It was finally time for us to head to the north. We had two options to pay 53 USD for a train or 63 USD for a plane. Having done every other form of transit in Vietnam already, it was time to pay a little bit more to fly. We arrived in Hanoi painlessly and promptly sought out other foreigner travelers to share a cab with. Richard, an accountant from London, kindly offered for us to join him in the car his hotel was sending. When I approached him, he was having a bit of a frustrating conversation with a man holding a sign with RICHARD on it. The man couldn’t tell him which hotel he was with. In the end we decided that he was there for another Richard and we all just piled into a taxi van. My American vocabulary tickled Richard and we had a lovely conversation on our way into town. Hopefully, I will be able to meet him during the Europe leg of my journey.
Street photography took up most of the rest of the day along with figuring out which tour company to book for Halong Bay. I have to say Hanoi is one of the best cities I have ever been in for street photography. The streets are narrow and filled to the brim with merchants wearing conical hats hawking their produce and steaming hot dishes. The facades of many buildings are crumbling while absurd amounts of electrical wires precariously dangle at head level. For those of you unaware, my brother has instigated a photography contest. Throughout our time together he has made several comments that he regrets giving me the bazooka (my huge lens) and claims every good shot I get is due to my hardware and not my talent (jerk). I am not even going to waste my breath debating this with him. I am just going to leave it up to the final results, which I foresee falling in my favor J.
Early the next morning we joined our tour group of 9 people on the Ocean Tours Bus. I instantly knew this group of people were going to be special. There was Morgan (Canadian) and Mae (American) traveling together. They are both around my age and like-minded travelers. Then there was Ole and Ane, a hilariously outgoing couple originally from Denmark who now reside in North Carolina. Other than our group of four there was the German, Wolfgang. Wolfgang was the quiet lone wolf, who ended up being funny and an ally. The tour started off on a high note. Everyone was chatting in our spacious private bus on the way to Halong Bay. Our tour guide, Tim, called for our attention to give us some of the history of Vietnam. He was a kind guy and tried really hard, but his bad jokes fell on absent ears and unfortunately his English was draining to follow. Nonetheless throughout our day and a half with him he would provide several humorous moments involving taekwondo and robotic dance moves.
Our first boat was named the Margarite. She had a nice deck on top, hard beds, and as my brother would say, “curtains the 60’s want back.” Each meal was made up of around four courses and being a vegetarian one course for me was always French fries. I don’t know if French fries are a fair substitute for squid, but I appreciate the effort. Our evening was made up of squid fishing, absurd Vietnamese dancing, a birthday surprise for Ane, and a sad example of a cooking class. The squid fishing was entertaining, yet what it really was was tourist babysitting. If you don’t want to entertain your tourists, give them poles, turn on a bright light, and tell them to catch squid. Several of us were very determined to snag one and in the end failed horribly. Some of us stayed up to watch the Vietnam episode of Top Gear. It is worth a watch.
The next morning we woke up early for a Tai Chi class. The instructor was late, so Tim (the tour guide) brought it upon himself to teach us something. What ensued was a lot of high kicks and taekwondo punches. Unfortunately, he didn’t want us to immolate him because the astroturf on the roof of the boat was too slick with morning dew. Finally the Tai Chi teacher arrived and with no explanation led us through slow movements. The entire group moved in opposite directions and wondered to ourselves if getting up early was worth the five minute class. This was followed by breakfast and a kayak trip through a floating fishing village. This was interesting because recently the Vietnamese government passed a law stating that the 1,500 people living in Halong Bay had to move to the mainland due to the pollution they were creating. We visited the remnants of one of their villages. Kayaking was fun and I made my guide nervous every time I ventured too far which would result in him speaking rapidly into a loud speaker with a Cartman like voice. If you ever go to Halong Bay, I wouldn’t recommend swimming in it. There was a lot of debris floating in the water and we paddled through many oil spots. Back on the boat we had another nice meal and said good bye to Cartman… I mean Tim.
