An early start and we were off to Halong Bay. One night on a junk boat and one night on Cat Ba Island.
Central Vietnam had been hit with floods and Hanoi had apparently been busier than usual, but we were still surprised by the number of minibuses that stopped at the bathroom/buy local goods stop along the way. We were even more surprised by how busy Halong Bay was and the number of boats on the water. It was naive as we had just travelled through China and it was a little de ja vu after the Guilin river boat cruise.
We climbed on board and headed straight for the deck chairs on the upper level and all four of us lounged pretty much all day. One of the first stops on the tour was a cave. Lauren and I had been to see enough caves over the last few weeks to last us a few years but we felt bound to follow the tour group. Once inside we ditched our tour leader and walked around the caves ourselves, fighting our way past french tourists. The highlight of the cave was a stalagmite that was in the shape of a penis, yes, quite noticeable because it was illuminated by a bright red light. I think it was the only photo that I took in the cave.
We were also given the opportunity to go for a swim at one of the tiny beaches..... however, all the boats had left so much diesel that it would not have been very pleasant. Lauren and I chose to remain on board while Monica and Floor ventured onto the beach to the view point.
The evening on the boat started off slowly so we livened it up by playing a game of yangshuo which led to some drinking games. We met two lovely americans, Butch and Megan who joined in the fun of the games. Once the alcohol was finished, the evening was turning slow again until the australian ladies on board requested the karaoke machine to be turned on.
The english translations was very interesting, and once we had waded through nursery rhymes and other really strange songs on the DVD, we did find some classics. Floor's and Butch's rendition of "Hit me baby one more time" will be ingrained in my memory for a very long time, it was done with so much enthusiasm. I did my share and sang along to "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" with Daniel. The australian ladies were also belting out the tunes all night, so much so, that we had a party of gate crashers. Bear in mind that we are on a boat, in a bay, docked for the evening, along with a hundred other boats nearby so it was easy for a row boat to join us. We were the party boat. Though they did tell us that it sounded so bad they had to come and have a look to see what was going on. To our credit, the words on the screen were too slow for the music so they weren't wrong.... it did sound bad.
The karaoke then turned into a 30 minute techno disco complete with disco light. Everyone was now in a party spirit and joined in the dancing, even though there was very little space we still managed a locomotion type dance up and down the aisle. Midnight curfew, the fun was over and we headed off to bed.
Next morning, after breakfast we headed off for a bike ride on an island in the Cat Ba Reserve. One of the elder members of our tour lost control of his bike and crashed into the side of a mountain. Had we been wearing helmets, he would have been fine but he gashed his head quite badly. It was a really bad accident, but he was okay in the end. We were all a little more cautious on the bikes after that, the brakes were not great. A quick refreshing swim left me with two cut and bleeding toes.... I learnt my lesson about not wearing shoes on rocks.
We then headed off for some lunch, one of the best lunches in Vietnam, before going kayaking. Kayaking was great fun and the water was still so it was pleasant to kayak. It did take Lauren and I some time how to figure out how to turn quickly instead of going around in a circle. A favourite moment for both of us was kayaking into an en clove where it was quiet, no floating homes, it was very peaceful. We also kayaked through tiny jumping fish, not sure what they were but we were both nervous that they were going to land in the boat. We had one moment of panic when we were struggling to see the boat that we needed to get back to, but we found it in the end.
Next stop on the tour was monkey island. Lauren chose to read on the beach while Monica, Floor and I headed up the mountain. It was possibly one of the most treacherous climbs I have ever done. It was rocky, there wasn't much to hold onto and nearer the top, the rocks were all spiky. One wrong move and we could have been in serious trouble. And did we see the monkeys.... NO. After all that, we got down to the beach and there they were. Monika and I rewarded ourselves with a swim.
We then headed to Cat Ba Island for the night. We were grateful for the shower to get rid of the salt from the swimming. We arranged to meet Floor and Monika later for drinks but were early so we headed out of the hotel early. I stood to watch some vietnamese playing badminton and got invited to play with them. I have always enjoyed it and it was good fun, though it was windy and my attempts were really bad. I landed up hot and sweaty just after I had showered. We wandered up and down the main street and eventually stopped for a drink before dinner.
After dinner, Floor, Monika, Butch, Megan and myself headed next door to a karaoke bar. Lauren opting for an early night. The vietnamese are very serious about their karaoke. They had all learnt the words to all their songs so there was no screen to read from. We sat and listened and then they tried to get some westerner involvement.... namely us. I was handed the selection of songs but the 10 english songs in the 500 listed were not any that we recognised - well except for Fernando but Butch refused to sing it again without the words. We kept being handed the microphone for all the songs but none of us knew all the words. Floor did a good attempt at one song though and then we left. I headed to bed and everyone else went to play pool.
Next morning, we changed boats again and headed back to Hanoi. We had a very good three days.
