Preface: Our tour guide's the one with the black eye... or was he? Who knows? More on that later.
July 15-19: Ha Noi & Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
By Lisa & Gillian
Good morning, Vietnam! As our plane landed in Ha Noi, I couldn't help but remember several Forrest Gump lines. Some favourites include:
"Bubba taught me all about shrimp as we was walking through the rain in Vietnam. Shrimp soup, shrimp gumbo, shrimp salad..."
"But the one good thing about being in the hospital... was the ice cream."
"Lietenant Dan! Ice cream!"
Ha Noi is nothing short of a complete sensory overload. We have never seen so many motorbikes in one place at a time. After my motorbike incident (no worries, I'm okay... only a few minor cuts and bruises) in Thailand, I was definitely not happy to see the roads with no traffic rules (at least none that were being followed) full of motorbikes. However, thanks to two friends we saw in Beijing who had recently visited Vietnam, we used their very special hand waving technique in order to safely cross the street. Ask us to show you when we get home. Think *spirit fingers*.
After walking around the backpacker district in Ha Noi trying to find a place to stay for the night while simultaneously booking our Ha Long Bay 3 day/2 night cruise, we were all unbelievably hot. We managed to find a hotel (that's right... hotel) for about $6/person for the night. We later realized why the price was so attractive: the rooms were on the fourth (read: 8 flights of stairs) floor. So here are 4 tired, disgustingly hot, hungry girls hauling their huge backpacks up the stairs...
We finally found a tour that was leaving the next day and booked it. This was only after we attempted to understand the differences between the deluxe and standard tours where MANY things got lost in translation. We decided to book the standard tour, bargained the travel agent down, and grabbed some food before heading back to the hotel to cool off and fall asleep.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and were at the travel agency by 8AM which was when we were scheduled to be picked up. The bus showed up at 8:30AM. This lateness was only minorly foreshadowing the lateness that was to follow several times throughout the tour. After settling on the bus, our tour guide, Wai (pronounced "why"), introduced himself. It went something like this:
"Hello everybody! I am SOOOOOOOO excited to be your tour guide to go to Ha Long Bay. I am 25. I am not married. I have three children. Tell me how this is possible. I am getting married soon. Tell me what I am supposed to do on my wedding night please."
We laughed out loud but unfortunately, that may or may not have been a joke. We rather quickly discovered the whole children bit was a complete and utter lie. Wai was a strapping young Vietnamese man. Standing at about 4'10" and 95 lbs, he captured our hearts from the get-go. Buuuuut this was short-lived.
The bus ride to the town of Ha Long Bay was cramped but fine. We arrived and were shuttled into some random standing area with about 1000 other tourists and were told that our boat would be ready very soon. Wai quickly became very stressed out and started speaking like he was about to give birth to a child. We couldn't help but laugh. We also noticed that we had a human version of X-Men's Wolverine in our tour group along with his buddy who had flowing golden locks of hair reminding us of a really starved Fabio. After about an hour of standing around we boarded the junk boat and enjoyed a lunch of spring rolls, squid, tofu, rice, some scary vegetable and an orange (only one wedge per person, please) for dessert. THEN we left the port.
While the logistics of this excursion to this point would have made P. Fraser Johnson (what up!) experience cardiac arrest, the scenery more than made up for the inadequacies. This is a picture that I took on my camera (not from Google Images).
We spent the first night on Cat Ba Island in a HOTEL that had towels, toilet paper, soap, toothbrushes and, to Gillian's extreme excitment, COMBS! We went for dinner and had more spring rolls, squid, rice, etc. We noticed a pattern. After dinner we decided to check out one of the floating restaurants for some dessert: ice cream.
Girls: Hello, do you have ice cream?
Waitress: Um... yes... 15,000 dong/cone.
Girls: Okay. We'll take 4 please.
Waitress: Okay. Give us 10 minutes please.
Girls: (confused) Okay. We'll just take a seat over here.
*waitress runs down dock to mainland*
10 minutes later, sure enough, we had ice cream BUT it was not from the restaurant. The waitress had high tailed it to a convenience store, bought 4 drumsticks for probably a lot cheaper than 15,000 dong/each, ran past us with them in a blue plastic shopping bag (she didn't even try to hide them) and placed them on a plate in an ever-so-appealing way. This caused us to erupt into fits of laughter. I (Lisa), have a very loud cackle if you do not know me. When something this great happens, the cackle comes out in full force. Shortly thereafter, we enjoyed the company of about 10 Vietnamese men and their families imitating my laugh. We eventually had a laugh-off and captured this precious moment on video for anyone interested in seeing it.
The next day we were up bright and early to go on a "nature walk" in the Cat Ba National Park. It was pouring rain but the view was worth the constant slipping and sliding through the mud. Here we are at the top of the mountain.
Naturally, on the way down, it poured rain even harder. Here's a picture of how stunning we are post-walk.
We ended up back at the same location for lunch again consisting of spring rolls, etc. We ran into Wolverine and Fabio who had spent the previous night on the boat and they informed us that Wai and a passenger got into a physical altercation resulting in Wai being punched in the face and was almost thrown overboard. Apparently, the fight was over food. Who would have guessed? We didn't see Wai for the remainder of our tour. Speculate as you may.
That afternoon we went to Cat Ba beach on motorbike cabs (which were driven by locals... we all know I don't trust myself driving them). Eventually (seriously, it felt like forever), we got back on the boat, realized our passports weren't stolen and being trafficked for dong by Wai (yay!) and attempted to avoid being photographed by locals who strategically took turns standing next to us. Apparently these people had never seen someone as tall as me or as blonde as Gillian. Great.
The evening on the boat was splendid and the next day was relaxing as well. We even got a fully air conditioned van back to Ha Noi (not a bus... pure luxury)!
Once back in Ha Noi, we found a hotel (again!) for cheap and went out for dinner. We weren't tired enough to head to bed so we decided to check out Ha Noi a bit more given that we weren't as taken aback by its busy-ness as when we first arrived. What's the best thing to do in Ha Noi on a random Saturday night? Attend a swanky bar's grand opening in pajamas, of course. (Kudos, Gillian) The champagne (free) was delicious, probably expensive, and we even signed their banner out front as illustrated in the photo.
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel which was prepared by the receptionist (think a mini version of the American Idol sensation William Hung) and went to the Ha Noi airport for our flight to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC).
We are safe in HCMC, have been fitted for suits and are having a blast. More from here later. For now, we'd like you to reflect on our experiences in Ha Noi/Ha Long Bay.
Love,
L, C, J & G