I would like for you to preemptively note the exponential decline of the quality of this trip. The only thing that remained constant was the high quality of the companionship of our fellow travelers. Morgan and Mae met in New Zealand and entertained us with stories from their time there. Ole and Ane shared there abundant travel stories and told us about their past jobs. Ole did his doctoral dissertation in Norway researching how people moving away from small towns and villages impacts the community they leave behind. Wolfgang told us about his trip around SE Asia and even brought us to tears imitating Uncle Ho.
At this point we boarded a smaller boat from which we were to kayak, rock climb, and explore a couple beaches. We didn’t rock climb or explore beaches, but we did go to a pearl farm where the boat owner had the potential to get a kick back if we purchased something. We were not impressed. It was interesting though to see the workers “impregnate” the oysters. They harvested small pieces of pearl producing tissue from living oysters (killing them in the process) and transplanted them into the uteruses of other oysters. Along with this tissue they would place a small man made pearl. They did all of this so that the core of the pearl would be perfectly round and the pearl producing tissue would attach to the uterus and allow the pearl to continue to form safe and sound away from the mouth of the oyster where it would naturally develop. We re-boarded our boat, had lunch, and then kayaked yet again. This kayak adventure was unique because we went through several caves and took in some beautiful scenery. The tide was going out so we actually were beached amongst oyster carcasses and in the process of freeing ourselves we most likely flung feces from chlamydia infested birds all over our arms and legs. Besides that part, kayaking was very nice. This second ship was a mid-ranked boat as far as quality. It was definitely a step down from our “luxury” boat. What left a sour taste in our mouth was that the sleazy boat owner charged us 50,000 per beer and 30,000 per cup of Lipton tea. This was way more than the going rate on land. It is also important to remember that we paid 195 dollars for this trip. A cup of Lipton should be included!
We were then shuffled off our midrange boat to what I loving refer to as the Crap Shack. Now Halong Bay tours are notorious for showing you pictures of THE boat you will stay on and then after one day they switch you to a cheaper crappier boat. This is why many people suggest paying the big bucks (165-200) to go with a luxury cruise. Midrange cruises cost around 110-145 and backpacker cruises cost 25-95. Thus what we signed up for is considered a luxury cruise in which we shouldn’t have switched boats. We had to duck to get onboard and were immediately greeted by a thirty something wearing a pirate hat. He was our new guide and offered us to pick one of the multi-colored straws sitting in a bucket of hard booze. It was at this point that the old-souled twenty somethings of the group glanced at Ole who just raised an eyebrow. It was understood that all of us were thinking, “REALLY?!” We were also informed that we would be waiting 45 minutes (it was an hour and a half) for another boatload of people to go kayaking. We patiently waited and chatted amongst ourselves and then the other boatload arrived. They were the party going backpacker crowd and just didn’t fit with our calm nonsmoking vibe. The guide with the pirate hat did his best to get us to mingle, but oil and water just don’t mix.
The 3 hour ride to land was rough. A few minutes in I made the depressing realization that there were only a few decrepit life vests. I imagined Maya floating on a door and my brother romantically shoving her off so he could crawl on as she sunk into the frigid water. This obviously is over exaggerating the situation, but it wasn’t the safest voyage. The ship did not feel seaworthy and my normally strong stomach was doing summersaults. As we approached our “private island” it became clear that actually getting to land was going to be absurdly difficult. You would think that paying a luxury rate would ensure the older passengers less stressful transitions between land and sea, but you would be wrong. The backpackers were all taken to land first in a small tugboat. Our group then piled in. I was the last to board. As I ducked my head to enter, the group burst out into laughter. It was like a cartoon. Everyone was so crammed in that there just wasn’t room for me. We rose and dipped with the waves as we passed a half sunken ship, which wasn’t very reassuring. At the pier, I was the first off the boat and the guide warned me that it was slippery. He wasn’t kidding. I ate it and slammed my toes into a mysterious black goo. The goodness Ole was able to get off without incident.
The tour company had really pushed the fact that they own this island and that we would be the only people on it. An oasis away from other tour groups is what they called it. We were to have a nice meal and then a bonfire. Well, we walked up to the 80s shabby sheek shell covered main building and found a disco ball going and blaring music, so we all went in search of our bungalows. I was fortunate enough to be awarded the honeymoon suite. It came with the extra benefit of a shower in the middle of the room right next to the bed, but what really made this room special was a surprise deposit made on the mattress. Please make your own assessment of the mysterious fluid pictured above. Let’s just say that when I showed that picture to the Ocean Tours salesman, he played stupid to the fact that it most likely came from a male’s body.
