Halong Bay, 12-21-09

At 7:00 in the morning a large group of us got out of our beds to pack for our Halong Bay trip. Will, Rich, Emma, Russ, and the whole group of them I met in Phnom Penh, met each other in Vietnam on their Halong Bay trip months ago. They told me it was mandatory that I go. I didn’t refuse and was actually looking forward to getting out of this crazy motor bike city for a couple of days to check out something else.

Our hostel group of 27 brought our daypacks on the bus destined for Halong Bay; and left our “lives” behind us in storage. The two hour trip wasn’t too bad. The only part worth mentioning was when we stopped at a rest stop for food and souvenirs and saw 12 young girls stitching away on canvases with colored thread to duplicate famous works of art. The craftsmanship was magnificent, except I couldn’t help but feel sad for these girls who had to stitch and sew all day long with needle and thread in this sweat-shop like place.

 

For me, Hanoi was a very cold city. At the time I was there it was around 60 degrees Fahrenheit during each day, with a strong breeze, and 40-50 at night. The sky was cloudy and air foggy and cool. It was Vietnam’s winter and everyone in the city was bundled up.

Usually Halong Bay has nicer weather than Hanoi since it’s on the east coast; but we had heard the last few trips to the bay were so cold that no one had even gone swimming! All we could do was pray for sun and as we walked from our bus to the pier, we watched the clouds part and bit of sunshine shine through. Thank you, sun gods.

The harbor was crowded with Bhaya Cruise boats that look like old wooden cruise ships with traditional SE Asian red sails on top. We boarded our private vessel and immediately were welcomed aboard with fresh, chilled orange juice. Our hosts escorted us into the dining area where we had a feast of food. During the meal our hostel guide, Trevor, made an announcement that we should pair-up with someone for room assignments. Lusa, an extremely out-going and bubbly girl from NZ (who lives in Brisbane, Australia now), and I hit it off and decided to share a room. By the time lunch finished our boat had arrived at the bay where we would be spending the rest of the day and evening. Everyone put on bathing suits and starting jumping off the boat into the water below. Afterwards we had to pick a paddling partner, kayak exploring was next on our to-do list and we were about to check out a cave too!

 

Our Vietnamese guide, Phu, was leading the way, but since our group was pretty competitive, everyone was playing “bumper kayak” and pulling the tails of others’ back, to take the led. Tom and I were constantly fighting for first place. Tom’s friend, Elton, from Canada, was probably the most competitive out of the group and was talking smack to us as he paddled with Jessie, a girl from Australia.

We paddled around limestone mountain peaks, similar to the ones in the south of Thailand and in Yangshuo, China. When we reached the cave we docked our kayaks and huddled around one of the five who had a torch light. The cave narrowed and the ceiling lowered until we were crouched down in the darkness feeling all around us for the walls and ceiling, as we moved forward. We had to go on all four’s a couple times until we reached a small hole, which when we squeezed through, opened up into a huge space inside a mountain with a view of a private pool and total seclusion. It was spectacular.

Tom and I jumped into our kayaks first and were racing to be the first ones back, but Elton and the  Jessie were quickly catching up and we were racing for the finish. As we neared where our boat was supposed to be, we saw 10 identical boats all spread out around the bay. “Okay, I think it’s that one”, I said. “Yeah could be… or that one” said Tom. Three ship inspections later we found our boat and came in second place. Oh well.

Back on board we changed out of our semi-wet clothes to find another fabulous meal waiting for us. We had egg drop soup, fresh fish, chicken, clams, steamed rice, spinach, stir-fried vegetables, and sweet oranges for dessert. When our meal finished our hostel guide stood on a table and announced- “HAPPY HOUR BEGINS NOW! THREE-FOR-ONE DRINKS FOR THE NEXT HOUR!”  Everyone ordered their 3 drinks and we all pushed our table tops together to form one long banquet table and then proceeded to play “Roxanne/Red light”. We played this drinking game in Lagos, Portugal as well… all the girls stand up and drink when the song says “Roxanne” and all the guys stand up and drink when the song says “red light”. That game finished our 3 drinks rather quickly, so we all went back to the bar to order up again. This time our banquet group played the longest game of flip cup ever! To play you pair off with a person on the other side of the table and you both simultaneously drink a few inches of beer. Once you drink you can place your cup on the edge of the table, but have to correctly flip it up-side-down using one finger, until the next person on your team can drink... and so on down the line. We had 14 people on each side!

 

The next few hours that followed were fun, Tom, Elton, Lusa, and I partied with a group of friends we had met; James from England, Oskar from Sweden, and Nick from Australia (all of which we had beers with the night before). Some people on the boat jumped off to go swimming and check out the bioilluminous plankton in the dark sea, others danced all night in the “banquet hall”, a few had private parties in their rooms (with alcohol they had smuggled on). I spent the night jumping between the dancing hall and the private parties. At one point 10 of us decided to make a human pyramid and I was elected to crawl on top. As I was perfecting my balance, someone on the 3^rd row fell and we call came crashing down.

In the morning we had breakfast and lounged around on the top deck to relax as we cruised back to the harbor. Lunch was served a couple hours later- spring rolls, stir-fried veggies, chicken, and an Indian curry dish. After lunch we headed right back up to the top deck.

Lusa and I started talking about our traveling plans for Vietnam and it seemed as though we had the same plan. The only difference was that I had one month to explore and she was on a two-week time crunch. We got along so well that I decided to change my plans around and travel with her for a bit. When we got back to the dock our bus brought us to our hostel and from there I went straight to the train station to book a train to Hue that would leave in two hours.

The train station was a 15 minute scooter-taxi ride away and I paid two dollars for a round trip ride. Really though, the driver should have paid me because he almost killed me 11 times… seriously. We came pretty close to taking out 3 bicycles, 4 other scooters, 2 girls walking, and being crushed by 2 cars. I was holding my breath the whole time on that crazy ride!

Our last couple of hours before heading to the train station, Lusa and I had beers with Tom, Elton, James, Oskar, and Nick. Lusa found a red sash at the hostel that read- “Happy Birthday Backpackers, From Finnegans”. She put the sash around me and started calling me “Miss USA” and introducing me to everybody as that. I didn’t mind and we had a good time talking about how we would make sashes in Hoi An, the city known for getting tailored clothes made. I would have one that read “Miss USA” and she would have one that said “Aussie” on the front and “Kiwi” on the back.

When our time had come we said good bye to our new friends and hopped onto two motorcycle taxis which would take us to the train station. Luckily there were no close calls dying on this trip and we arrived to the station with perfect timing. Just 13 hours on a train (7pm to 8am) and we’ll be in Hue!