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  Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
Tuesday, April 1, 2008

WARNING: This is going to be a long one...

Sunday 30th March
We arrived in Central Hanoi at about 7.30am. After consulting the Rough Guide book we discovered that the best place to get a bus to Ha Long City was from Gia Lam bus station, a couple of kilometres away, so we jumped in a taxi. After a breakfast stop we bought tickets for a large minibus that could hold about 20 people. When we got on it there were only 5 people on it but it left the bus station anyway. The next 3.5 hours were probably the most frustrating I have ever experienced! The bus tootled down the dual carriageway at no more than 20km/h with one guy standing at the door touting for passengers. Every now and then the bus would slow down, not stop, and the guy would drag the running passengers onto the bus. It didn't even stop to let people off again

Look how many boats there are!!!

. The door operator would open the door, grab the passenger under the armpit, wait for the bus to slow down and then basically shove them out the door! Then after 3.5 hours the bus driver decided to change his driving style from old lady to boy racer! All of a sudden he just floored it, driving like a complete lunatic - overtaking on corners, flying through tiny streets and generally scaring the crap out of me! One of the songs on the radio sounded remarkably like the Kahzakstani national anthem from the Borat movie, which meant that I had the bloody thing stuck in my head for the rest of the day! "Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium. Other countries have inferior potassium"!!! Haha. Go here if you don't know it: http://digg.com/comedy/National_Anthem_of_Kazakhstan_From_Borat_Movie_Films.
We arrived, in one piece, at the bus station where we jumped in a taxi to the centre of Bai Chay - the Western half of Ha Long City - to find somewhere to stay. We had originally planned to get a boat tour in the evening, but we decided to spend the night and leave in the morning. We were well in need of showers after our epic 23 hour journey from Hoi An so we went with the first person to tout us a room. We stayed in the originally named Hotel 3, which funnily enough was the 3rd hotel in a line of four! After rejuvinating showers we headed out for food and then internet. I had been trying to persuade Kirsty to hang around in Vietnam a bit longer so she could come to Sa Pa with me, but she found out that she couldn't change her flight date from Hanoi as she had booked her's and Simon's flights together

Some rocks

. We then went out for some 4000 dong beers and played cards. After realising that most of the games that I knew didn't work with only two people it was time to learn some new ones. I think the first one was called All 2's. I'm not sure. Well to be honest, I didn't have a clue what the hell was going on the entire game, but somehow I managed to completely whoop her at it! Game two was the most hectic, and most fun, game ever -Speed. Basically it is Patience, except you play it against each other. I didn't win a game though. I will be challenging you all when I get back! We went for a wander and ended up at a bar full of Vietnamese people. At 11pm the staff suddenly left, leaving the two of us to drink our beers outside with massive rain storm kicking off and a bit of thunder and lightning thrown in for effect. We then ended up at a street restaurant where we drank a really warm, nasty bottle of beer whilst sitting under a tarpaulin sheet. Then probably the funniest thing I have ever seen happened (Elle: possibly the guy falling out of his shoes was funnier)! As I asked the old woman who was working there for the bill she was eating a big bamboo stick filled with something. Rather than finishing her mouthful, or gesturing with her fingers, she proceeded to push out all of the food in her mouth with her tongue which dribbled onto the floor, and told us the price! She completely took advantage of how drunk and amused we were and completely ripped us off, although we didn't realise until we were walking back

That's CAPTAIN Matt Sparrow actually

! Then, as we were still laughing about the woman, I threw my beer into a wheely bin and an almighty rat leapt out, scaring the shit out of me and amusing Kirsty even more!!!