Several of the group got food poisoning from oysters. The others hiked up to the top of the island’s hill and checked out the view. Then it was time to go again. So in groups of two or three we took turns boarding a woven basket dingy. As we were rowed to our tugboat, which would take us to the neighboring island of Cat Ba, an additional worker was continuously bailing water. We then had to ungracefully transfer from the dingy to the tugboat. The tugboat rode the swells to Cat Ba and pulled up to the pier. Again, getting some of our party on land was sketchy and involved them crawling on their hands and knees. This was followed by a local bus ride across the island. The bus didn’t have AC and the roof vents were open to the point where a large branch was able to lodge itself into the bus. To cut my complaining short (for the record I find this all pretty funny), we then took a speed boat to the mainland.
Once on the mainland I figured that things couldn’t get any worse, but alas whenever you think that it does. The luxury bus we had come on had been replaced by a dirty minivan on which all the backpackers were already packed. The last four of our group to board, including myself, were given the fold down seats which are crooked at a 45 degree angle. I couldn’t put the back up on my chair for the sake of my sibling’s knees. The driver wouldn’t stop for one of our group to use the restroom, but did make a pit stop so he himself could pee on the side of the road. Classy. Thus, we all sat crammed in for the four hour trip back to Hanoi.
Back in Hanoi the We Cheated Death Crew, were all riled up. We were angry we had spent so much money for a typically atrocious tour of Halong Bay. As a united front we went into the office and stood side-by-side as my brother asked the Ocean Tours manager if he would like to write down our feedback on the cruise. We painstakingly described the trip in detail and informed him that what we had experienced was unacceptable. I like to think it was my picture of mysterious goo that got us 50 dollars back each, but in reality it was Wolfgang who brought it into home. He stood up and said, “That’s enough. What is your decision? Will you have us write negative reviews on Trip Advisor, Lonely Planet, and Fodor’s?” Wolfgang’s look of triumph was priceless and will forever put a smile on my face. Not only had we survived together, but we had been reimbursed together.
In the end I would sign up for that same tour all over again just for the sake of the friendships that I made. I am thankful for my fellow death defying crew members and hope to see them all again in the future under safer circumstances. If you were a member of this motley crew, please make an effort to stay in touch.
Street photography took up most of the rest of the day along with figuring out which tour company to book for Halong Bay. I have to say Hanoi is one of the best cities I have ever been in for street photography. The streets are narrow and filled to the brim with merchants wearing conical hats hawking their produce and steaming hot dishes. The facades of many buildings are crumbling while absurd amounts of electrical wires precariously dangle at head level. For those of you unaware, my brother has instigated a photography contest. Throughout our time together he has made several comments that he regrets giving me the bazooka (my huge lens) and claims every good shot I get is due to my hardware and not my talent (jerk). I am not even going to waste my breath debating this with him. I am just going to leave it up to the final results, which I foresee falling in my favor J.
Early the next morning we joined our tour group of 9 people on the Ocean Tours Bus. I instantly knew this group of people were going to be special. There was Morgan (Canadian) and Mae (American) traveling together. They are both around my age and like-minded travelers. Then there was Ole and Ane, a hilariously outgoing couple originally from Denmark who now reside in North Carolina. Other than our group of four there was the German, Wolfgang. Wolfgang was the quiet lone wolf, who ended up being funny and an ally. The tour started off on a high note. Everyone was chatting in our spacious private bus on the way to Halong Bay. Our tour guide, Tim, called for our attention to give us some of the history of Vietnam. He was a kind guy and tried really hard, but his bad jokes fell on absent ears and unfortunately his English was draining to follow. Nonetheless throughout our day and a half with him he would provide several humorous moments involving taekwondo and robotic dance moves.
