Yesterday morning I woke up bright and early and headed
upstairs for breakfast. I was pretty excited about breakfast, forgetting where
I was, and ended up being disappointed when I found my options were rice or
toast. I had a little of both but I wasn’t a fan of the jam options and the
rice tasted funny, I was really craving a bowl of corn flakes and some toast
with raspberry jam. Sometimes I miss staying in European hostels.
After breakfast I packed a small bag (my trip was only for
one night so I probably could have survived without a change of clothes but
there was kayaking on the itinerary and with my luck I would probably end up flipping
the boat and narrowly escaping death and I’d rather be safe than sorry so I
packed a few options) and headed downstairs to wait for my bus. Unlike my tour
from Bangkok there were a few other people waiting to go on the same tour as
me. It was far too early in the morning to start conversing with them but I was
happy I wasn’t alone.
We boarded the bus, picked up a few more people from around
the city and started the four-hour drive to Halong Bay. I was still exhausted
from the long day before so I managed to sleep for a good chunk of the drive
but not before our guide introduced himself and ran through the itinerary with
us. I can’t remember the English name he gave himself but he named himself
after an English Premier league goalie, a little random but I guess it works
for him. He was a bit of an odd duck, he had long finger nails and referred to
the bathroom as the ‘happy room’ I have no idea why but every time we stopped
somewhere he would tell us where the happy rooms were located, it took me a few
stops to figure our what he was talking about. He also kept telling us that we
could take pictures and photos, which was reassuring because I hate when you
can only do one or the other.
The bus pulled into Halong Harbour just after noon and we
all proceded to our tender boat, a small boat that took us to our large boat
that we slept and ate on. We were supposed to received welcome drinks but for
some reason that didn’t happen. When I booked the tour I was told drinks
weren’t included but I thought they meant alcoholic drinks and that seemed
reasonable to me but they meant no drinks at all were included, not even water.
Instead of our welcome drinks we checked into our rooms, I didn’t pay the extra
fee for a single room but was praying that the boat wouldn’t be full and I
would still get my own room. No such luck, I ended up in a room with a Dutch
guy named Braham. Once we were checked in it was time for lunch. I was at a
table of people not wanting to eat seafood and we were served several pork
dishes and some rice.
Although we had been sailing this whole time we were still
quite a ways from our first destination so I went and sat on the sun deck
although it wasn’t sunny at all, it was actually quite foggy and the visibility
was dismal. Luckily the weather cleared up a little just in time to reach our
first destination: Ti Top Island. We had the option of either swimming or climbing
the 427 stone stairs to the observation post at the top of the island. It was
way too cold for swimming so I decided to trek to the top. I was reminded once
again what terrible shape I am in because I was huffing and puffing when I
finally made it to the top. The views were pretty incredible; I can only
imagine how stunning they would be on a clear and sunny day.
From there our next stop was the Sung Sot Cave or in English
Surprising Cave. We climbed another 100 stairs (my legs were hating me at this
point but I could still breathe when I got to the top of this one) to the entry
of the cave. There were 3 chambers and our guide led us through all of them
pointing out different images in the stalagmites and stalactites including a
turtle, a camel, several images of Buddha, and everyone’s favourite, a large
phallic shaped rock protruding towards a hole in the top of the cave. Some of
the images were easy to see and for others I was questioning the sobriety of
our guide. On our way out of the cave and back to the boat we saw a monkey who
was trying to get food from tourists. I'm not sure how successful he was but I
thought he dove at a guy who was a few feet in front of me, making me slightly
nervous to walk past.
Our third and final stop of the day was a fishing village
where we got to go kayaking for 40 minutes. I had originally thought that was a
pretty short time span for that activity but I had never kayaked before and
after about 10 minutes I was thinking 40 was going to be way more than enough.
All of the kayaks were two seaters so I was partnered up with my roomie who had
done some kayaking before, in Huntsville oddly enough, and was able to steer
and maintain as steady rhythm even during the few short breaks I took from
paddling. We made our way around two islands and another fishing village before
heading back to our boat. While I would call the kayaking venture a success
because no one got stranded or fell in I was completely soaked when we got back
to the dock.
We got back to the big boat where I immediately showered and
changed into warm dry clothes before heading to the sun deck where I relaxed
until dinner. For dinner I had chicken, pork, rice, and fries. Nothing too
adventurous but I was more than okay with that. Finally dinner was over and it
was time for the activity I had been most looking forward to: squid fishing. My
excitement lasted for about half a second until I realized we had been set up
to fail. There was no way we were catching anything at all. We were fishing off the back of our main boat
which was pumping the tunes as were the several other boats that were anchored
near us and people on all of the boats were talking quite loudly. The ‘rods’ we
were meant to use were constructed of a long piece of bamboo with some fishing
line tied to one end. There was a hook on the end of the line but no sinkers
and no bait, we were instructed to continuously jiggle the line, yeah like that
is going to help anything. Regardless I gave it a shot anyway because I had
been excited about it for weeks. I stood there for about 20 minutes getting
annoyed at people talking around me, hadn’t these people ever been fishing
before? You are supposed to sit in silence and think up a ridiculous story
about how big the fish you caught was and how much of a struggle it was to reel
it in. that being said, I ended up catching a squid that weighed in at about
30lbs and I was so surprised when it pulled on my line that I nearly fell in
the water but with my brute strength i was able to reel that bad boy in and it fed everyone on the boat for days.
Once it was clear that no one was going to catch anything I
gave up on fishing and made my way up to the sun deck where I spent the
remainder of the evening lounging around and chatting with other people. It was
a pretty relaxing evening and for the first time in a long time I actually got
a kick out of watching drunk people act like idiots instead of just getting
annoyed with them. Around 10:30 everyone headed back to the dining room to
start some karaoke but I’m an old lady and it was past my bedtime so I headed
to my room.
Today was a pretty low-key day, I woke up and ate a
breakfast of cold toast and oddly sliced sausages before it was time to check
out of our rooms. It would have been nice to sleep during the ride back to the
harbour but they needed to prepare for the group that would be boarding almost immediately
after we disembarked so we all headed to the sundeck. A bunch of us chatted for
about half an hour then pretty much everyone fell asleep in their lounge
chairs. We made our way back to shore and went to a local restaurant for lunch.
Most of it was seafood but I was able to enjoy chicken, rice, peanuts, and
watermelon before we started our long drive home.
Once we had made our way back to Hanoi and had already
dropped off most of the group at their respective hotels we drove past a church
and the guide asked me if I wanted to get off the bus there so I could look at
it since it was designed by the French. I didn’t understand why I would want to
do that and asked to be taken to my hostel. We drove a bit more and they told
me there was a traffic jam and I needed to walk the rest of the way. I was not
a happy camper, I would have happily sat in the vehicle and waited an extra few
minutes than risk my life several times by crossing the street in an attempt to
get home. I some how managed to make it unscathed.
Although my squid fishing expedition wasn’t what I hoped it
would be I still had a good time on my trip and was able to forget about many
of the stresses from the previous day if only momentarily. When booking the
tour I had thought about doing just a day trip or one where I spent one night
on the boat and one night on an island but I think I made the right choice as I
am ready to move on to a warmer climate.
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