Monday 31st March
We were being picked up from our hotel at 11.30am so we got up early to have breakfast. We went to a little restaurant around the corner and both ordered the 'Bacon Omletter Bread', which we assumed would be a bacon omlette with a baguette. It turns out it was just a piece of cooked ham, two fried eggs and a baguette! It was nice anyway. Kirsty wasn't feeling well, and I thought that she might not come on the trip, but she troopered on anyway. We got to the tourist wharf and it was absolute chaos! There were tens of boats and hundreds of tourists all wondering what the hell was going on. Eventually we got on our boat and headed up to the top deck to watch the mayhem of boats crashing past each other to get out of the dock. The first stop was a large cave on one of the 2000 limestone outcrops in the Ha Long Bay. As we approached the island I thought it looked like Tortuga from Pirates of the Caribbean! I'm not sure what the cave was called officially, but i'm pretty certain our guide said it was called 'Amazing Cave'. Apparently 900 of the 1800 caves in the area have been named, so I guess they were short of ideas when they got to this one

Tortuga!

! It turns out that the cave was pretty amazing! After the cave exploration we headed back into the Bay for some kayaking. After a few months of no exercising it proved to be tougher on the arms than expected! We then reboarded the boat and floated off to Cat Ba Island, where some of the boat's passengers were staying the night. It was quite eerie as we made our way through the mist past these massive rocks jutting out of the water. An English woman had brought her 2 year old daughter on the boat and was off chatting to other passengers, leaving us to stop the cute little girl from clambering overboard! As docked at the island and were chatting to two guys that we had just met, Matt and James, two new passengers appeared. Sophia and Anique were two 18 year old English girls who seemed quite quiet to start with. After a dinner consisting of exactly the same things as our lunch and a singing performance in full Vietnamese dress by one of the crew, the karaoke machine was switched on. By this point half of the passengers had moved onto a boat tied up next to us as there weren't enough cabins aboard ours. This left the six of us and a group of eight 50 something Austrians. I broke my no-karaoke rule and belted out such hits as 'Gangsta's Paradise' by Coolio, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana and 'Take it Easy' by the Eagles, before completely murdering 'Me and Mrs Jones'!!! The six of us then sung 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' at the top of our lungs to the Aussies on the boat next door. You'll understand if you are a rugby fan

Me and Kirsty

. After a few hours the Austrians had gone to bed and listening to the now hammered girl duo murder every song under the sun was growing thin, so we made the decision to turn it off and play cards. This proved equally as frustrating as Anique was just struggling with life in general at this point, and Sophia was more interested in picking songs on my iPod! After a couple of long-winded games the guys went to bed and the girls followed soon after. It was only 11.30. Lightweights! This left me and Kirsty to have a rematch of Speed. I still didn't win a game! As we had payed quite a lot for the trip we assumed that we might get a couple of free drinks, but that wasn't the case. All of the crew, apart from one guy who was asleep on the floor, were playing cards on the boat next door, leaving us with a cooler full of beer and a clipboard where we had to mark down how many beers we had drunk. After a while we realised that we couldn't afford any more so we had to resort to taking beer and then pretending to mark it down when the crew were watching! By 2.30 we didn't want to risk any more beer thefts so we headed down to our cabin which had the most comfortable bed of my travels so far. The problem was that all you could hear was rats scurrying along the decks and in the walls, as well as one of the Austrian guys snoring a few cabins down!

Tuesday 1st April
Breakfast was at 7 and, after 3.5 hours of sleep, it was a struggle getting out of the comfy beds. Especially with my hangover! We ate, then went back to bed. Getting back to sleep however, was proving to be a problem, as the staff were trying to evict us from the room so that they could clean it. We were also next to the engine room, so when the engine started it was really noisy and the room got a bit fumey! After the 3rd or 4th time of being asked we got up, had ice cold showers, and went up top. The trip back to shore was pretty quick and after getting onto dry land we were taken for a lunch remarkably similar to our two previous meals! Due to all of our combined money being spent on beer and the nearest ATM being 2km away, all we could scrape together was enough to buy a small bottle of water to share between us which had to last to Hanoi! After lunch we were herded onto a minibus, which only took 3.5 hours with a half hour stop.
To be continued in my Hanoi blog...

I hope you have enjoyed the last 3 blogs. It only taken me about 3 hours to do!!!

Love to you all
xxx

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