Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Friday, November 14, 2008
right, this probably won't be the best blog ever because i have the faint suspicion that i've got a quece behind me for the computer and that within time i'll buckle and feel guilty for bogarting the free internet and scurry off, with my tail between my legs, thinking why didn't i just stand my ground and get this blasted thing done!!! must be more selfish! - than i already am! ok so saturday 25 october, and despite being the weekend AGAIN, we have to get up mega early to catch a boat, which is great because we wake to find that our hotel doesn't do an early breakfast despite booking early boat tours, and the restaurant next door does them, but it seems will take forever to get even the simplest order done in five! literally, we had boiled and fried eggs with bread. shouldn't take FOREVER! anyway, so we eat, or rather shovel it down, and return to our room to get packed up for said journey. needless to say, in true fashion, we were running a little late and the hotel ended up calling up to our room to hurry us along! when we got down to the lobby, where partner owner of the hotel was still laid out on a deckchair watching tv - as he seemed to be doing every time we ventured into the lobby to go out - we were moved along by friendly and efficient owner of the hotel, to our boat, where oddly enough we found ourselves following suit with the couple who had arrived seconds before us, and shaking hands with everyone else on the boat - so that would be a quiet couple, nationality i'll never know; a loud aussie / kiwi couple, though couldn't tell you which; and a swedish couple, who knows?! it was too long ago now, and i'm really not that great with accents or remembering where everyone we've met has come from! anyway, after the introductions, the group decided to climb up on deck where a stack of precarious looking plastic chairs and tables were gathered for us to sit around and watch the world go by! a little way out of the harbour, we stopped in amongst 'herds' of fishing boats, which i'm guessing had just returned from the night before's catch, because they were literally all shifting heap loads of fish from one boat to the next, dumping them down on the deck, where two or three men would scoop up shovel loads of salt to mix with the catch, before pushing it down into the 'undercarriage' of each second boat! ok, so, not being a fisherman, and hardly paying attention to the lingo used in 'the perfect storm' - because i was paying more attention to george clooney than the business of fishermen in general!, obviously - i can't and won't be able to use the correct terminology, but fingers crossed you'll get what i'm saying! anyway, after stopping for a while to watch yet more vietnamese getting up early, and working hard, we waded over to a petrol station on a boat to get filled up! and we were off, out of the bay, out to sea, and on our way to halong bay! here, out at sea, the wind really picked up, and most of our plastic chairs began to seriously slide around on deck, meaning the majority of us ended up ditching our seats to sit ourselves down upon the wooden deck instead! there was no way any of us were going overboard, however strong we thought our sea legs might be! out at sea, the view was spectacular, and as we got further out, we got to see the first of the limestone karst formations emerge from out of the water, and what an amazing sight! the whole scene resembled some kind of jurassic park landscape, which had been flooded and drowned over hundreds of years; and went on for some time! after a while, the boat changed course to take us into a cove, where it moored for us all to step off to visit a cave - which has no name in the story because i haven't got the information at hand to tell you! anyway, we walked down the pier to the ticket booth, where our guide wandered over with a handful and started distributing them to all of us - bar me and sean! well, we didn't know why he wasn't giving us a ticket. we'd paid the same as everyone else or so we thought. it seemed that most had paid a couple of dollars more meaning that their package included a visit to the cave, whereas mr friendly and efficient hadn't sold us that package, despite including the cave in the itinerary the day before. so, at this point, not even being told what had happened or why we hadn't been given a ticket, i, not standing for no explanation, decided to storm off down the pier / jetty to see our guide on the boat, which was now moving away to allow for other boats to arrive, which upon seeing this through me even more off the edge! what the hell was he doing, giving other people tickets and not explaining what had happened to ours, and then riding away? well, in the end, sean coming down with me to calm the situation down a little, we used the guide's phone to get back through to mr friendly, back at the hotel, to ask what the hell happened. he explained that we hadn't paid the same as the others and so we'd have to buy our own tickets, though they actually didn't cost any more than what everyone else had already paid. he added not to worry about any of the other activities on our package, though, as we would definitely be getting to do them. anyway, so, we bought some tickets and followed the others into the cave. later sean would tell me that after i'd stormed off, the aussie guy would talk about me being a little crazy and over the