Halong Bay
We hooked up with Aussie's Tania and Katherine and booked ourselves a 3 day boat trip to a place called Halong Bay which is the most beautifull part of Vietnam. Its that same giant Krast formations, big limestone mountians coming out of the sea with jungle on top. They could be only a few meters wide at the bottom but shoot straight up and look fantastic. Halong Bay has 6000 odd of these things and it does look stunning.
We booked the trip in a place that told us that we could meet there in the morning, have breckfast leave our bags there. This was all part of the deal. When the 4 of us turned up that morning (with very sore heads as we had been drinking Beer on the streets with the english teachers we had bumped into agian the night before) the guy behind the desk did not have a clue, told us there was no breckfast and that the hotel was closing that day for a month!!! What the F#$%?? Typical Hanoi experiance. We managed to get some stale bread and jam out of him and the bus turned up to bring us to Halong. We had to haggle to get our packs left in another hotel which we did in the end. Dragging around big packs on boats for 3 days not fun.
We got to Halong in the afternoon and got onto the boat, a big old aisan junk, very oriental looking and old. Like a move agian! We had lunch on the boat which was cool and then procceeded to steam for the bay itself which looked amazing on the horizion. Its hard to describe this place so if you just google 'Halong Bay' and you will have an idea of it.
We stopped in one part of the bay and were told that we had to pay 35.000 dong to go on a little rowboat to see some caves. Balls to this, more hiden charges as you go along so we declined that. Water on the boat was $1 a go, crazy, its about 10c normally.
We chugged on agian through the by an me a Dee were taken to our room which was really cool. Sitting there in my window smoking with this amazing scenery and the old wooden interior of the boat, was far out.
We docked and were all rushed off the boat, this is where things started to go a bit sour with the crew. They basically treated the 12 odd tourists on the boat like shit and were barking at people to get off the boat. We did not know why we were getting off as no one told us but we were here to see some caves. Dee and I nearly ended up punching one of them. Pushy Fekkers. After being shoved of the boat I could not really focus on the caves as I was to stresed. We got back to the harbor and the boat had moored about 10ft away from where we were, this was the reason for them wanting us of the boat. If one had explained in english it may have helped!!
So we had a few cheep beers on the quay and hopped back on the boat. That afternoon we stopped in this lagoon shaped area and went Sea Kyacking. It was 17.oo at this point and a stupid time to dump people into the sea as it gets dark on the dot at 6. If you had been lost you could be in deep trouble! We made it back after a good paddle and were nearly ran over by our stupid crew turning thier boat around in the dark and not even caring where we were. It was exciting any way!
We got back on the boat alive and it was dark. We munched dinner and broke out the Vodka we had all bought and proceeded to have big sing song on the roof of the boat. The boat oppisate us had a group of french folks doing the same as us so when they heard my guitar they all shouted us over. We jumped between boats (good fun in the dark ) We sang songs and got arseholed under the stars. I slept on the roof that night as when do you get a chance to do this normally?!
The next morning we were awoken at 7 sharp agian really rude and pushy crew, force fed breckfst and physically ejected from our rooms. I thought Dee was gonna hit the old women that kept trying to move her out of our room , while she was getting dressed!
We were all a bit worse for ware this morning and the boat moved a few miles and dropped us on Cat Ba Island which is the populated island out here. We were spending the night on a hotel here. We got dropped at the hotel and were told to meet down stairs in 20 mins for a jungle treck. It sounded like we had no choice in this!! So at 8.30 that morning we were marching up the side of a jungle coverd mountian with massive hangovers recreating a scene from "Platoon"
It would have been nice treck but it was to early, to hot, we were not told what we were doing that day and the guide did not give a shit about headcounts or anything and could have easily lost someone. The Jungle and mountians were first class but we were in no shape to enjoy them!! The treck lasted 2 or 3 hours and we made it. We got dumped back at the hotel and were all exhausted and crashed the rest of the day, even though it was georgus out there.
That evening when we had all risin , we had dinner, were taught how to use chop sticks properly by an old Vietnamese couple who were lovely, and went to drink 10c beer on the street with the locals.
Its mad, you can drink for hours here in a big group and the bill comes to 4 Euro odd for everyone. I think Irish Life should have thier next staff night out here, will be very cheap for them (and dangerous)
The next day we were taken back to the boat and made a course for the mainland agian. We stopped for a swim on the way but the stupid crew did not put the anchor down so as you are swimming you had to keep an eye on where you were drifting relative to the boat!! Can anyone say "Health and Safety" ??
We got back to Hanoi that evening. Halong Bay is absolutly amazing but we made the mistake of going with a cheap company. We paid $38 for the 3 day but you can spend up to a $100. I think and extra $20 would go a long way next time!!
After all this stress we really needed to go somewhere quite. The Aussies were going up to a village in the mountains clled 'Sapa' and said it was really cool. We said fek it and decided to go and Im glad we did as its a really chilled place.
