I am backtracking a bit with this post. I meant to write this about a week ago but never got to it. Now I hope I don’t miss some ‘fun facts’ of the trip! I always mean to write as I go but sometimes it is just impossible! Ok so here it goes:
I mentioned the ‘fun’ we had with booking the actual trip through the ‘special’ travel agency. Once that was completed, we needed to get ready for our pick up at about 7am the next morning. Our hotel was nice enough to give us an early breakfast and off we went! I was curious to see how this would go after talking to my brother about it and after reading plenty of forums on the topic- good, bad, ugly! The minibus came to get us and it was still fairly empty when we got in- so we had some normal seats to ourselves—normal seats in minibuses in Vietnam means you get an actual seat, not folded up seats added to fill the minibus once the other seats are full—these seats fold out onto the walkway so once the minibus is full it is essentially like sitting in a crowded theater!
Getting out of the city was fairly easy, as we continued to pick people up along the way. At one point the bus was overflowing and there were no seats left (even hallway seats) for adjoining passengers. Oh well, we had a seat for the 4 hour bus ride from Hanoi to Halong bay! Along the way there is always a ‘scheduled’ pit stop at this government owned tourist hub where they sell everything from jewelry to artwork to clothes. Some or (?) all of the artwork is done by disabled Vietnamese and you are supposedly helping them financially by buying anything in the warehouse. I also read that some of these disabled people are connected directly to the Vietnam war and Agent Orange, but I am not exactly sure about my facts here. Either way, it is a very obvious tourist ploy. You eventually get to Halong Bay around noon. There, we went into the boat dock building and waited for a good 20 minutes before we got our official tickets and were split up into smaller groups. We stood on the pier and waited as a few different boats came by and picked up certain groups and not others- presumably, this was the whole luxury vs. not segregation, although I didn’t notice much difference between the different boats! About 10 of us eventually got on a brown boat and we were off. From here on out I shall refer to our boat as the ‘douchebag boat’—explanations to follow :P
So off we go into Halong Bay. The itinerary plan was to do a decent part of the Halong bay circuit the first day, stay overnight on the boat somewhere along this circuit, and finish by about noon the second day. Along the circuit we would explore some caves, see some fishing villages on the water, go canoeing, and all while cruising through the bay. Unfortunately, our weather for the trip was quite crappy. Essentially, it reminded us of home (Newfoundland)—rainy, foggy, and cold! It was quite uncomfortable in shorts and a long sleeve shirt, but sadly I brought very little warm clothing for our week long coastal tour of Vietnam, and I had to settle with wearing our only blanket almost the whole 2 days! In addition to being colder than expected, the weather made the bay much less appealing. Thousands of limestone cliffs glistening in the sunlight sounds incredible, but in a dense fog and rain the cliffs are hardly as impressive. The scenery actually reminded us of the limestone cliffs at Ko Phi Phi (Thailand), but less spectacular, and with a mix of Western Brook Pond in Western Newfoundland—nice, but not something we haven’t seen before. The most spectacular thing about Halong Bay is supposed to be the sheer number of these cliffs jutting out of the water—1969 of them to be exact! That is definitely incredible, and makes for an interesting boat ride no matter the weather…
Our first stop involved a few caves, one was named the “surprising cave’ from what I remember. It was large and nice inside, aside from the funny neon lights attempting to highlight different rock formations. The second cave we saw nearby (don’t remember the name) was better because there were no neon lights and hardly any tourists when we got there, so it felt like you were cave exploring on your own. After that we went to some fishing villages- actual floating villages in Halong Bay- and were able to go kayaking. This turned out to be less than successful, as it was quite cold and started raining right before we were supposed to kayak. We opted out of this ‘fun’ activity, since we really did not want to get drenched in the rain and have to deal with being even more cold the rest of the trip---just to clarify, we weren’t actually allowed into our cabins until the evening, so we really were outside the whole time until then. Our guide insisted multiple times that the kayaking was free and included in our package price, continuously assuming we did not understand this---after all, who in their right mind would give up something free?!?!? :P
We had dinner [after some more cruising] which was mediocre (we didn’t expect more) and got to know our fellow passengers a bit more—4 older Australians out for a motorbiking holiday in Vietnam; a young Estonian couple travelling extensively throughout Southeast Asia; a Brazilian guy also travelling for an extended period of time; and a young Japanese guy heavily equipped with camera gadgets and a multi functional multiple fanny pack. Great group overall ;)
After dinner our guide was gracious enough to give us our room keys for the night. But first, he explained to us that the boat was overbooked and that one single person actually had to switch boats to sleep in another cabin. He did this very matter of factly, no apologies necessary! ---mind you, we discovered the next morning, from our Brazilian friend, that he in fact slept in a double room with one bed empty!! Unfortunately, the nice, shy Japanese guy was the one to switch—we also later learned that our unlucky Japanese friend paid $169 for his trip (same exact trip as ours!!) in comparison to our $47!!! And, the worst part, he got that price through his own hostel, not a scam travel agency!!! Poor guy! We urged him to go back to his hostel and demand his money back!