Our first boat was named the Margarite. She had a nice deck on top, hard beds, and as my brother would say, “curtains the 60’s want back.” Each meal was made up of around four courses and being a vegetarian one course for me was always French fries. I don’t know if French fries are a fair substitute for squid, but I appreciate the effort. Our evening was made up of squid fishing, absurd Vietnamese dancing, a birthday surprise for Ane, and a sad example of a cooking class. The squid fishing was entertaining, yet what it really was was tourist babysitting. If you don’t want to entertain your tourists, give them poles, turn on a bright light, and tell them to catch squid. Several of us were very determined to snag one and in the end failed horribly. Some of us stayed up to watch the Vietnam episode of Top Gear. It is worth a watch.
The next morning we woke up early for a Tai Chi class. The instructor was late, so Tim (the tour guide) brought it upon himself to teach us something. What ensued was a lot of high kicks and taekwondo punches. Unfortunately, he didn’t want us to immolate him because the astroturf on the roof of the boat was too slick with morning dew. Finally the Tai Chi teacher arrived and with no explanation led us through slow movements. The entire group moved in opposite directions and wondered to ourselves if getting up early was worth the five minute class. This was followed by breakfast and a kayak trip through a floating fishing village. This was interesting because recently the Vietnamese government passed a law stating that the 1,500 people living in Halong Bay had to move to the mainland due to the pollution they were creating. We visited the remnants of one of their villages. Kayaking was fun and I made my guide nervous every time I ventured too far which would result in him speaking rapidly into a loud speaker with a Cartman like voice. If you ever go to Halong Bay, I wouldn’t recommend swimming in it. There was a lot of debris floating in the water and we paddled through many oil spots. Back on the boat we had another nice meal and said good bye to Cartman… I mean Tim.
I would like for you to preemptively note the exponential decline of the quality of this trip. The only thing that remained constant was the high quality of the companionship of our fellow travelers. Morgan and Mae met in New Zealand and entertained us with stories from their time there. Ole and Ane shared there abundant travel stories and told us about their past jobs. Ole did his doctoral dissertation in Norway researching how people moving away from small towns and villages impacts the community they leave behind. Wolfgang told us about his trip around SE Asia and even brought us to tears imitating Uncle Ho.
At this point we boarded a smaller boat from which we were to kayak, rock climb, and explore a couple beaches. We didn’t rock climb or explore beaches, but we did go to a pearl farm where the boat owner had the potential to get a kick back if we purchased something. We were not impressed. It was interesting though to see the workers “impregnate” the oysters. They harvested small pieces of pearl producing tissue from living oysters (killing them in the process) and transplanted them into the uteruses of other oysters. Along with this tissue they would place a small man made pearl. They did all of this so that the core of the pearl would be perfectly round and the pearl producing tissue would attach to the uterus and allow the pearl to continue to form safe and sound away from the mouth of the oyster where it would naturally develop. We re-boarded our boat, had lunch, and then kayaked yet again. This kayak adventure was unique because we went through several caves and took in some beautiful scenery. The tide was going out so we actually were beached amongst oyster carcasses and in the process of freeing ourselves we most likely flung feces from chlamydia infested birds all over our arms and legs. Besides that part, kayaking was very nice. This second ship was a mid-ranked boat as far as quality. It was definitely a step down from our “luxury” boat. What left a sour taste in our mouth was that the sleazy boat owner charged us 50,000 per beer and 30,000 per cup of Lipton tea. This was way more than the going rate on land. It is also important to remember that we paid 195 dollars for this trip. A cup of Lipton should be included!
We were then shuffled off our midrange boat to what I loving refer to as the Crap Shack. Now Halong Bay tours are notorious for showing you pictures of THE boat you will stay on and then after one day they switch you to a cheaper crappier boat. This is why many people suggest paying the big bucks (165-200) to go with a luxury cruise. Midrange cruises cost around 110-145 and backpacker cruises cost 25-95. Thus what we signed up for is considered a luxury cruise in which we shouldn’t have switched boats. We had to duck to get onboard and were immediately greeted by a thirty something wearing a pirate hat. He was our new guide and offered us to pick one of the multi-colored straws sitting in a bucket of hard booze. It was at this point that the old-souled twenty somethings of the group glanced at Ole who just raised an eyebrow. It was understood that all of us were thinking, “REALLY?!” We were also informed that we would be waiting 45 minutes (it was an hour and a half) for another boatload of people to go kayaking. We patiently waited and chatted amongst ourselves and then the other boatload arrived. They were the party going backpacker crowd and just didn’t fit with our calm nonsmoking vibe. The guide with the pirate hat did his best to get us to mingle, but oil and water just don’t mix.
