The 2nd day of our 3 day cruise around Halong Bay started with us taking our bags ashore with us to the island of Cat Ba Island. Cat Ba Island is the largest island within Halong Bay and makes for a great stop-over place when doing cruises in the Bay. It’s a surprisingly big place – we were in the bus from where the boat dropped us until we reached our resort (nice to say that!) for about 20-30mins. The island is home to 8,000 – 10,000 people and is somewhere you could spend a decent amount of time.
Day 10 – Halong Bay
After booking our accommodation in Hue for a cruise around Halong Bay – 1 of the 7 natural wonders of the world, we waited patiently in our hotel lobby for the bus. It didn’t come. Thankfully the hotel owner spoke perfect English and he sorted it all out for us.
So, Halong Bay… If you haven’t heard of it or haven’t seen it, you’re missing out. The place is amazing both naturally in how it looks and what the local people do there. It’s essentially huge rock formations that stick out of the water everywhere, all of varying size.
Overtime, they have eroded and now have their own characteristics to them. Whether that be a beach, cave, a gap to canoe through or similar. Almost all have small trees and shrubs growing straight off the rock.
We booked about the last 2 night package available as it’s the busiest time for the region due to the celebrations on May 1st. Our bus picked us up, without the ability for us to take our luggage due to no space, so a quick pack of an overnight bag and we were away, hoping our luggage will be at the hotel when we’re back.
Halong Bay is about a 3.5hr drive from Hanoi. From there, you board a small boat which takes you to the big boat, an imitation Chinese Junk that’s anchored in the bay.
Due to our last minute booking, we could only purchase the supreme accommodation – what a shame! After we got settled, we had a delicious lunch as we started to cruise the bay and explore in and around the hundreds of rock formations.
Our first adventure was to check out some relatively recently discovered caves, well around 1992. Off the boat we got, hike up a large number of steps on this island and we enter the cave. We were expecting to crawl around a bit – we were wrong. Very wrong. The cave is simply enormous. Think basketball stadium size but higher in some parts. They’ve lit it up in various colours to show off the stalagmites and stalactites and after 20mins of exploring, we exited via another opening, amazed at what we’d seen.
We went down along and then up another path to the opening of another cave. This was more traditional in that it had a huge mouth and had a large concave back to it. This one is very visible from the water and has been used for a long time for celebrations etc.
From there, back on the small boat and off to a full-time floating village complete with general store, a dozen houses or so and a school! We proceeded to kayak around the area, exploring the community and going under the huge rock formations to find an oasis – a bay within a bay. Was great fun & astounding at how some people are able to live… Apparently some of the people never put foot on land in their lifetime!
There are a number of floating villages around Halong Bay of varying sizes. An incredible way to live and I guess kind of sadly, they’re becoming more reliant on tourism to survive.
Our final adventure for the day was back on the Junk… Swimming. And jumping. This was bloody good fun. The junk has 3 levels, bottom floor, main floor including the premium accommodation plus eating area and then a rooftop area. This is where some of us jumped from into the salty green water below. We estimated the drop was about 9m and felt it. Me (Glen) was the only one stupid (def. not brave) enough to go from the top whilst the others had a go from the bottom level. Much fun was had!
The final “entertainment” for the day was karaoke after dinner. Who knew Asians were so into it? 😉 the crew were into it in a massive way, mainly singing Vietnamese songs with a few western ones thrown in for good measure. It was hard to get them off it!
The girls did a good job of representing Australia and belted out quite a few numbers. The boys tried a Dire Straights song but the words were totally wrong, not just slow, so the system matched our voices.
We slept in our cabins and was a pretty good experience. The junks all moor together since the accident and the Government took around 50 Junks off the water due to poor safety. Let’s just say they must have been bad. All in all, I counted around 60 junks that anchored around us for the night. How did the Government choose where boats would stop for the evening? This part of the bay is shallow, so if the boats do sink, they will still be above water! Now that’s safety for ya!
That’s just day 1! Day 2 & 3 to come soon.
Day 6 – Hoi An
The day started with a great breakfast which seems standard fare around here, then off to the markets to do some browsing, and in the girls’ case, buying. They took their dresses they wanted copied to our tailoring friends and got that started. Ben & I took off and went for a drink by the river near the Japanese Bridge.
As we were walking around, just as we got past the touristy part… we walked past a pub with some girls dressed in less than most around here. We walked on past and as we did, the girls yelled out, “You come in for drink?”. “Nah, no thanks”.
“We love you long time!”
We laughed, they laughed and on we went. My life is now complete.
We decided that motorbikes would be the go for the day. We hired a couple, Hannah came with the boys and after she somewhat struggled going in a straight line, we decided it’d be best if we took a guide and she ride with him. The steeds were some Yamaha 120CC scooters which were pretty decent I have to say. Big wheel ones so pretty easy to control. The traffic was going to be the challenge.
So for $5 for the bikes, $5 for the guide and a few dollars of petrol from an old woman who hand pumped it, off we went. The guide took us all through the back alleys of the local area, showing us more of the river, the locals and how they lived, we stopped at a pottery area where they make a lot of bowls, mugs, trinkets and so-on. Hannah had a go at making a bowl in a very “Ghost” movie kind of way with the old women… Or not. We bought some trinkets and we were on our way.
We made our way slowly to Marble Mountains – home to 5 mountains of marble and limestone. They have been decorated massively by Buddhists over the centuries and feature large sculptures of Buddha, some large pegodas and various other statues. So many caves to explore and to get to the peak, you have to go through “Heaven” cave which has a small opening at the top, then giving a 360 degree view of the surrounding areas including the famous China Beach.
