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Published: February 1st 2009
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Bitching view!!!
Can't complain 'bout the view from my room. There was a balcony outside my room overlooking the marina. Not too bad... UPDATE!
Uhh... Seems like the laptop has been re-animated in some weird way so I can actually post the blogs that have been waiting in a directory on this undead computer. So here goes!
I really wanted to see Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island, despite it being the wrong time of the year and a great risk of winter mists obscuring everything worth seeing in the bay. While staying in the stinkhole of Hanoi I contemplated taking one of those tours to the bay but none of them offered enough time on C.B. Island. Well screw the damn tours then! Instead I opted to take the train to Haiphong and then the hydrofoil to C.B. Island, staying there and take a Halong Bay tour from there. This option had the major upside of sparing me from returning to the rectum that is Hanoi.
The trip went quite smoothly and there was no internal TV on the train! I was short on time when I arrived in Haiphong so I had to skip my cheap ass walk from the train station to the boat and take a motorbike instead. I got a bit surprised when boarding the boat
Hospital cave
Inside my old basement? Not quite. as we climbed into a rusty old piece of shit boat that looked nothing like the speedboat we were supposed to travel with. It turned out we had to pass through this boat to get to the hydrofoil BEHIND it.
Arriving at C.B. Island I immediately sensed I'd like the place. Finally! I'd been losing hope for Vietnam as I'd had one crappy experience after the other. I got mobbed by the usual vultures when stepping off the boat but one guy offered a good price for a room so I went with him to his hotel. It was actually a quite nice place and the family running it were really nice people, inviting me for lunch one day. The food was weird of course but I appreciated the gesture. The name of the place? Khan Huyen Hotel. The room cost me 85 000VND/night.
The first day I hired a guy with a motorcycle and took a trip around the island. I was curious about the hospital cave where people were treated during the American War. I'd heard about the old vet guiding you through the place and singing patriotic songs. Well, the cave turned out to be
Cave exit
The end of a quite un-thrilling walkthrough. a bust. The old vet had retired and a young guy, non-english speaking, took you through the place. My MC-guy "translated" what the dude said, but as his english was atrocious I didn't get much. The actual cave was much like touring the basement of the apartment building I used to live in. A bunch of empty concrete rooms. That was it. I think that old vet would've spiced things up...
We continued to the national park where I climbed up to the Ngu Lam peak which was a really cool little trek. There were strange noises in the bush, like a flock of somethings thumping around. I stopped and tried to catch a glimpse of these UTC:s (Unidentified Thumping Creatures) but I couldn't see anything through the thick vegetation. The trek was like a basic mountain climbing course for infants. Not too hard but a little bit tricky in some places. On the top there was a rusty old tower you could climb up in if you felt like it - I didn't. I got the beautiful view anyway.
We made a couple of other stops aswell but nothing special. It was a nice day though, quite
National park
How come I always seem to look the happiest in places like these? laidback.
The next day I took a full day tour of Halong Bay. For a change Lady Luck wasn't a bitch and the weather was sunny and nice. There was a little bit of a sunny haze but cruising through the bay was really nice anyway. We were promised a bunch of stops along the way and a kayak ride. There were only one cave stop, one stop at Monkey Island and a lunch break in the middle of the bay though. It really didn't bother me as I was in a good mood and didn't mind just chilling on the deck and I didn't know about the promised kayaking until afterwards. Funny thing is I thought about how un-necessary kayaking would be while on the boat. The big plus with this tour was that we were only five tourists on the boat! I thought I'd be fighting with 40 others to get a good shot of all the scenic rocks and islands.
Monkey Island, as the name indicates, featured some grey little monkeys that were quite the brazen little bastards. One of them stole a cake wrapping from my backpack. Ha ha, sucker! No cake in that
Ngu Lam peak
Conny enjoying the view rom the top. one. Me and they guys from the boat climbed up some little mountain, which would be your basic mountain climbing course for toddlers. This one was a bit scary as it featured knife-like rocks you didn't wanna fall on. I was soaked with sweat after coming down and I don't think it was just from the heat... However, the view was nice from up there, even for an old acrophobic as myself.
My last day on the island was a lazy day and I only managed to get my ass down to the three beaches: Cat Co 1, 2 & 3. On beach 2 I conducted a improvised English lesson with a local waitress. My cheap ass maybe don't dish out as much dong (aahhhh...) to beggers as I used to, as I'm now traveling on borrowed money, but I still find ways of giving to the community! ;-) Speaking of which, a monkey attacked my student jumping on her back and acting generally aggressive, so I "heroicly" chased the small monkey away. After an hour and a half of patient tutoring I finally had enough, closed the "class" and went on my way.
A minus for Cat
Weird tree
Seems like Conny has a back-to-nature-moment here. Ba Island is that it was really hard to find a nice meal there. The food was either crap or the usual microscopic Vietnamese portion. I was also a bit surprised by being offered "vely nice Vietnamese boom boom" in broad daylight in this nice place. Overall this was a really nice place though, and I highly recommend a visit!
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