There were 7 of us from our hostel going to Halong Bay for 3 days and 2 nights. We had all become friends during the previous 2 days in Hanoi. Heidi (Irish) was traveling with New Zealanders Liam and Gus (Liam and Heidi met traveling and have been dating since....I know, too cute). Then there was Ellie from Argentina and crazy Anuk from Holland, me and Marj. We got picked up in a van for a 3-4 hour drive to Halong City. Our tour guide was Ton and he talked a lot about the day and rules, etc, when we just wanted to stare out the windows and listen to our music. We stopped at a rest stop and they made everybody wake up and get out of the bus....just more ways to get people to buy shit. Don't they know we are all budget backpackers who 1) can't fit the enormous ceramic statues you are selling in our packs and 2) don't have $ to ship that? I guess they don't know that.
By the time we arrived into Halong City, it was raining and figured we wouldn't be using our bathing suits, but everybody was still in good spirits. It was so touristy and Ton was serious about staying with the group that we all felt like we were on a school field trip. Finally on our boat, setting sail, we could instantly tell why this is one of Vietnam's gems. There are huge islands (look like big rocks) jutting out of the water all over the place. It reminded me of Krabi in Thailand, but this bay had so many more islands - 1,979 to be exact. It had stopped raining by lunchtime but was still cloudy, yet despite this you could see the beauty. It was so peaceful. There were 20 people on our boat and we all got to know each other over lunch. There was an Australian couple and the lady was the only one not happy. When they booked they were promised luxury and although the boat was fine, it was far from luxury. Problem is they paid double what we did for the same thing which we learned earlier was part of the common scam for halong bay. Luckily we knew these scams happened regularly, but I felt bad because nobody likes to get screwed over and Lord knows we've all been screwed. Poor Ton, our tour guide who had nothing to do with this, was stuck having to mediate the situation and like most Asians who hate addressing conflict responded to her complaints like a robot: "Everybody is happy. Everybody loves the boat. Everybody is happy." And that was verbatim, I heard it with my own 2 ears. It most likely, only aggravated her more. Marj and I want to set up a business to teach various, more helpful, response tactics.
The afternoon was full of walking through more caves (don't you worry, there were neon lights in this one too) and kayaking. Ton exclaimed some ridiculousness that we should pay for a raft instead of the included kayak because everything was wet. Buuuut, we were going in the water regardless, wet was a probable outcome whether we chose raft or kayak. Hmmm, maybe Ton was in on the scams after all.....Well, nothing was stopping us from kayaking, as with most other people. Ironically, all the Vietnamese tourists chose rafts and all the foreigners were in kayaks.
By the afternoon, Ton informed us that the 7 of us were leaving the boat to go to Cat Ba Island and to stay in a hotel for the night. We were sad to leave our new friends but carried on. The drive through the small island, alone, was worth getting off the bus. It was beautiful. the town center itself was cute and after dinner, Marj and I hit up the "night market". I put this in quotes because it was maybe 15 stalls all selling the same, gaudy things...not much of a market. but we got a good laugh. We did see a roller blading park where a lot of young boys were blading around; it seemed like the cool thing to do. It was an early night, which wasn't a bad thing - 2 nights of free beer and rice wine had taken a toll on me and I passed out.
the next morning we went to Cat Ba National Park for a nice hike and then spent the afternoon strolling the island. we ended up back in the boat that night: same boat as the day before, but a different guide and all new people. We actually had 3 of our hostel mates join us at this point, Tom, Maude and Annabelle from Canada, and they were adorable so we were happy to be reunited. We all exchanged stories of swapping boats and people throughout the past 2 days. There was a system in place that nobody could figure out.
We go to our rooms on the boat, as Titanic music is playing and I hear a splash in the water. Liam and Gus were jumping off the rooftop of the boat! I screamed a good cheerleader scream, got super excited and ran in my room to get my bathing suit on. After my first jump, again with a good scream all the way into the water, I thought they'd get less scary, but they didn't. Four of us were going to jump together and on the count of 3 they all went in, but I froze, screamed and took a second to jump in after them! Even those not jumping in were having a good time with all of this, when we saw something swimming in the water towards us. Two guys, a German and a Frenchman, swam over from their boat about 300 meters from ours (we were docked over night) to join in our fun! Now that's dedication. Unfortunately it was time for dinner and they didn't stay long.
We had heard that alcohol on the boat was expensive and so Marj and I were glad to bring the vodka we still had. Pretty much all of our friends on the boat did this-our French Canadian friends invited us to use their mixers and so we hung out with them playing "never have i ever". We heard the boat across the way really making good use of their karaoke machine (boat with our german and french swimmers) and we were inspired. To sing that is, not swim there :). S, it took our boat guys a solid 15 minutes to get the karaoke machine set-up. we were confused because, like every good Thai, every good Vietnamese has karaoke pre-set-up in anticipation singers will come. Either way, we got things movin. This was my first experience singing Jingle Bells for karaoke, but I think having missed the past 2 Christmases made me extra ecstatic and I belted it out for Old Saint Nick. As Let's go Barbie is belted on the microphone, we see not 2, but 3, things swimming in the water towards our boat. Our German and French friends brought over another German who wanted in on our fun! They were not shy, got themselves a beer, grabbed the mic and sang away! The tour guides on the boats all got wind of this, phones started ringing, lots of discussion, some " yelling" and such. Sadly, all of the commotion was over our 3 new friends and they were made to leave too quickly.
The next day was really relaxed just sailing back to Halong City. We stopped for lunch and back to Hanoi we were. Not having a particularly strong desire to spend another day in Hanoi, we booked called our hostel there and they booked us an overnight bus to Sapa that same day. We were happy the timing was working out so well.
We made it back in time into Hanoi for me to get one last dish of delicious noodles from the stand across the street (the Pho ended up rocking my world once I figured out how to say it vegetarian....blissful) and one last fresh fruit shake. While Anuk and I were off getting the shakes our bus came, but couldn't wait for us because its illegal. So, some random guy on his bike came to tell us where the bus was waiting for us and carried Marjie's bag too. Stuff like that only happens in SE Asia....randoms going out of their way, it's quite generous. So, we arrive to the "bus" and it's actually a van, like a cramped one. We figured an overnight on this should be interesting, and sleepless. But, I reminded Marj and Anuk it could be worse - we could have livestock with us :)
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