Wasted no time upon arriving back in Hanoi at 5:30am, got a motorcycle taxi from the station to a guest house, liked the look of things there and signed up for their tour of Halong bay, due to depart at 8am.
Lack of sleep for all involved made the bus ride rather tiresome, but thankfully all were in good spirits (excuse the advanced pun), with Alex and Sam getting the party going nice and early with the rice wine.
Halong bay is truly beautiful, giant limestone karsts (as in Yangshou, china) projecting hundreds of feet from clear turquoise water and covered in a lush green canopy of tropical flora. The place definitely deserves its status as a heritage site, and whilst on i boat here, i felt like i could stay here for ever, without a care in the world.
Arriving at Halong bay harbour at about midday, we had lunch on the boat, then we set sail for 'the surprising cave', the proper name of which i can't remember, but it is referred to as this because (in the words of Hoi, our tour guide ) ' wen everyone see dis cave, dey say oh wow, and r supwised, becos its so beautiful.' Actually he is right, it is surprisingly beautiful, consisting of three gigantic caverns with several conspicuous rock formations: two of turtles, one male one female, the female being lucky to touch on its head, a lion and a remarkably phallic looking rock, which they have amusingly illuminated with a red/pink light, presumably to make it look more lifelike. Very amusing to see our tour guides response as, despite the fact he must have been here hundreds of times, he still giggles like a little schoolgirl at the sight of it.
Not that you want to know this, but I had very bad gas whilst walking round this cave and thus the experience was made far more enjoyable (for me anyway) as i let off several farts on route around the cave, only to hear the guys following me comment 'it smells like arse in here'. Brilliant.
The cave was followed by a beer and 50 mins of Kayaking, my first experience of kayaking. I had been dying to do it, and it is really good fun, though 50 mins wasn't long enough to explore much of the bay, so we just had a look in some potential holes/caves in the cliffs, which turned out just to be holes (we found out after bumping our Kayak into the rocks at the back of the hole).
Dinner followed then we moved out into the bay to a spot suitably deep and rock free for swimming, jumping off the boat and general tomfoolery (yes, finally got to use that word!), including several bombs, star jumps and a credible air Jordan impression from Alex. The boat deck was deceptively high and it was one of those falls where about half way down you start thinking 'oh Jesus, this is high, i should have hit the water by now'. great fun though, though i didn't have the balls for anything spectacular, just jumping in for me (yep, I'm a pussy).
Drinking and more tomfoolery (yes!) on deck were the plan for the evening, and a late night was had by all. This made those of us decidedly grumpy at 5:30 the next morning, when we executed Hoi's ill conceived plan from the day before to see the sunrise. Grumpiness was amplified further by the fact that they had conveniently set anchor so that the sunrise was obscured perfectly by the karsts alongside the boat. Bastard driver, they do this every day, you'd think they could get the boat in a decent place!
Day 2, and the typical south east Asian disorganisation begins. We were all told that we were going to be trekking today on Cat Ba island for two hours and that there was no more kayaking , i.e that we were doing the package i had specifically opted against at the travel agents. Now I'm in pretty bad shape as it is, and after the planting of rice in sapa frankly i was finding walking up stairs difficult, hence why i chose kayaking, not trekking. Thankfully, Alex, Sam and the danes had also signed up for the kayaking, and being a lot stronger willed and self confident than i am they were determined that they would get their package, seafood barbecue, kayaking and all (and no trekking!). So spineless Ben just tagged his request onto theirs. We all felt a little bad though as our guide, Hoi, was really nice and none of the mix up was down to him ( it turns out 3 companies pooled all their clients together for this tour, and they didn't check if the itineraries were the same; they weren't), yet he got all the shit for it from his bosses and he was having to make phone calls left right and centre to very pissed off tour operators to try and make us all happy. Anyway he managed to get us our kayaking sorted, but we were told that due to the heat there would be no seafood barbecue on monkey island (the girls were very pissed off about this!). Fair enough i thought, i was just glad not to be trekking.