Rite my fingers are bleeding, I really need to blog reguarly and not in big chunks!!!
Im gonna finish this of later and tell yall about Sapa then : )
We booked the trip in a place that told us that we could meet there in the morning, have breckfast leave our bags there. This was all part of the deal. When the 4 of us turned up that morning (with very sore heads as we had been drinking Beer on the streets with the english teachers we had bumped into agian the night before) the guy behind the desk did not have a clue, told us there was no breckfast and that the hotel was closing that day for a month!!! What the F#$%?? Typical Hanoi experiance. We managed to get some stale bread and jam out of him and the bus turned up to bring us to Halong. We had to haggle to get our packs left in another hotel which we did in the end. Dragging around big packs on boats for 3 days not fun.
We got to Halong in the afternoon and got onto the boat, a big old aisan junk, very oriental looking and old. Like a move agian! We had lunch on the boat which was cool and then procceeded to steam for the bay itself which looked amazing on the horizion. Its hard to describe this place so if you just google 'Halong Bay' and you will have an idea of it.
We stopped in one part of the bay and were told that we had to pay 35.000 dong to go on a little rowboat to see some caves. Balls to this, more hiden charges as you go along so we declined that. Water on the boat was $1 a go, crazy, its about 10c normally.
We chugged on agian through the by an me a Dee were taken to our room which was really cool. Sitting there in my window smoking with this amazing scenery and the old wooden interior of the boat, was far out.
We docked and were all rushed off the boat, this is where things started to go a bit sour with the crew. They basically treated the 12 odd tourists on the boat like shit and were barking at people to get off the boat. We did not know why we were getting off as no one told us but we were here to see some caves. Dee and I nearly ended up punching one of them. Pushy Fekkers. After being shoved of the boat I could not really focus on the caves as I was to stresed. We got back to the harbor and the boat had moored about 10ft away from where we were, this was the reason for them wanting us of the boat. If one had explained in english it may have helped!!
So we had a few cheep beers on the quay and hopped back on the boat. That afternoon we stopped in this lagoon shaped area and went Sea Kyacking. It was 17.oo at this point and a stupid time to dump people into the sea as it gets dark on the dot at 6. If you had been lost you could be in deep trouble! We made it back after a good paddle and were nearly ran over by our stupid crew turning thier boat around in the dark and not even caring where we were. It was exciting any way!
We got back on the boat alive and it was dark. We munched dinner and broke out the Vodka we had all bought and proceeded to have big sing song on the roof of the boat. The boat oppisate us had a group of french folks doing the same as us so when they heard my guitar they all shouted us over. We jumped between boats (good fun in the dark ) We sang songs and got arseholed under the stars. I slept on the roof that night as when do you get a chance to do this normally?!
The next morning we were awoken at 7 sharp agian really rude and pushy crew, force fed breckfst and physically ejected from our rooms. I thought Dee was gonna hit the old women that kept trying to move her out of our room , while she was getting dressed!
We were all a bit worse for ware this morning and the boat moved a few miles and dropped us on Cat Ba Island which is the populated island out here. We were spending the night on a hotel here. We got dropped at the hotel and were told to meet down stairs in 20 mins for a jungle treck. It sounded like we had no choice in this!! So at 8.30 that morning we were marching up the side of a jungle coverd mountian with massive hangovers recreating a scene from "Platoon"
It would have been nice treck but it was to early, to hot, we were not told what we were doing that day and the guide did not give a shit about headcounts or anything and could have easily lost someone. The Jungle and mountians were first class but we were in no shape to enjoy them!! The treck lasted 2 or 3 hours and we made it. We got dumped back at the hotel and were all exhausted and crashed the rest of the day, even though it was georgus out there.
That evening when we had all risin , we had dinner, were taught how to use chop sticks properly by an old Vietnamese couple who were lovely, and went to drink 10c beer on the street with the locals.
Its mad, you can drink for hours here in a big group and the bill comes to 4 Euro odd for everyone. I think Irish Life should have thier next staff night out here, will be very cheap for them (and dangerous)
The next day we were taken back to the boat and made a course for the mainland agian. We stopped for a swim on the way but the stupid crew did not put the anchor down so as you are swimming you had to keep an eye on where you were drifting relative to the boat!! Can anyone say "Health and Safety" ??
We got back to Hanoi that evening. Halong Bay is absolutly amazing but we made the mistake of going with a cheap company. We paid $38 for the 3 day but you can spend up to a $100. I think and extra $20 would go a long way next time!!
After all this stress we really needed to go somewhere quite. The Aussies were going up to a village in the mountains clled 'Sapa' and said it was really cool. We said fek it and decided to go and Im glad we did as its a really chilled place.
Rite my fingers are bleeding, I really need to blog reguarly and not in big chunks!!!
Im gonna finish this of later and tell yall about Sapa then : )
posted by Fionn at 11:26 PM
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