It was boiling hot, bloody steep and the marble was hellishly slippery, but it was very interesting and worth doing.
After that, we were “heavily persuaded” to buy something from the shop where we had parked our bikes. We’d worked out by now that the guide had a bit of a hidden agenda and was taking us to places where he either knew someone or got a kickback. We bought something after much haggling (getting a touch sick of it) and away we went. We went via China Beach which has been basically leveled and started afresh and then back home. Greg Norman and Colin Montomery (golfers) have designed golf courses here and the beach area is seriously amazing real estate. 5 star resorts as far as the eye can see, the one on Top Gear where Jeremy Clarkson is lazing around by is a 5.5 star resort on that same strip.
After we dropped Hannah back, Ben & I decided to go exploring a bit more by ourselves. Back to the beach area we went, had a drink and spring rolls and thoroughly enjoyed just relaxing. By now we were rather confident of dodging everyone on the wrong side of the road, bikes/pedestrians/cars pulling out from nowhere without looking and we were riding as the locals do – fast and care free.
Whilst all this was going on, Laura & Deb were treating themselves to 4+ hours of beauty therapy. If it exists, they did it. Manicure, pedicure, foot massage, threading (like waxing but they use a string of cotton), sampled the local delicacy and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
After a big day, we had another tasty meal but in an Italian restaurant this time, then home to bed for an early night as we had a sunrise trip to My Sun (pronounced Mee Sun) ruins in the morning.
Day 5 – Hoi An (part 2)
Hoi An is the tourism capital it seems of Vietnam, well for what we’ve seen of it anyway.
Almost the entire city centre is geared up for us – Australians, Germans, English, French… we certainly make the wheels go round. And unfortunately, both parties know it.
It’s a very pretty place, river that runs by the town, very old buildings/shopfronts line the roads with street vendors everywhere selling you name it – drinks, cigarettes, fresh fruit/veggies, snack food, street meat… not to mention the huge number of nick-nack vendors selling all kinds of crap.
It doesn’t have the pace of Saigon and is so much better for it. We have really enjoyed our stay here for a number of reasons:
- we all got tailored clothing – a suit, a tux, some dresses, bathers, shorts – some copies of what we had, some taken from magazines… some just conceptual
- tailored shoes – made to measure in whatever fabric you want and in any style
- great restaurants – had the best food of the trip so far here
- friendly people (for the most part)
- a lot more relaxed – it’s touristy, but in a good way
So to pick up on what we’ve done… we caught a taxi in to Hoi An and the driver didn’t know where our hotel was. So he stopped by the side of the road, asked a woman who gave good instructions on where to go, then for the next 5 minutes, quizzed us on what we wanted to buy here. Turns out her sister owns a tailoring business in the markets. We feigned interest and finally got away from her and onto our hotel.
The hotel is very nice – right on the river and is kind of resort-style, but a poor man’s version. Can’t complain for $45/night. We dump our gear and walk back across the river into town.
Who should be waiting for us? Yep – directions lady. She just “happened” to be walking by and showed us where we should go. We were hungry, so she took us to the “best restaurant in town” – no doubt owned by a relative. Funniy enough, the food was fantastic and cheap, so we were happy with the recommendation.
Whilst eating, we couldn’t help but notice her happen to walk by now and then, sit on the other side of the road apparently busy… As soon as we walked out of the restaurant, she was on us like a hawk. “You come to my shop now”. She grabs us by the arm and away we go. In some ways, it made it easy, choosing a tailor is incredibly hard, the prices vary hugely apparently as does the quality. We took a punt and her sister, the seamstress, certainly knew her stuff.
We got measured up, showed what we wanted and about 2hrs later, we were pretty happy with ourselves. We walked the town for the rest of the night until we had a late dinner at what must by a restaurant only reserved for Australians.
So our first day in Hoi An was very interesting and very enjoyable… Day 6 coming soon.
Day 5 – Ho Chi Minh City to Hoi An
Rule of thumb… just because someone nods, doesn’t mean they understand.
Case-in-point – the 5 of us caught 2 taxis on the way to the airport to fly to Da Nang. A fairly easy thing you’d think… but no. Deb & I were in one taxi and I said, “domestic”, I got a friendly smile and a nod from the taxi driver. After a few stalls and some incredibly bad driving, accompanied by more smiles and giggles, we eventually made it to the airport, some distance behind the others.
As we go inside to “departures” – no Laura, Ben or Hannah to be seen. We get a phone call from Laura asking where we are, we say we’re here… can’t see each other. We ask a guard, he points us out the door then in the next one. The next guy says upstairs… still nothing. Only after we asking a cleaning lady does she say, “next terminal – big building” does it click we’re in the wrong bloody spot!
I also forgot to mention that we’re carrying all our bags, we’re running super late and the others are busy trying to stall the people checking us in to allow us to get there. So Deb & I sprint as fast as we can Amazing Race-style across to the next terminal, finally find the departures and sweating our bums off, we check-in, 5 minutes after it officially closed. The rest of the trip to Hoi An was uneventful.
For those thinking of a visit to Vietnam… Flights are good here. Ho Chi Minh City to Hoi An only takes 1h10 and costs about $45. The planes are Airbus 330s (the big ones usually used for international flights) and it ran on time.
Off the plane and you’re greeted with essentially nothing in Da Nang except for heaps of people trying to get you to travel with them – taxis, chauffeurs etc. A maxi-taxi costs about $25 for the 45minute drive to Hoi An.
I’ll write about what we’ve done in Hoi An in another post…