Hanoi and Halong Bay

Right-oh, seems like it's my turn to make an update to this blog....

JC left you at our last night in Bangkok, which feels like a lifetime ago already!The last week has been busy to say the least, and one thing we've learnt really quickly is that travelling is so not like a holiday. Not at all.

We arrived in Hanoi last Saturday morning and it is even crazier than Bangkok, especially traffic wise - it's absolute carnage on the roads and pedestrians are shown no mercy whatsoever. There are scooters EVERYWHERE, the roads are swarming with them, the pavements seem to have been made purely for the purpose of parking them, and they seem to be welcome guests in most shops / houses too. And man alive the Vietnamese drivers could teach New Yorkers how to use their hooters (high fiiiiiiiiiiiive), they seem to beep their horns to convey any manner of messages, i.e. Get out of my way / coming through / I had eggs for breakfast / did you watch that show on TV last night etc etc, this must be the case because they just use them non-stop. We haven't really found too much to endear us to Hanoi, the one good thing about it just seems to be the fact that you experience Vietnamese city life. The pavements, when not in use by parked scooters, are occupied by street cafes. All you need for a street cafe seems to be a number of tiny plastic stools and one-or-two steel pots. We sampled some street cafe food on our first day in the city, it was made up of various pastries containing mystery meat products which were to be dipped in hot water containing noodles and apple-slices. It was alright taste wise, not too exciting though. We went to a show at the Water Puppet Theatre on the Sunday which was really fun - the stage is taken up by a giant water bath with backdrops all around it which hide the puppeteers, it sounds odd but is actually pretty good viewing!

The hostel in Hanoi is probably one of the best things about the city, as it is popular with backpackers so we've already met loads of people and picked up loads of great travel tips. Quite a few of the people that we've met are doing the same route as us so we're sure to bump into them later on in our trip which is pretty cool.

We'd been told that a trip to Halong Bay on the east coast of Vietnam was an absolute must as it is an area of incredible natural beauty, it's also a UNESCO World Heritage site and you get to go on a boat so these were all reasons enough for us! We decided to do the tour offered by our hostel as it was well reviewed by the people arriving back from the bay, and apparently it can actually be a minefield choosing a tour as there are so many tour operators that are sharks, so going on a tour that other people have actually been on is ideal.

The Halong Bay trip was a 3-day, 2 night trip that consisted of one night spent on a junk (boat) and the second night spent in little open huts on a private beach that the hostel somehow managed to purchase (I say 'somehow', but based on their mark-up on goods and tours and the dollar-dong exchange rate, this doesn't seem so far-fetched). Also YES, the Vietnamese currency is called Dong!Too funny. The exchange rate is around 18000 dong to 1USD, which takes some getting used to. For e.g when you are paying 30000 dong for lunch you can't help but think that it's outrageous when it is actually less than 2 dollars.

But I digress.

So we left for Halong Bay on Monday morning - we had a 3hour transfer bus ride to Halong City from where the junks leave, so we had to meet at 07:30am(this has been one of our LATEST starts since we've been here, for serious) to ensure we got there in good time.Our group turned out to only be made up of 15 people, compared to the 34 people that can go on each trip, which was ideal as it meant we each had a lounger on the boat (I do not know how the people in the bigger groups coped, I mean banish the very thought of not having your own lounger!?). As we made our way to Halong City our guide reassured us that we would be making a stop along the way so we could all visit The Happy Room, their name for the toilet. Why the happy room? Because everyone comes out happy! He then told us that the Vietnamese say the Happy Room is like a marriage, people on the outside want to get in, and people on the inside want to get out.We laughed for a while at that. Having a smaller group also meant that we didn't separate into little groups and instead everyone chatted to everyone on the boat so by mid-way through the first day. We were of course all bessie-mates by the time we got back to Hanoi.Not really, but we were all friends by the end of it and we were lucky because we got a really great mix of people - a mix of British, Canadian, Polish, Aussie, Kiwi, French and of course, South African.

The first day was spent on the boat sun-tanning,kayaking and then there was much jumping off the boat and swimming in the bay.Halong Bay is absolutely stunning but unfortunately it is also a massive tourist trap so by the time the nighttime came we could see the distant lights of Halong City and the much brighter lights from the city of junks moored in the same aread. The evening was spent bonding over drinking games and really doing our bit to promote continuing education amongst adults. Polish, French and many british people do not seem to be well aquainted with the fine sport of drinking games, but no fear, once we were finished with them not only were they fans but also budding amateurs. Having to stray out of the budget a bit to pay for the tour we decided to save ourselves some money by bringing our own alcohol on board, the most affordable one turned out to be Vodka (the brand-name) - 'A Cereal Fermentation Alcohol, Unique Taste'. I really only ever want my vodka to taste like Vodka to be honest so luckily the 'unique' taste was close-enoughish to keep us happy.

Drinking games seemed like an exceptionally bad idea the next morning when we had to wake up at the crack of dawn to catch our transfer boat to the island. We were gently woken up by the insistent ringing of a 140 decibel bell. Awesome.

We then transferred to the 'private beach' which sounds a lot more impressive than it really was - really a strip of reclaimed land about 100m long and with the sandy part approximately 3 metres in width with the tide in. It was all pretty rustic with everything outside - the 'huts' in which we slept were open on all sides with a really low roof, and we were provided with a mattress and mosquito net each (nothing else at all). Unfortunately we didn't have the best weather for being on a remote island, so it kind of put a dampener on things (figuratively and literally) but it was still fun to be out there. The day consisted of much lounging around reading and not much else, Stace and I eventually decided to go for a swim (the only two that ended up getting in the water) and we swam out to a jetty that was little way out. The water was very murky with bad visibility, so Stace decides that it is a good time to question whether there are sharks in the water.She did this while were still on the jetty and still had to swim all the way back to the shore. Then while we are actually swimming back she says 'wow, I wonder what is underneath us, could be anything' and I'm like 'pick your moments woman!' These are ideas to be pondered once back safely on dry land.

Anyway, there are, thankfully, no sharks in the water only stingrays apparently.

The evening was spent drinking again (only a very moderate amount) and eating our way through 5 varieties of meat from the barbecue - chicken, beef, calamari, prawns and sausages.

The next morning we were again softly roused from our sleep by the 150decible boat horn which went on for approximately 5 years or so. Long enough to wake us up and also to ensure that we have tinnitus at least until the end of our trip. We then headed back to Halong City for our transfer back to the hostel in Hanoi.It was interesting seeing the country side of Vietnam during our drive back to Hanoi. The buildings are quite odd - they are all free standing, at least a metre or so apart and all of them are only as wide as one room. They are then approximately 3 rooms deep and always at least 2 stories high. So they are really thin and long. They paint the front facade in bright colours and it is often nicely decorated with balconies and pot plants etc but the two side lengths don't even get painted. So they are left concrete grey and,on most of the houses, windowless. Weird. So they look like a block of flats sliced up with the slices separated from one another. Maybe this preserves heat in winter and keeps them cool in the summer? I dunno, must be helluva dark inside though. Anyway, we got back into Hanoi at around 3 and went straight to the train station to book our beds on the sleeper train that was leaving at 8pm that night for Sapa(in the north of Vietnam). That gave us enough time to have sneaky showers in the hostel, stow our bags in their baggage store room and a quick beer on the roof-top bar. The hard-sleepers(ha ha ha) on the sleeper-train were to be our next adventure, but Stace will be back to update you on our Sapa trip, I am so over typing.

Nics xx