top! obviously, everything's gone swimmingly for him, otherwise he might be acting irrational too! in the cave, we were greeted by tunnels and caverns that resembled something out of a star wars film. this cave was absolutely incredible, and was so huge, it could have easily housed a large enough town! much better than the cave we saw the day before! so, we wandered through and took as many photos - of the stalactites, mites, penis shaped formations, pools of water, graffiti on the rocks that you're not meant to climb on - as our camera batteries, time, and time gaps between each abundance of japanese tourists passing through, would allow us! and lets just say there were a lot of them, and many of them who got in the way didn't even seem that bothered by what they were seeing! how many did i count who simply breezed straight through in their best designer clothes, in heels, paying no attention to the cave whatsoever and instead talking on their posh new mobile phone?! i mean, though it does seem like everyone comes travelling these days, many, many, many people don't, and yet these guys are fortunate to be out here and yet don't seem to know what they've got and don't seem to care either! i mean, if you're going to act like that you might as well just go out to corfu and spend a week drinking too much and staying in bed all day! anyway, after eventually being carried along by the japanese, and getting out into the light, we met up with the rest of our party, who then decided to joke about the ticket situation and that we'd probably find ourselves shelling out all day for everything else we'd been promised but hadn't paid for! haha, very funny! back onboard the boat, we were taken onto a cove, where the guys dropped anchor and explained that here was where we could snorkel and swim, before a seafood lunch. so, we got into our bathers, scooped up mask and tube, and jumped - or climbed down! - into the sea to go look for something scary and exotic...
to be continued!
ps, happy birthday for today mum!
continued 4.22pm, after a visit to a pagoda, 'hecticism' in the market, and the quickest call to my mum because she was at work. note to mum - don't worry about the price of the calls from here. they're cheap! you don't have to sound like you're always ready to rush off! x.
right, back to this halong bay trip on saturday 25 october. so we've stopped at this cove to go for a swim, and so i don the mask and tube thinking i've never done snorkelling but how hard can it be? well, quite hard for someone who realises quite soon from the off that putting their head under the water and breathing through their mouth without water getting into it an odd concept, and one that ends with them feeling like they actually can't breathe and a panic attack! i don't think i like snorkelling, so maybe there's no point me trying out diving next! i may love the water, but i'm sticking to the top of it! anyway, after having a swim about and checking out THE most littered beach ever - which was lovely seeing as these people are always talking about being kind to their environment etc - we head back up to the deck for some lunch - THE biggest lunch ever, consisting of spring rolls, noodles, fish, seafood, vegetables, rice, you name it. afterwards, we were offered vietnamese tea, which some of us drank and others looked for the most convenient time to chuck it overboard! next on the agenda, once out of the cove, we were taken to a small estate on the water, where people lived in wooden homes balanced on rafts and fished. we tied the boat to the jetty and several of us got off to make our way across the boards to where we were kitted out with not the best life jackets, an oar each and a kayak - canoe closed, kayak open? is that right? well we had the open one! better for life protection in the event of a capsize! anyway, sean and i shared a kayak and i paddled as graceful as i could, while still trying to put some welly into it, so as to mimic the beautiful pocahontas! after a short time, it became clear that i can not paddle in the right direction, but no matter as it wasn't like we were going to hit any tankers while out in the bay! on returning to the boat, we sailed on in the direction of home, and stopped for a brief time on monkey island. we'd been told not to venture too far into the trees and bushes as the monkeys can get itchy and bite you. nevertheless, there were plenty of blokes who still wanted to get in there and play indiana jones - one who apparently came from eastleigh way! small world! back on the beach, the monkeys had decided to come out for food. one in particular who, on seeing the security guard leave a packet of biscuits in his open locker, jumped down from his branch in a nearby tree and stole them! it was so obviously going to happen that i couldn't help but feel that maybe it had been staged, but sean assures me that no security guard in vietnam, in his right mind, has the time to sit about playing games with the monkeys to entertain the falang - of all people! anyway, sean tried to get in there to take shots of the monkeys, but they were most obviously not amused with him when they started to eye him up and down, hiss and move down the roof towards us! it was time to go! we boarded the boat and made our way home, just in time for sunset. that night we had an amazing tea in the green mango restaurant and drinks back in the nobel hotel, where i sulked because it has become clear, of late, that i am no good at pool!
