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Surprise!
Entry 3 of 13 | show all | print this entry |
Day 62 - The Vega Travel minibus picked me up in the morning, along with 6 other people: 2 Belgian girls, a French couple and Caroline and Tom from Stevenage (who turned out to be very lovely and enthusiastic having just started their travels). From just about the beginning there was a french-english divide in the group! The bus journey took 3 hours to Halong City.
At the port there were hundreds of boats moored and tourists getting on and off - really quite a vulgar sight but unavoidable when visiting Halong Bay. On out boat we had a delicious lunch cooked by an old man in a 'kitchen' at the back of the boat including fresh sea food - I tried squid for the first time - unsure! and we set sail into the Bay. The visibility was quite poor with the mist but improved as we got further from shore and added to the atmosphere, making the bay feel as if it went on forever. Halong Bay is a stunning array of limestone mountains jutting from the ocean and even with a load of other boats on the water, its beauty was not underrated.
We arrived a "Surprising Cave", which is a definite tourist trap but interesting all the same. The cave consists of 3 caverns created by the weathering of the limestone and as it turns out, the surprising bit is in the third cavern... a 'finger' of rock lit up in red which looks more phallic than fingerlike - how our guide could describe it as a finger with a straight face I don't know! We walked around the cave and our guide (Tuan- who looks 16 but is actually 31) pointed out every formation in the rock that looked remotely like an animal with his laser pen!
We moved on to Titop Island where we walked up to the summit (next lesson for Vietnam - they love steps) and enjoyed amazing views of the Bay before boarding the boat and finding a more secluded spot where we went kayaking. As there was an odd number, I was going to go in a kayak on my own, but Caroline and Tom insisted I shared with them which was very sweet, but slightly impractical as we coudn't all paddle together as we kept hitting each others paddles, thus taking us ages to get anywhere. We paddled through some small coves and into small bays unreachable by larger boats and it was nice to have the scenery to ourselves for a bit.
After kayaking I felt absolutely exhausted (and still recovering from the fever, which by now had gone, but left me very lethargic) and after another good meal and some custard creams that Caroline brought from home and shared with me, I went to bed.
Day 63 - For breakfast they made some delicious beef pho - and despite it feeling quite odd to eat noodle soup for breakfast, I was really impressed that they gave us Vietnamese food rather than the tourist bread breakfast most companies provide. We then moved on to a smaller boat, leaving the 2 Belgian girls behind (as they were doing a 2 day, instead of a 3 day tour) and sailed to Cat Ba Island.
We approached a neglected looking little beach with nothing on it and steep, thick jungle beyond and the boatmen paddled us to shore one at a time in 2 man kayaks! We set off for a trek into the jungle of Cat Ba National Park and five minutes into the trek Tuan kindly told me how he often sees snakes here - immediately scaring the crap out of me and putting me on edge for the whole trek! It seemed only Vega Travel uses the route through the jungle and consequently there were no other tourists, or people, about. The forest was beautiful and full of insect noises and at times was quite difficult with steep outcrops of limestone along the trail.
Halfway we came across an old couple of 65 and 70 years old who live in the middle of nowhere in the national park growing all sorts of vegetables and fruit and breeding chickens to sell. They had no road access of electricity but were very accommodating giving us really good fresh bananas from their garden and Vietnamese tea. Caroline got to fulfill a dream of hers to hold a baby chick!
Back on the boat we sailed to a fish farm where we could walk around (on planks tied to floating barrels) and look at all the different types including angel fish and 20kg, imported, carniverous 'legfish', which were enormous. Lunch on the boat was delicious (again) and this time featured fresh clams in their shells which I really liked!
In the afternoon we went kayaking and this time I shared with Tuan (who incidentally does not do small talk!) and paddled under a cave into a bay which is only accessible when the tide is quite low (and therefore you don't want to get stuck the wrong side of it) and paddled to a secluded beach.
The boat then took us to Cat Ba Island which is the only inhabited and the biggest island in the Bay and we got a minibus to Holiday View Hotel, which is very nice by my standards and I enjoyed a few hours of drinking complementary tea and watching some trash reality tv show on MTV Asia! In the evening I met Caroline and Tom and went for dinner in a restaurant along the sea front, noticing the definite resort feel on the island (exacerbated by lots of neon lighting). I had some very good garlic prawns and greatly enjoyed the company.
Day 64 - The breakfast was a choice of noodles or bread and butter, and when given a choice, bread always wins in the morning. The morning was spent tavelling back to shore in extremely starnge weather conditions - being very hot on the top deck, but extremely foggy and grey! We had lunch at Halong City before being driven back to Hanoi, feeling satisfied that the tour delivered all it said it would and more, especially after some of the horror stories I have heard from other travellers.
We dumped our rucksacks at Vega Travel Office and Caroline, Tom and I went to get some ice cream before syaing goodbye and parting ways (they were off to Ninh Binh, whereas I was going to Sapa). I spent a few hours doing essentials and getting some supplies from an enormous supermarket (where you had to check your bag) including some kelloggs cornflakes and rice crispies! Vega Travel then organised a free taxi to the train station. The ticket to Sapa cost $25 one way, which was crazy, but I had little choice as if I went directly to the train station I would have to get the ticket a day or so in advance, and since I was Halong Bay, this was impossible. The train was rather nice though - soft sleeper with 4 in a cabin, air con and a lockable door which kept out thieves and the light from the corridoor.
Where I stayed:
Boat & Holiday View Hotel
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