Anyways, we finally got our room keys and could put our things in our cabins. Why we didn’t get our keys earlier in the day and couldn’t put our things away earlier is as much your guess as mine…? The rooms themselves were fine….nothing to rave about but nothing to complain about either. No hot water really, and they didn’t look the cleanest but they would do for the night and for the price. However, we were told we would have a double bed, but ofcourse there were only 2 single beds- surprise, surprise! Before handing out the room keys, our ‘courteous’ guide stated matter of factly that if we were to lose or damage our room keys, we would be charged $15 US dollars. We were also informed that if for some reason we brought our own alcohol on board and drank it, we would be charged a corkage fee of roughly the same amount as buying alcohol bottles on the boat! Thank you Mr. Guide, you are splendid!! We chatted with the Estonian couple and the Brazilian guy for a little while and we all retired to our rooms quite early--- we found out the next day that both we and the Estonian couple had brought a bottle of wine so we left to our room early to drink it there! If we knew this the night before we could have made a secret party out of it! :P At some point in the evening we were joined by a boisterous Korean crew from the boat next door that was apparently sleeping on our boat (don’t worry, we were as confused as you are right now)?!?! They were the most hyper Koreans I have ever met and before going to sleep on our boat, they had a rowdy discotheque on their boat, with Gangnam style on never ending repeat! Entertaining bunch they were! The Australian guys (in case you were wondering) were spending the night on Cat Ba island (an island en route the Halong Bay circuit) and were being picked up by a different boat the next day, so they left our boat shortly after dinner—they also paid a hefty $129 dollars for this set up and they originally thought (and were told!) that they would be spending the night on the boat as well- go figure! Funny enough, they actually joined back up to our boat the next day and we had fun stories to exchange. They even ended up coming back to our hotel with us and booking a room there because they hadn’t booked anything in Hanoi yet—one of the guys actually hugged us and said that it was the first room they had in Vietnam with no cockroaches! :P
The next day we cruised around the bay for a few more hours before heading back to shore, getting lunch (another cheap mixture of who knows what) and driving back to Hanoi via cramped minibus and scheduled tourist stops…..overall worth a see but definitely not what I expected and quite disappointed. Sorry Peter, not one of my top 5 Southeast Asian experiences. But that is the beauty of travel, everyone has their own unique experiences along the way!
The reason we coined the name ‘Douchebag boat’ had to do with our tour guide. Mind you, we found all of his antics incredibly entertaining (possibly due to the fact that we didn’t pay a lot of money for the trip compared to some other people we spoke to) even though most of them were ridiculous and inappropriate. We made the best of it and just made fun of him amongst ourselves the whole time (us and friends we made on the boat). He spoke terrible English, and the only thing I really ever understood him say was ‘Ladies and Gentleman’;he had an attempt at a sense of humor that seemed to end right when the funny part was supposed to begin; he would bark out instructions once and then just completely leave, nowhere to be found; Tom saw him flipping off boats on random occasions for no reason whatsoever. Among the entertaining things he accomplished:
1) Not giving us our room keys until it was dark out and warning us about the $15 damage fee (no smiles or jokes along the way)
2) Flipping off neighboring boats (for fun?!)
3) Claiming (matter-of-factly) that someone from our boat had to sleep on another boat and forcing our Japanese friend to leave--- no apologies whatsoever!
4) Making sure we knew about the extravagant corkage fee and keeping close watch on us
5) Disappearing at random intervals throughout the trip---we literally wouldn’t see him for hours on end!
6) Barking instructions in what I think was Vietnamese (it sure as hell was not English) and walking off quickly enough so that no one had a chance to actually follow him, and then waiting for us to scramble to him eventually- no apologies needed!
7) Actually leaving us once we got off the boat! Apparently, he told us where to go to meet the minibus (ofcourse no one heard him say anything, he was just all of a sudden gone!) and after looking for 20 minutes for him at the pier, Tom found him hanging out by himself on the street waiting for the minibus, not in any way wondering where his 10-15 passengers were! When Tom asked him why he left, he got angry and told him that he told us where to go—that was it! No apologies or even a question as to where the rest of the group was! Eventually Tom found us and led us to the meeting spot (not easy to find by the way!). I am completely convinced he would have just hopped on that minivan on his own and left if we wouldn’t have found him.
8) Back in Hanoi, he told us to write our hotel on a piece of paper and hand it to him. He said that if he didn’t get the paper in a few minutes he would just bypass our hotel and we would have to find our own way back there….?!?!?!
9) There were more but now my memory is a bit foggy
Absolutely hilarious!!! It was like having a comedy show throughout our Halong bay trip! Thank God we didn’t overpay our trip!
Some observations we made on the trip:
--we didn’t see a difference between the luxury and mid range boats—perhaps the rooms were nicer and had rose petals on them? :P But as for the boat itself, when they were all docked next to each other, you really couldn’t see any special differences
--we didn’t see any boats with their masts up, which made me sad since that is how I pictured Halong Bay---these beautiful wooden boats with the characteristic masts on them. I presume this was due to the crappy weather…
--- as per usual protocol during our travels, our minibus got a flat tire on our way back to Hanoi (we really are cursed!) and we were forced to make a quick pit stop. During our pit stop, we were thoroughly entertained by a drunken Vietnamese guy (at 1pm) who was dancing for us and trying to get on our bus and come back to Hanoi with us!—luckily, some of the guys blocked his entrance to the minibus, mainly so he wouldn’t steal our stuff. That made for an interesting trip home. Our tour guide didn’t look comfortable changing tires--- about as comfortable as I would be!! :P
--we made friends with the Estonian couple and I have a feeling we may be seeing them in Canada shortly….???
--overall, we paid a good price for our trip compared to just about everyone else we spoke too, so we appreciated the adventure we got in return!!! J
