaviour? I unwillingly became one of ‘them’!

Becoming a ‘tight-arse’ may well be a compulsory bi-product of any long journey through Asia or parts of the developing world but sometimes you have to know when to stop, when to concede defeat, to realise that that extra rupee you refused to pay for a chai in Chennai will be nothing more than a blip on your radar of conscience when you return home. Sometimes you pay the price for being a tight-arse!

Entering Vietnam from the captivating North of Laos we were struck with a lingering and unwelcome taste in our mouth after the first week. Nightmare bus rides through Dien Bien Phu, spending a night in a brothel in Son La, the un-familiar feel of a city in Hanoi and a particularly disconcerting experience where we allegedly ate a cat paté sandwich (it tasted really good). We could relax though, our next stop was Halong Bay and the soaring limestone cliffs and fjord-like channels I’d envisioned exploring since my teens.

Organised tours can be hit and miss. Sometimes satisfying, sometimes disastrous. The streets of Hanoi were awash with companies advertising the famous boat tours of Halong Bay and prices oscillated obscenely. Our trust in Vietnamese sales pitches was at an all time low so we shunned the shiny posters and opted DIY.

Stepping off the bus at the port we saw hundreds of boats lining the foreshore, vying for the pier like mopeds stacked at a red light. After ten minutes of searching and haggling we found a boat that would take us on the standard day tour and drop us on the popular Cat Ba Island where we could find a hotel and book a ferry for our return trip at our own leisure. The deal was perfect, just as we’d hoped and far cheaper than the prices in Hanoi. Full steam ahead, captain!

As the only ‘non package’ guests on board we weren’t entitled to the buffet lunch but couldn’t care less as the swarm migrated down stairs to feed, leaving us alone on the top deck with grins as wide as the horizon before us. Happily popping and crunching on fresh grapes as our boat headed out through the bay, a bubbly young tour guide approached. He asked us in a very matter of fact tone how we planned to get to our hotel that night. We stated firmly that we’ll be fine, we can walk and find our own hotel thank you very much. A little puzzled by our response he repeated the question, adding this time that the pier where we would be docking was 25km from the town! Suddenly we realised that there was some serious blanks in the information we’d received.

Sucking all we could from the guide we discovered that the boats no longer dock in the main harbour but on the opposite side of the island, 25km away. There was no town at the new port or on that side of the island only a newly built service road. For $5 each he could take us to town in the tour bus. We were as reluctant to pay the money as we were devastated that we hadn’t harangued the sales man at the port for more specific details but could still muster a faint smile as the budget was still in the black.

As we left the boat I was quizzed by a taxi-driver if I would like a ride to town, even though we’d paid for the bus I just HAD to know whether we’d paid more by choosing to go with the guide. The minute I opened my stupid mouth I was immediately surrounded by a number of men who had risen from their siesta like state on the pier and transformed into a hungry mob. I had inadvertently awoken the sleeping Cat.

The Cat Ba Mafia may never have existed. Their evolution comes due to their village being on the wrong side of the island to ‘cash in’ on the thriving tourist trade, the new pier and service road through the island was the juicy red apple, causing men to abandon simple, agricultural lives to the lucrative world of motorcycle taxis. With hundreds of tourists arriving every week the need arose for taxi transport to the tourist centre, these men now fill this void with ferocity.

The agreement we’d made with the pimpled guide was suddenly and absolutely null and void as the men surrounded us, separating us from the group. My confessions that I was merely interested in the price and not the product went unheard, as did my proclamations that we’d in fact already paid for our travel to the centre. I’d broken the golden rule; I’d given these men a clue that perhaps we weren’t on the organised tour. It was a clue as good as a confession and we were helpless.

Trembling, the pimpled guide fished our money from his pouch and pushed it in my direction with eyes like an animal who knew it was destined for slaughter. He pleaded with me that if we were to travel in the tour bus he would be beaten and possibly killed, “did I have any idea what I’d started when I’d spoken to these men?” The melee that followed has the makings of a Bollywood script. Our anger led my girlfriend into such a frenzy that she began screaming at the central figure in the mafia, a beautiful prose that assured we would never ever, not in a million years travel with them to the town, cross my heart and hope to die and with that she spat at the feet of the obese man. I scanned the faces and saw that mine was not the only one with mouth agape; a slither of terror was shed when a bellow-some laugh erupted from the central man, washing over the adjacent thugs.

The bus left and we felt like the victims in the war films who are left to perish as the lucky ones escape, our unknown future had begun. The feeling of isolation was immense, the bus had gone, there was only one ramshackle building in sight and the mafia were everywhere, licking their lips. Thanks to Lisa’s elaborate display of aggression I had decided there was no way I would be letting her get on the back of a motorbike with one of these men. It was a scary situation. I suggested we go back to the boat and see if they would allow us to sleep there and return with them to the mainland the next day. Like hyenas stalking wounded deer, some of the men followed us. We asked a number of boats if they would let us stay but each refused with a wry glance at the hyenas over our shoulder. I started making ludicrous offers, 500 000 dong, 1 000 000, 2 million, 10 million dong! It still wasn’t worth the suffering that these men would inflict on their business should they take us. We were in deep!

I was having flashbacks to a conversation we’d had months prior, on a boat in Sumatra. We were sitting like children at story-time, listening to a fellow traveller recounting stories from his travels in Vietnam, nodding, approving, comparing, and jotting mental notes. The words were ringing in my ears now, “I found the organised tours in Vietnam great. Cheap, no hassle, much easier than doing it yourself…cheap…no hassle…easy”

As a stingy backpacker I’m accustomed to long walks with my backpack searching for a room, an hour here or a few kilometres there but twenty-six kilometres was pushing it. Daylight was fast waning but it was our only choice, with a deep breath and a courageous face we stomped past the cackling men and into the unknown. Our plan was to hope for some un-mafia related traffic to pass and hitch to the town but after a few kilometres there was nothing and it was clear the service road was simply that. Through the darkness came our shining, greying knight, a lovely old man stopped and offered a ride but just as we were mentally tackling the logistics of the one moto, three people and two backpacks equation, a mafia member approached. What ensued was a verbal battle between the two whereby age was gratefully the superior power. I assume the younger mafia fellow was telling the elder not to touch us whereby the elder told him to ‘shut his trap or I’ll tell your mother’ or something similar. Our knight in farmer’s armour took Lisa on his steed whilst I saddled up behind Mafia man, carefully avoiding his tail, which was now firmly wrapped between his legs!

Putting in to the tourist strip and sighing a deep relief as we stepped from the bikes I ever so gratefully shook the hand of the old man, ignoring the other. We had overcome adversity with great thanks to our knight who hadn’t yet been lured to the dark-side. Safely in our (cheap) hotel and sipping a well-earned beer we relayed our story to some faces from the boat and other travellers. It seems that we weren’t alone in our experience; the island has some notoriety in backpacker folklore. No stories of ‘sleeping with the fishes’ but of passports being thrown into the sea; tour guides that were beaten and our scenario played out on a daily basis. Some stories provided us with a little faith in our decision to go DIY, tragic tales of people who were promised and paid for four star hotels only to be herded into half-a-star mould factories. Despite our risky situation we had actually saved money on the organised tour and had the bonus of choosing and negotiating our own hotel. Opting for DIY may not always be the most sensible solution but as this story tells, you are guaranteed of a wild adventure and an entertaining story should you ditch the reins. Enjoy.

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Photos

Cat Ba Fish Sauce
Smells soooo bad