The 3 hour ride to land was rough. A few minutes in I made the depressing realization that there were only a few decrepit life vests. I imagined Maya floating on a door and my brother romantically shoving her off so he could crawl on as she sunk into the frigid water. This obviously is over exaggerating the situation, but it wasn’t the safest voyage. The ship did not feel seaworthy and my normally strong stomach was doing summersaults. As we approached our “private island” it became clear that actually getting to land was going to be absurdly difficult. You would think that paying a luxury rate would ensure the older passengers less stressful transitions between land and sea, but you would be wrong. The backpackers were all taken to land first in a small tugboat. Our group then piled in. I was the last to board. As I ducked my head to enter, the group burst out into laughter. It was like a cartoon. Everyone was so crammed in that there just wasn’t room for me. We rose and dipped with the waves as we passed a half sunken ship, which wasn’t very reassuring. At the pier, I was the first off the boat and the guide warned me that it was slippery. He wasn’t kidding. I ate it and slammed my toes into a mysterious black goo. The goodness Ole was able to get off without incident.
The tour company had really pushed the fact that they own this island and that we would be the only people on it. An oasis away from other tour groups is what they called it. We were to have a nice meal and then a bonfire. Well, we walked up to the 80s shabby sheek shell covered main building and found a disco ball going and blaring music, so we all went in search of our bungalows. I was fortunate enough to be awarded the honeymoon suite. It came with the extra benefit of a shower in the middle of the room right next to the bed, but what really made this room special was a surprise deposit made on the mattress. Please make your own assessment of the mysterious fluid pictured above. Let’s just say that when I showed that picture to the Ocean Tours salesman, he played stupid to the fact that it most likely came from a male’s body.
Several of the group got food poisoning from oysters. The others hiked up to the top of the island’s hill and checked out the view. Then it was time to go again. So in groups of two or three we took turns boarding a woven basket dingy. As we were rowed to our tugboat, which would take us to the neighboring island of Cat Ba, an additional worker was continuously bailing water. We then had to ungracefully transfer from the dingy to the tugboat. The tugboat rode the swells to Cat Ba and pulled up to the pier. Again, getting some of our party on land was sketchy and involved them crawling on their hands and knees. This was followed by a local bus ride across the island. The bus didn’t have AC and the roof vents were open to the point where a large branch was able to lodge itself into the bus. To cut my complaining short (for the record I find this all pretty funny), we then took a speed boat to the mainland.
Once on the mainland I figured that things couldn’t get any worse, but alas whenever you think that it does. The luxury bus we had come on had been replaced by a dirty minivan on which all the backpackers were already packed. The last four of our group to board, including myself, were given the fold down seats which are crooked at a 45 degree angle. I couldn’t put the back up on my chair for the sake of my sibling’s knees. The driver wouldn’t stop for one of our group to use the restroom, but did make a pit stop so he himself could pee on the side of the road. Classy. Thus, we all sat crammed in for the four hour trip back to Hanoi.
Back in Hanoi the We Cheated Death Crew, were all riled up. We were angry we had spent so much money for a typically atrocious tour of Halong Bay. As a united front we went into the office and stood side-by-side as my brother asked the Ocean Tours manager if he would like to write down our feedback on the cruise. We painstakingly described the trip in detail and informed him that what we had experienced was unacceptable. I like to think it was my picture of mysterious goo that got us 50 dollars back each, but in reality it was Wolfgang who brought it into home. He stood up and said, “That’s enough. What is your decision? Will you have us write negative reviews on Trip Advisor, Lonely Planet, and Fodor’s?” Wolfgang’s look of triumph was priceless and will forever put a smile on my face. Not only had we survived together, but we had been reimbursed together.
In the end I would sign up for that same tour all over again just for the sake of the friendships that I made. I am thankful for my fellow death defying crew members and hope to see them all again in the future under safer circumstances. If you were a member of this motley crew, please make an effort to stay in touch.
