Vietnam: Halong Bay & Hanoi again

We knew that we had booked the cheapest available Halong Bay tour and didn't expect luxury... but all the photos the agent showed us of accomodation and food and promises of aircon and optional extras still sounded great so the four of us (Matt from Adelaide, Nadeane from Canada, and us) headed off in a bus for a 3 day package tour (and learnt that we never want to do a package tour again!)

The bay itself is incredible- 1,600 islands jutting out of the ocean all around you, but we were treated at worst with contempt and at best like sheep! Nadeane had 3 million dong and a bottle of vodka (as well as her gluten free snacks) stolen while we were on the boat, our itinerary was very shady and changed without notice so we missed out on things, our hotel on Cat Ba island had no electricity for hours overnight and also had cockroaches, the crew on the boat hated us and tried to make us go to sleep at 8pm (then woke us up very early for 40 minutes of scummy kayaking in a part of the bay which had dirty toilet paper and floaters in the water) our cabin next to the engine filled up with petrol fumes overnight, and the lowest point had to be when a group of 7 of us were ditched on a dock with no tour guide, no instructions of which boat to get on and no idea where our passports had gotten to!

It was quite disappointing that the crew weren't happy and proud to show off such a beautiful place, they could have told us things about it and described what we were looking at or even told us the name of the cave we shuffled through with a million other tourists, but instead they lounged in the eating area of the boat, watching Vietnamese TV and glaring at us.

But despite all this we still had a fun time; made friends with some cool US guys, (see their take on the Halong experience here: nicoandmateoshappyendings.blogspot.com) loved jumping off the top deck of the boat into the sea, and played hilarious card games with the group on the boat who were American, Russian, British, Finnish, Canadian and Australian, and even had a midnight jump off the top deck for which we got screamed at by the captain!



After Halong Bay the four of us stayed in Hanoi again for a bit; I got my nose pierced and ate the best Vietnamese food I've had so far- roll my own spring rolls (rice paper rolls) with caramel beef, all sorts of veges and rice noodles! yummmmmm

That night was our sleeper bus and seeing as today had gone so smoothly it was time for another point for Vietnam in the battle of Vietnam VS Us. It just so happened that I was the last one left in our room (us four were bunking together to save money) packing my pack in the rush to get the bus when my brand new nose stud fell out without me noticing... and I couldn't find it anywhere! We had to run to get the mini bus (me with a big bloody hole in my nose ((not really Mum it was fine)) and Scott had to do an emergency re-piercing in the bumpy packed bus as we stop-started in Hanoi traffic and actually crunched a scooter! What made it more unfortunate for me was I didn't have any cute little earrings to put in, no I had to wear a ridiculous black pearl hanging off my nose like a wart because I didn't want the hole to close over on the overnight bus!


The actual big sleeper bus was an experience, we lay in narrow bunks (top bunk) where the ceiling was so close you can't sit up, and the driver obviously took his lessons from Stan Shunpike! My seatbelt over my bed was broken so on the big bumps I had to grab the edge not to fall into the aisle where a Vietnamese man was sleeping on the floor! Mine was the closest bed to the front door so I had a great view over the driver as he continually texted, smoked and spoke on his phone as he swerved, but amazingly we all had quite a good sleep, and luckily we all fitted into the bunk boxes (if you are tall or wide you've got no chance!)

15 hours later we arrived at Hue, had a 3 hour stopover there, and jumped on another bus to Hoi An where we arrived at 6pm (24 hours after I lost my nose stud!) We stumbled across a nice clean jewelry shop by pure chance tonight, run by an Australian expat, so I was finally able to get rid of the wart and put in a tiny diamond stud yay! But Hoi An is another story...