Day 4 - Halong Bay, "Around the world" and "Long Island Ice Trees"
Today in Nam we made our journey out of the hustle and bustle of Hanoi to the picturesque scenes of Halong Bay. Halong bay is a world heritage site which contains 3,000 limestone islands, overnight we would be sleeping on a floating junk and enjoying the scenery.
Our group met in the hotel lobby with a days worth of clothes and shampoo (Vu emphasized that we shouldn't forget shampoo) in a backpack. The hotel was going to mind the rest of our luggage as we were coming back to Hanoi after Halong Bay. On the way our first stop was to stop at a place called Blue Dragon to enjoy some breakfast.
Blue Dragon is a foundation that reaches out to kids in crisis within Vietnam ww.streetkidsinvietnam.com/. Once we arrived we were given some background information on Blue Dragon and met with some of the people that either worked or stayed there. We then enjoyed breakfast consisting of fruit and pastries. The breakfast was delicious (Dulushus for George), the Vietnamese really know how to do good pastries. Apparently this is because of the French influence on Vietnam.
From Blue Dragon we got back onto the bus and again made our way to Halong Bay. During the bus ride Vu kindly gave us some Vietnamese lessons where we learnt all the important phrases from "Hello, Goodbye, Too expensive, Hot white coffee (which Dave used a few times), Wine, Cocktails, beer and 1 through to 100". It was an enjoyable lesson made even funnier by Allan struggling with pronunciation and David, George and I creating different dares when it was their time to answer (i.e. trying to say "69 how much"). After a short break at a textiles center we finally made it to Halong Bay, our 5 hours of driving was complete.
Our initial impression of Halong Bay wasn't the gorgeous scenery that you see in pictures. This was because about 10 minutes before we arrived the heavens decided that sunshine wasn't a good choice, torrential rain was a good choice. We all raced out of the bus and into a sheltered area near all the ferries which took you to your boat (aka. floating junk). After about 15 minutes the rain eased up and we boarded the ferry to the boat where we would be spending the next 24 hours.
Once on board we were all very impressed with the boat, "floating junk" had painted a bad picture in our heads but this boat had about 8 double rooms, a bar, a television and music system, tables for meals and a top deck with lounge chairs. I haven't seen the Titanic but I'm pretty sure this boat would put it to shame. We were told at this stage by Vu that we had to wait in the bay because the coast guard had issued a Typhoon warning and no boats are allowed to leave. An hour of waiting and checking out the boat the coast guard finally gave the all clear that we could depart.
We then sat down to enjoy lunch which consisted of lots of different courses from seafood, chicken, vegetables, spring rolls. We could also have anything from the bar and the staff would just add it to our tab which we would pay for later. That worked for us, beers were only about 40,000 which was more expensive than the mainland but still only $2. Finally after feasting on way to much food we made our way onto the top of the boat to enjoy more drinks and the sites. Dave and me stuck to beers but a few of the girls got into some cocktails. Lauren especially liked the Long Island Ice Teas which after a few started getting pronounced "Long Island Iced Trees". Whilst on the top deck we had some stall owners trying to get us to buy some of their products from their floating stall (a small boat full of food and drinks). They were very persistent with constant "You Buy?" questions coming up to us.
Later that day we had the optional activity of hiring Kayaks and checking out the bay. That was definitely something I was interested in doing and apparently so was the 11 other people on the tour. We all got into our Kayaks which could sit two people, Dave was in my Kayak. We spent the next hour or so paddling around Halong Bay and taking every opportunity to splash the other people in our group. Before long it got really dark so we started heading back to our boat.
Once at the boat we quickly dumped the Kayaks with the owners then the guys (David, George, Taylor and myself) jumped in the water for a swim. Taylor headed out of the water and before long he came plummeting from the second floor of the boat then we all wanted to give it a go. George was first, then when myself and David finally worked out how to get back onto the boat we were jumping. Somewhere along the line Taylor thought George had jumped off the roof so not to be beaten he was on the top deck jumping off. That was made pretty difficult since the roof slopes outwards so you have to jump about a meter out to avoid hitting the boat. Taylor did a great job and managed to clear the boat without hitting it. After about 3 more jumps off the boat we were all pretty exhausted so we went inside to get ready for dinner.