We had a ridiculous bus ride to the hotel, where the clutch on our minivan went (thats what they told me had happened anyway) yet the driver refused to acknowledge this, so we stopped for 10 mins every time he tried to change gear (i.e the bus broke down), until after this happened about 100 times he gave in and realised he'd have to go all the way in first gear. The bus ride certainly got interesting though, when we stopped off to drop off those who were trekking and another tour guide (a man) jumped in our tour bus next to Alex ( an ex body builder) and started getting rather friendly, stroking his goatee (and leg), whilst Alex sat paralysed by fear (i presume anyway, he didn't look like he was enjoying it)! I don't think his traveling companions are ever gonna let him live that one down.
We dumped our stuff and were off to the Cat Ba beach to use our free time (free time due to the lack of a barbecue) like any respectable tourist would do, doing nothing on a sun lounger, or so we thought. On the way to the beach, we heard an incomprehensible Vietnamese voice shouting at us and turned round to see Hoi running towards us. It turned out the Barbecue could now be had after all (too hot my ass!) and that we had to go asap. RESULT. Or so we thought...
We got to the bus and the phone now attached to Hoi's ear (the wonders of the Asian medical system) began to ring, and the problems continued. Six of us are there for the Kayaking/barbecue package, but only 5 people are booked in for it. So now Hoi is looking at my receipt and saying that as there is no mention of the barbecue on it, i cant go, and can only do the kayaking. Thankfully (again) the guys all said their receipts were the same and stuck up for me and said that i was on the same package. More frenetic phone calls ensued, with Hoi evidently bending over backwards to help us, as angry Vietnamese chewed his ear off. Eventually though all was sorted and we were off to the harbour, from where we would catch a boat to the island where we would be based for kayaking and our seafood lunch.
The seafood barbecue was on the boat, and it was fantastic:- squid, fresh vegetables, spring rolls and prawns 'as big as my leg, have to eat them off a table' (you all know that reference). After thoroughly stuffing myself on that, we set foot on the island for swimming (about an hour) then 3 hours of kayaking around the surrounding waters of the bay, stopping off on a pristine little stretch of sand to collect shells (the girls did anyway, i personally feel that doing so is the same as those people we saw all around who had taken bits of coral and stuff to sell as necklaces and is damaging the environment), relax and look for wildlife (only saw crabs I'm afraid, not an island for you Sam).
The beach we were based at was truly beautiful; a white sand beach backing onto a seemingly impenetrable (no one tried, with a beach this good why waste time doing that!) barrier of steep cliffs and flanked by palm trees. The beach however gets even better when you find out its name... MONKEY ISLAND! I was loving this (i thought you'd appreciate that Sam!). Plus the reason its called this is not like all the other ridiculous names (i.e that the island supposedly looks like a monkey or whatever) but because there are actually loads of monkeys there. The signs displaying 'caution, stay away from the monkeys, they may bite' thoroughly pleased me, though my efforts to find these monkeys (and probably get bitten) proved futile. The beach was deserted except us, and it made for a fantastic relaxing afternoon. The only thing that spoiled the day was that our little beach we kayaked to was covered with rubbish at one end, where the tide washed it in. Empty bottles, crisp packets and plastic bags etc littered one corner of the beach. Once again it was another example of the south east Asian (and Chinese) mentality when it comes to the environment (i.e they couldn't care less) and the general lack of respect for nature and keeping places tidy.
After thwarting the attacks of Le Chuck and his mighty ghost pirates (sam'll understand), we returned to the hotel, then chilled out on Cat Ba beach for a while before our evening meal. After eating we all retired to a karaoke bar and carried on drinking (5 big tigers were consumed by myself, and being the lightweight i am, the morning after bud wasn't too fun), where sadly most of the singing was done from the tables, rather than the stand up balls out singing you'd expect (except for one American bell end who kept hogging the mike), though Alex and Sam did a very credible Ice Ice Baby!
Sorry about the length of this entry, its boringness and its lack of continuity, I've finished it over three different towns and quite frankly its been a real chore making myself sit here and do so! I'll try to condense them down now on.
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