My Trip to Ha Long Bay

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MARCH 20th--- DAY 2:

Me, Charli and Sarah woke up ate breakfast and decided to take our cab together to the airport. We found a taxi driver instantly…what a surprise! Once we got in the taxi we told him we wanted to go to the airport. We worked out a price that we wanted to pay, even though he started off at over half the price anyone would normally pay. He kept rambling on and on about some extra fee you have to pay to get to the airport and how FAR away it was. Of course once we hit the highway, he starts bitching to himself loudly. He says stuff like, “You must pay me more…this drive is really out of the way…I’m giving you a good price and you are taking advantage of me”. Basically he wouldn’t put the meter on, which pissed us off, because we wanted to compare prices (and we agreed in the beginning of the drive that the meter would be put on). We said to him, “Sir if you don’t put on the meter, we want to get out here”. We argued for about half the ride and just decided to keep our set price. Once we arrived at the airport, we got out to pay him. The whole time we were taking out money from our wallets he would reach over and try to grab the money from us. He kept screaming at us saying, “You didn’t give me enough” (he was implying that we didn’t tip him). I kept thinking, “Why would I tip this man anything when he was such an ass to me”. Since I only had a big bill, I tried to get change from my friend. When he noticed this, he looked at my friend and said you give her money. The whole thing is just so bizarre! My friend Sarah even said, “don’t touch me” at one point. They will just keep reaching for your arms while you are looking for money in your purse. Of course, the minute we all walked away he started harassing some more people outside.

We checked in and made it to our flight on time. We had a two hour flight to Hanoi. While I was waiting in line to get my boarding ticket, a couple just came up and stood right in front of me. I said, “Excuse me, there is a line”. And just like they did in India, they gave me a dirty look and just didn’t answer me. So I was in an overall bad mood in the morning and just wanted to get on the plane already. It was probably one of the rockiest landings I have ever had on a plane. At one point I was thinking to myself, “Are we actually going to come to a stop!” Luckily we did and we got off to meet up with our group. I signed up to do this 3 day trip with a group called Global Citizens (I did my catamaran in Mauritius with them too). Our group was 60 SAS students but we ended up splitting into smaller groups once we all convened in the airport. My group was only 16 kids. The minute I left the airport, I realized that everyone was wearing winter jackets, scarves and gloves. Literally it was around 65 or 70 degrees! These people are crazy…they wouldn’t survive winters in the US. To them this is cold weather! They looked at us like we were crazy because we were wearing shorts and tank tops.

We took a coach bus to a place called the Friendship Village (Huu Nghi Village). Here we visited children who were affected by Agent Orange/dioxin left by the US in the Vietnam War. Many of the children had deformities and mental/physical illnesses. The kids there were so warm and friendly. They all ran up to us, hugged us and wanted to play games with us. We all got a tour of the village and got to see their classrooms. In class, they teach them everyday skills so that they can function on their own. It was really sad to see the other effects of the war…the kind of stuff you don’t always see and hear about.

After we were finished with our visit, we got back on the bus and headed to our hotel. We stayed at the Grandview Hotel. It was really nice. The inside of it reminded me of a college dorm/apartment building. The weirdest thing was the showers because they were European style (meaning that you have to hold the shower head the whole time….really annoying!) The cool part was that our room had a balcony, so we had a pretty cool view of the city. Anyway, we put our stuff down and we decided to check out the night market. It was cool to see and explore, but I couldn’t find anything I really wanted to buy. It was just really crowded and busy. I sort of felt dizzy while walking down the streets, because there is so much to look at and you have to pay attention at all times (people can grab your bag and motorcycles just wiz past you). There are soooo many motorcycles! Also, there are no rules that motorcycles cannot be on the sidewalks….so pretty much NO WHERE is fully safe to walk. We walked around for about an hour and half until we got hungry. We found this building that had many floors filled with restaurants. We found a Japanese restaurant on the fourth floor and got sushi yay! The weirdest thing about the restaurant is that the toilet seats were heated!