Dinner consisted again of a buffet with different types of dishes, the highlight for dinner was getting Taylor and Christie to eat the fish eye ball. For those who haven't tried a fish eye ball it's very small and has no flavour. I equate it to trying to eat one of the polystyrene balls you put in a bean bag. After dinner it was time for more drinks on the back of the boat. Taylor decided to order a cocktail called "Around the World", this cocktail was the same price as the others and came with no mixers just 5 different shots of alcohol.... bargain. After a few drinks we headed to bed ready for the next day.
Today in Nam we made our journey out of the hustle and bustle of Hanoi to the picturesque scenes of Halong Bay. Halong bay is a world heritage site which contains 3,000 limestone islands, overnight we would be sleeping on a floating junk and enjoying the scenery.
Our group met in the hotel lobby with a days worth of clothes and shampoo (Vu emphasized that we shouldn't forget shampoo) in a backpack. The hotel was going to mind the rest of our luggage as we were coming back to Hanoi after Halong Bay. On the way our first stop was to stop at a place called Blue Dragon to enjoy some breakfast.
From Blue Dragon we got back onto the bus and again made our way to Halong Bay. During the bus ride Vu kindly gave us some Vietnamese lessons where we learnt all the important phrases from "Hello, Goodbye, Too expensive, Hot white coffee (which Dave used a few times), Wine, Cocktails, beer and 1 through to 100". It was an enjoyable lesson made even funnier by Allan struggling with pronunciation and David, George and I creating different dares when it was their time to answer (i.e. trying to say "69 how much"). After a short break at a textiles center we finally made it to Halong Bay, our 5 hours of driving was complete.
Our initial impression of Halong Bay wasn't the gorgeous scenery that you see in pictures. This was because about 10 minutes before we arrived the heavens decided that sunshine wasn't a good choice, torrential rain was a good choice. We all raced out of the bus and into a sheltered area near all the ferries which took you to your boat (aka. floating junk). After about 15 minutes the rain eased up and we boarded the ferry to the boat where we would be spending the next 24 hours.
Once on board we were all very impressed with the boat, "floating junk" had painted a bad picture in our heads but this boat had about 8 double rooms, a bar, a television and music system, tables for meals and a top deck with lounge chairs. I haven't seen the Titanic but I'm pretty sure this boat would put it to shame. We were told at this stage by Vu that we had to wait in the bay because the coast guard had issued a Typhoon warning and no boats are allowed to leave. An hour of waiting and checking out the boat the coast guard finally gave the all clear that we could depart.
We then sat down to enjoy lunch which consisted of lots of different courses from seafood, chicken, vegetables, spring rolls. We could also have anything from the bar and the staff would just add it to our tab which we would pay for later. That worked for us, beers were only about 40,000 which was more expensive than the mainland but still only $2. Finally after feasting on way to much food we made our way onto the top of the boat to enjoy more drinks and the sites. Dave and me stuck to beers but a few of the girls got into some cocktails. Lauren especially liked the Long Island Ice Teas which after a few started getting pronounced "Long Island Iced Trees". Whilst on the top deck we had some stall owners trying to get us to buy some of their products from their floating stall (a small boat full of food and drinks). They were very persistent with constant "You Buy?" questions coming up to us.
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| Lady selling stuff out of her boat |
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| Taylor, George, Morag, Me and Allan |
Once at the boat we quickly dumped the Kayaks with the owners then the guys (David, George, Taylor and myself) jumped in the water for a swim. Taylor headed out of the water and before long he came plummeting from the second floor of the boat then we all wanted to give it a go. George was first, then when myself and David finally worked out how to get back onto the boat we were jumping. Somewhere along the line Taylor thought George had jumped off the roof so not to be beaten he was on the top deck jumping off. That was made pretty difficult since the roof slopes outwards so you have to jump about a meter out to avoid hitting the boat. Taylor did a great job and managed to clear the boat without hitting it. After about 3 more jumps off the boat we were all pretty exhausted so we went inside to get ready for dinner.
Dinner consisted again of a buffet with different types of dishes, the highlight for dinner was getting Taylor and Christie to eat the fish eye ball. For those who haven't tried a fish eye ball it's very small and has no flavour. I equate it to trying to eat one of the polystyrene balls you put in a bean bag. After dinner it was time for more drinks on the back of the boat. Taylor decided to order a cocktail called "Around the World", this cocktail was the same price as the others and came with no mixers just 5 different shots of alcohol.... bargain. After a few drinks we headed to bed ready for the next day.
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