Advertisement
Published: November 27th 2011
Edit Blog Post
As is customary when travelling alone, the first thing one should do is go on the ‘hunt’ for like revelers. My ‘hunt’ lasted no more than 2 minutes into the airport bus journey between the terminal in Hong Kong and the plane when I met a bunch of girls from Leeds. As you would expect, they were game for a laugh and sensing my cluelessness about where I was going to stay in Hanoi, they invited me to share the cost of their cab and bunk with them for a few nights at the Central Backpackers on Quan Hoan Kiem in the Old Town near St. Joseph’s church.We arrived quite late and after managing to avoid getting run over in the crowed and bustling streets, checked in and went out for food and beer – my first experience of ‘street food’.
One thing I will certainly take away from Viet Nam (and most of SE Asia for that matter) is that when you cross the road, just go for it – keep walking at a steady pace and the motorbikes, tuk tuk’s and cars will move to avoid you, more often than not… pause for reflection on the insanity of
the situation and you’ll be landed with a hefty medical insurance claim. Nonetheless, it adds to the charm and the adventure. Another is the memory of the food… especially the street stalls.More often than not they are simple mobile stoves set up on the roadside with small plastic tables and chairs (the kind you used to use for kids birthday parties) for the customer’s to eat at. Otherwise they will be based out of shop fronts (one in particular round the corner from my hostel was a mechanic’s garage by day, eatery by night) – not the most hygienic at face value, but surprisingly good and cheap as chips (never pay more than a dollar or two for street food in Viet Nam!).
The next day the girls and I headed out for some sightseeing, taking a walk through the Old Town of Hanoi towards Hoan Kiem Lake. Here there is a small temple over a quaint bridge where you can view the lake and surrounding area and rather bizarrely (like in the rest of Viet Nam) a seemingly popular spot for all day wedding photo shoots. Apart from trekking about there really isn’t much to do in Hanoi,
Ha Long Bay Floating Village#2
Beleive it or not, people actually live here, go to school and have pet dogs. but it’s also a place that seems to be able to get a hold on you and invariably you can end up staying for 5-6 days before you realise it (as it was in my case). Thinking back, it’s probably more to do with the cheap food and ‘beer hoi’ (little street side beer café’s where you can drink a half for about 15p – although technically it is illegal to drink in the streets in Viet Nam so when the police stop by on random checks, everyone gets up and crowds onto the pavement until they’ve gone).
To leave the city behind I decided to book a trip to Ha Long Bay, a World Heritage site, but now one of the seven natural wonders of the World. Still not quite in my backpacker mentality I booked a tour rather than braving it on my own and fending for myself at my destination. It turned out to be a good call. The previous night I had met another bunch of lovely English girls (Emily, Kerry and Natalie) in the bar (after a shot or two of Snake wine – rice wine in a jar complete with 7 dead snakes
Asia Cruise II
My home for a few days. slowly fermenting away) and we’d all decided to book on the trip together. The night continued with some street food and beer hoi as usual but continued in a place called the Bucket Bar and then onto Gecko bar (complete with midnight evacuation to foil the police raids).
The next day in the lobby we met the rest of our group, a collection of English, Irish and Scottish (Stevie, Stephen, Aine, Geraldine, Emma, Ally and Pete) which instantly meant this was not going to be an ordinary tour; Booze Cruise Ahoy! Our tour guide was called Tang, which in Vietnamese, depending on the tone means ‘Victory’; get the tone wrong and it can mean ‘Ascending’ or worse ‘Bad Boy’ (although he seemed to appreciate this more, especially as he was a self-confessed Vietnamese Ladies man) – the trip did not disappoint. Ha Long Bay is actually one of three similar bays, where thousands of limestone karsts jut out of the ocean in a maze of grey and green.Ha Long bay is the largest with over 1,900 karsts, while the other two bays sport 800-1,000 each. Most of the limestone karsts you cannot land on, but some have caves buried
within their core and others have eroded through the centre and so allow for sea kayaking through the maze of sea caves. So this is exactly what I did. The cave itself was distinctly average and full of Japanese tourists. I try to keep an open mind about other cultures, but the Japanese tour guides are loud and stupid. They walk around with tours of 20 or more, with a bloody megaphone and shout while the tour group photograph literally everything. I’m pretty sure at one point the glare of flash photography in the cave emitted more light than the Sun.
The sea kayaking however was great fun. We moored up next to a floating village where locals live, work and play and kayaked through several sea caves. Suffice to say it was thirsty work, so one we all returned to the boat (and after a quick dip in the ocean) we all hit the bar on the boat (as well as bootlegged vodka) and got smashed playing drinking games.
The next day was spent cruising through the karsts whilst recovering from the previous night’s antics before embarking on a trek up Cat Ba Island. This was perhaps
The Girls
Nat, Emily and Kerry. the most precarious trek I’d done – the guide took us part of the way then simply pointed up the mountain to direct us to the trail.Very slippy and steep it was a 2 hour climb there and back, but the view up the top was worthwhile (even with my fear of heights). The more adventurous of the trek group attempted the climb up the rickety and very rusty watch tower, while the rest of us rested. After Cat Ba we boarded the boat and headed for our overnight stay – Monkey Island. A serene and small island with several beach huts and a ‘disco’. No sooner had we arrived and had a dup in the ocean (complete with jelly-fish sting for Stephen), the heavens opened, so what more to do than to head to the bar and drink the night away with a few games of pool, Ping pong and a Nintendo Wii to add to the entertainment.
After Ha Long it was time to go back to Hanoi for a few more nights partying and some occasional sightseeing. On my return I checked into a different hostel – the old Hanoi Backpackers, which had a bit more
Ha Long Bay Cave
Full of Japanese tourists. Rubbish. of a party atmosphere than the last. There, along with Emily, Kerry and Nat, I met a new English couple, Ben and Elaine. We all got along instantly and held a mutual liking for the amber nectar, Ben being a keen rugby guy. That night we hit a few of the usual jaunts along with the Ha Long Bay crew and after it almost seemed like a sensible thing to turn in for the night, found ourselves in a very random and obscure Vietnamese techno club down a very dark alley and seemingly run out of an old garage.
The next day was certainly a chilled out one, spent mostly just walking around the new town visiting the Museum of Literature where the King used to host the final exam for Doctor's of the day, the war museum which was full of Communist Propoganda about the 'cowardly' French (we surrender...) and 'evil American's' (hmm), the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (he was away in Russia being embalmed), the 'Reunification' Palace and the main West Lake. I was joined by Ben and Elaine and an Argentinian girl I met a few days before called Mayra.In the evening we were privy to
Construction?
Ha Long Bay, World Heritage Site, now listed as a Natural Wonder of the World, wait, oh, waht's that? Oh yes, a big fuck off pier made of metal and concrete being constructed next to the cave. Brillant. Cheers Viet Nam. the Vietnamese independence celebrations (marking the 57
th year since Independence from the French), but they were hardly that (hoisting of a flag, a few trumpets and some terrible North Vietnamese army propaganda). In fact the small crowd of those who bothered to turn up seemed more interested in taking photos of the tall white guy with a ‘prominent’ nose (me) and his blonde haired blue-eyed friend (Elaine). The highlight of the evening was definitely the nighttime aerobics class we stumbled across, where geriatrics were dancing to happy hard core techno.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0279s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb