We had decided to book a two night/one day cruise around the islands of Ha Long Bay. In all I think there are about one thousand six hundred islands altogether in the archipelago. The islands themselves rise out of the sea forming sheer vertical cliffs with dense bush covered jagged hills in between. Some are very small and uninhabitable while others are very big, such as Cat Ba Island are home to several thousand residents. When you see the islands lined up in the distance they remind you of a mouth full of broken teeth or a Jack-O-Lantern and they are certainly a very imposing and impressive sight. Our overnight cruise was to take us through a section of the islands with a few stop offs along the way at some enormous caves and one of the many floating villages where the local fishing people live.
The cruise started pretty normally and the boat looked like a sea-worthy vessel which is always nice in this part of the world. It was equipped with a full bar and restaurant, a top sun deck with sunlounges and tidy, comfortable rooms. Each room had a window opening out onto the water and an ensuite so I was more than happy with our lodgings. Our first afternoon consisted of cruising through the islands, drinking a few beers, chilling out and admiring the stunning scenery. We stopped at a floating village to take a bit of a look and these things really are floating villages. People live their whole lives out here with their families, they even have dogs running around their pontoons and a floating school! The fishing must be pretty good as there are alot of villages. When the boat stops lots of locals paddle their boats over filled to the brim with fruit, vegetables, souvenirs and even cold beer! The knack of the locals for spotting a business opportunity, even whilst floating at sea, is truly remarkable. God knows how they get fresh pineapples out here but they were really good! We jumped in a smaller boat with a local guy to go for a short trip through a hole in a cliff face that leads into a kind of hidden bay within the island that is surrounded on all sides by cliffs. Pretty awesome stuff. Once back on our main boat we settled in for an afternoon and evening of cruising through these spectacular islands. There are postcard worthy photo opportunities in literally every direction and we were all certainly enjoying it.
Some people hopped off at Cat Ba Island and more hopped on. As we were only doing the one night cruise we didn't get a chance to stop here but no matter, we were more than happy with what we did see. That night was spent making new friends and playing 'arsehole'(the best card game in the world). The English lady who I taught how to play proceeded to whip everyone's butts at it and I vowed never to teach anyone arsehole again!
We moored in a beautiful bay overnight and when morning broke it was time to go kayaking around the nearby islands - at 5:30 am!! Pretty damn early to be kayaking if you ask me but in Vietnam it's sometimes better not to bother asking why and just get on with it. Only a few hardy souls made it into the kayaks at this time but I'm pleased to say Kate and I were among them - Jake and Amanda where were you?! The kayaking itself was good but I wasn't in the mood for too much physical activity at that time of the morning so it was a pretty sedate paddle around a couple of the nearest islands.
After breakfast we managed to talk the tour guide into letting us jump from the top deck of the boat. This vessel was made for jumping from and it was alot of fun jumping and diving from the top railing into the water. Now as beautiful as Ha Long Bay is the water is actually pretty skanky. Well think about it. What do you think the toilet looks like in a floating village?? It looks like a bloke dangling his bum over the side of his house's pontoon and doing his business that's what it looks like! Throw in all the rubbish from the various boats, not to mention the diesel etc and you've got some preety toxic water quality. The temptation to dive off the 4 metre or so high top deck of the boat was too great though and a few of us picked a relatively scunge free patch of water in which to land in. Great fun.
After we had tired of jumping into other people's filth it was time to head back to the mainland. The scenery was unreal and no amount of my prattling on will do it justice so I'll leave that to the photographs. Our adventures hadn't finished there as we were back in Ha Long city by about 10:30 am and we weren't due back in Hanoi until 4:30 at the earliest. It's only a three hour drive so what to do?? I should have guessed. Our trusty guide led us to a 'Bia Hoi' across the road from the wharf where we docked. Bia Hoi is Vietnamese for 'bloooody cheap beer mate!'. About 25 cents will get you a mug just short of a pint of the finest local brew. We had time to kill and our guide looked pretty keen on getting hammered before his next tour group left from the dock in an hour or so's time. Before you knew it the Bia Hoi was flowing and everyone was having a great time. When it came time to leave our tour guide handed us over to another tour guide for the drive back to Hanoi and he turned out to be a lot less good humoured than our previous guide.
It's all well and good to feed your guests cheap beer like it's going out of fashion but it's another thing altogether when you're expected to pile back onto a bus with no toilet for the trip home. Fella's you know what I'm talking about. Alright so Jake probably didn't need to go buy another six pack for the ride home, but when you're having fun you kind of forget about these things. After about two hours on the bus, a few more cans and many rounds of cards I was dead set bursting for a wee. No big deal I thought, ask the tour bloke if we can stop and I'll be back on the bus in no time. Wrong!!
This is Vietnam and I learned that if there's one thing Vietnamese bus drivers won't do it's pull the bus over so some bloke can take a leak. The tour guide was extremely rude when he ordered me back to my seat saying 'the driver won't stop! We stop in ten minutes!! Back to your seat!'. Well that might be alright but I didn't think I was going to make ten minutes as 'the key was already in the lock' as they say. Besides ten minutes in Vietnam might be ten minutes or it might be an hour and I couldn't wait for either.
After much strain back at my seat I again approached the tour bloke with this. 'Look mate, I gotta pee real bad, either he stops or I'm going right here on the floor!' It was that bad. To my amazement he very angrily replied 'Go on the floor then, go on the driver's feet! I don't care! The bus is stopping in ten minutes! Get back to your seat!'. Well I wouldn't have told him if I wasn't serious and I don't like people being rude to me so I found the emergency opening switch for the door, opened it and started peeing out as we were going along! As I felt the guy had been such a dick and all this could have been avoided I decided to sing our beloved national anthem 'God of Nations' whilst peeing onto the roadside as it whizzed by.
The rest of the bus was now very much awake wondering just what the hell was going on here, cars and trucks were backing up behind us as the driver slowed and still God of Nations rang out even louder! I thought it was a proud day as I'd stuck one up the bus driver but he responded by stopping the bus abruptly and pushing me from behind mid-pee out the door onto the hard shoulder. He was so angry all set to take off and I can honestly say by that stage I wouldn't of cared if he had, but some quick talking by the girls saw him park a little way up the road and begrudgingly open the door for me to get back on. But he had to wait until I was finished first.
I took pains to explain to the other passengers on the bus what had happened and that I didn't fancy going on the bus like the driver had said and I apologised for any offence I may have caused. They didn't seem to mind, in fact one old Vietnamese couple had just about fell off their seats laughing as the entire episode had unfolded. The guide was still shitty but he explained later that he couldn't do anything as the driver didn't want to stop so that was that. From here to Hanoi there were no more mishaps but as I got off the bus as we arrived I gave the driver a big thumbs up and he cursed me out appropriately. I walked away happy.
So anyway now we were back in Hanoi for at least a week while our application for an extension to our Visa'a was processed. Hanoi is one grimy, noisy city. But more about that next time. 'Til then.
Our guide (in white stripy shirt), Jake and Tim, and a random person at the bia hoi.
Tim drinking at the bia hoi.
Amanda, Tim and Jake in front of our junk boat.
A junk boat.
Tim chilling out on the boat.
Tim jumping off the boat into the dirty water - you would often see rubbish floating past the boat. The rubbish probably comes from the nearby floating villages.
Tim again.
Some of the magnificant Ha Long islands.
Floating village house. People in these villages spend their entire life on the sea.
We paid 40,000VND ($2) to ride on a boat through a cave into a big 'lake' (it can't be a lake as it's sea water but this is how our guide described it) that's surrounded by these magnificant cliffs/island. I am sure that it has a technical name but I don't know it.
Another view of the 'lake'.
These ladies float around on these boats trying to sell you food. They are kind of like a floating market.
Another picture of the floating markets.
In this floating village it has a school - it's the blue building.
Floating village.
Floating village.
On the first day we stopped at this large cave. It was impressive but they have put heaps of coloured lights inside the cave making it look kind of daggy.
Another view of the caves.