After dinner we decided to get dessert at this place that sort of looked like a Pinkberry on the inside. The place was called Yummy! When we walked in, it was really tiny, but the girl working there told us to walk up these winding staircases for more seating. We walked up three floors and then saw that you could eat on this balcony overlooking the middle of the main street. This was when I really wished I had remembered to bring my camera! The view was amazing and you could really see all the crazy streets that you just walked around. Honestly, everyone here drives a motorcycle…it is even one of the main forms of taxi transportation. They will walk up to you and ask if you want a motor ride. There are not many stop lights or crosswalks, you just kind of jump and run around them when you cross the street. During the diplomatic briefing on the ship, the Vietnam representative told us that when you cross the streets in Vietnam just walk slow but don’t stop. He also said people will part like the red sea hahah! And it is true! You have to just go for it and try not to get hit. By the last day we were masters at it, but the first two days were really scary.

At this point it was getting kind of late so we decided to head back to the hotel to get some sleep. We were all craving American TV shows or anything that wasn’t in a foreign language. We found only one channel! Basically it was a cooking show in Australia that was like Top Chef but with 12 year olds…really crazy! Anyways, was really glad I got a goodnight sleep!


MARCH 21st--- DAY 3:

We woke up around 6 am to head out on a 3 hour bus ride to Ha Long Bay. Once we got to Ha Long Bay, we all got on these boats that were going to take us to our larger junk boat. Here are some things you should know about Ha Long Bay: It is a huge bay full of water and giant chucks of rocks that stick out all over the place. A lot of the rock formations have caves inside of them. There is also a lot of fog, and by nighttime there is so much fog, that you can’t even see anything in front of you. It is one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, and the scenery for the movie Avatar was based off of this place.

This boat dropped us off at our junk boat. The junk boat is about 3 stories. It has hotel rooms on the bottom, a patio and dining room on the second floor, and a lounge area on the top. The outside of them really look like pirate boats. Ours didn’t have this, but some of them have these giant sails that look like a fish fin. Once we got there, we all checked into our rooms and went to the second deck for lunch in the dining room. It was a mix of all this fried seafood. I honestly have NO idea what I ate…some of it was really good and some was really terrible.

After lunch they took us to see one of the biggest caves in Ha Long Bay. This cave went on forever and was really pretty inside. When we got to the bottom, I asked our tour guide jokingly if people climb through the small tunnels in the cave walls. He said I could, so I figured why not. A small group of us climbed through to the other side. It was pitch black and really hard to fit through, but it was awesome. I thought I would see some bats, but I didn’t see anything.

After visiting the cave, we got into kayaks and got to each go out for 40 minutes to paddle over to some of the other rock formations and smaller caves. It was really cool! There is even an entire village that lives out on the water. They have a community of houses and even a school. It was sooo cool! After kayaking, we headed back to our junk boat for an early dinner. Before we ate, they told some of the kids that they could jump off the top deck of the boat. I didn’t do it, but three of the kids did and they screamed when they hit the water because it was soooo cold!

Something they serve here is tea with milk, which I never used to do before this trip. Now I’m addicted and have it at almost every meal! Also, in Vietnam they don’t really put regular milk in their coffee, they put condensed milk instead. It wasn’t that bad, but it was way too sweet and really not that good for me….so I don’t really think I will be doing that again.

After dinner the crew set up dancing and karaoke for us. It was really fun and everyone got into it. We sang and danced for about three hours! The most popular song in Asia is this song called “Nobody, Nobody But You”. It’s sung by this girl group that everyone is obsessed with. I think I heard it about 15 or 20 times while I was in Vietnam. It is really repetitive but super catchy. I’m definitely getting it on my ipod when I get home! Around midnight everyone decided to pass out in their rooms, but the crew just stayed up literally all night and did karaoke. I really think people in Asia just love karaoke! I mean they did for 6 or 7 straight hours…crazy!!! At one point I got really pissed off, because it woke me up at 3 am….ugh! But it was still an awesome night! I think overall, this was my favorite day and night in Vietnam. It’s not that I didn’t have fun the other days or ever enjoy myself, it’s just this day was not as stressful or annoying because I didn’t have to argue with people or watch my bag every five seconds!

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