Touring Halong Bay
Three days and two nights, from Hanoi
Tuesday
While waiting for the bus to go on my Halong Bay adventure, I asked at the front desk if I should pay now for my last two nights and the tour on which I was going. The receptionist asked me, “Are you going to leave luggage here?”
I told her that it would be great if I could leave my big bag and take with me only the few items I would need for the next three days. Her reply was, “Then you do not need to pay now.”
My luggage was not the only thing I had left behind: I handed over my passport so that while I was gone, it could be taken to the proper authorities to get my visa to visit Laos. That’s a terrific service that many hotels offer: no need to fill out paperwork, no need to find the appropriate embassy. Just hand over your passport, and it comes back in a few days with the necessary visa.
The minibus picked us up at our hotel, and after a few more stops we were off to Halong Bay. Torsten, a German guy who had also been staying at my hotel, is going to share a room with me the first night, which will be on a boat.
The minibus was quite cramped. The smallest people, a Vietnamese couple, were in the first row behind the driver, which had the greatest amount of legroom. The rest of the group consisted of one German, an Estonian couple, two women from Australia, two women from Scotland, three women from Israel, a couple from England, and me.
We have learned that the young Vietnamese couple is now on their honeymoon. They are from the inland mountain city of Dalat, which is a popular spot for Vietnamese couples on their honeymoon, but they themselves have come to the waterside area to have theirs.
It takes about three hours to get to Halong Bay, and there is quite the mob scene there, what with all the tour buses discharging passengers who were then going to be boarding the boats.
With only fifteen of us on our boat, there were more than enough crew to prepare and serve meals. I didn’t count, but there must have been at least eight people on the crew.
The Halong Bay area is a scenic wonder, and the prominent geological features are the limestone karsts that jut out of the water. They generally are fairly green, as they have lots of bushes and trees on them. What with the boats and water, it is picturesque.
There’s not too much to say about the boat. There was a deck on the top, with seven lounge chairs, a large dining area and sitting room below that, and all the cabins were below, just above the surface of the water. It was comfortable, spacious, and pleasant. The group was a good size, which allowed for lots of socializing. Three of us were vegetarians, and the staff seated us together for ease of serving the meatless plates.
Our first stop in the bay was to Hang Sung Sat, which is Vietnamese for “Surprise Cave,” which was discovered in 1901. Ours was one of several boats arriving there, but they managed to guide all the groups through the caves, which were as enormous as they were beautiful. The government put electricity and modern paths in there, and they did a terrific job, with many spectacular lighting effects.
When we returned to the boat, we moved to another location in order to go kayaking. I was the only one who opted out of that. I have sat in a kayak only once and found it to be extremely uncomfortable, owing to the legs having to thrust forward and also the lack of back support.
Dinner was on the boat, and since the staff had told us that it would be followed by an evening of karaoke, I retreated to my room for the evening. All I can say is that an evening without karaoke is always better than an evening with karaoke.
I can’t say I was looking forward to sharing the room. I can’t remember the last time I slept in a room with another person — it’s been quite some time.
As it turned out, Torsten stayed up until 5:00 drinking vodka with the Estonians. I heard him come in, but then I went back to sleep.
Wednesday
After breakfast on the boat, we headed to Cat Ba Island, our next destination.
Torsten, the Estonians, and the Scottish women were going to be heading back to Hanoi, so that left ten of us for the next leg of the journey.
Being Westerners, we wanted to know what the program was for the day. Independently of each other, several of us asked, but we found out that the answers were not consistent. Michaela, one of the Aussie gals, said that they told her that the hotel was about 15 kilometers from the harbor. One of the crew told me that the hotel was at the harbor where we would dock. Another crew member told me that we would have to travel 27 kilometers to get to our hotel.
Once on the island, we had a minibus take us to Cat Ba National Park, where we could hike or ride bikes for about an hour and a half. Then, we were back on the bus so that we could check into our hotel in Cat Ba City, which seemed to be about 15 kilometers, so that was the correct answer.
Our hotel appears to be the tallest building in the city, about twelve stories high, with commanding views of the harbor and beachfront.
Shortly after our arrival, we met in the dining room for lunch. When the soup arrived, we asked if it was vegetarian. When they said there was chicken in it, the three of us vegetarians declined taking it, which threw the staff into a tizzy. Our guide came by and expressed concern that maybe we didn’t tell them that we were vegetarians.
But we were the same three who were on the boat yesterday and today, for whom there were vegetarian meals provided. Didn’t the message get through for the entire duration of the tour, or did it just get as far as the boat?
They asked us if we would eat fried vegetables, and we said yes, we would. The first few courses not only had meat, which three of us declined, but the meat was pork, which didn’t go over very large with the three Israelis (one of whom is one of the vegetarians). So half of us were not eating, and they called over the tour guide to find out what was wrong.
There were a few meager vegetable dishes and rice. Before the end of the meal, however, we checked to be sure that dinner would have some vegetarian options. There was some talk about calling Hanoi. Why? we wanted to know. Was the food coming from there?
No, they explained. They just wanted to be sure that the office that made our reservations knew that we were vegetarians. It didn’t seem to make sense to us, but Matt, one of the British guys, told us of his time in a northern region where it was cold at night and the hotel had to call Hanoi to get authorization to turn on the heat in a room.
The outing for the afternoon was to Monkey Island, and I was not interested in being herded with the group to go there. Even though there is not much to do or see here, I knew that I would be happier just being on my own, wandering aimlessly down the streets, and also finding a place to use the Internet.
One of the things I did on the Internet was to get my electronic visa to visit Australia. It’s now official: I have the ticket and the visa (probably purchased in the wrong order, but I felt fairly safe that they would let an American into Oz).
In the evening we all had dinner together at the restaurant next door to the hotel. It’s a pleasant group. There were a few menu items that caught our attention. In big letters in the middle of one of the pages was the word GRUEL. We all agreed that that didn’t sound very appetizing.
At the same time, we were trying to figure out what they meant by “GRUEL.” Below, there were two options: MEAT GRUEL and FISH GRUEL. We finally determined that what they must have meant was GRILLED.
There was another item, though, that we never did work out: “synthetic salad.”
Thursday
After an enjoyable buffet breakfast at the hotel, we loaded up the minibus and headed back to the port. Shortly after we arrived there, our boat — the same one we were on the day before — arrived and discharged some of its passengers. It was similar to our situation, in that those who were doing the two-day tour got off at Cat Ba Island and those who had spent only the one night on the boat stayed on the boat and we joined them.
After about two hours, we had an early lunch and arrived at the dock of Halong City, leaving our boat free so that the next group could board. And we got on the minibus that had only recently arrived from Hanoi with the fresh batch of occupants for our boat.
In this regard, the entire tour process is run with remarkable precision: each bus and boat arriving with a group to discharge and then to turn around with a new group to take to the next point.
We had the best all-around driver that I have experienced since my arrival in Vietnam. He was extremely cautious in passing slower vehicles. Not once during the entire trip from Halong City to Hanoi did he honk his horn. And I also appreciated the fact that when he played music, which was only about half the duration of the journey, he kept the music at a reasonably low level.
There was an unfortunate incident on our way back, but it didn’t affect our minibus. We stopped at the scene of an collision between a minibus and a motorcycle. We never saw the moto driver, but the front driver’s-side corner of the minibus was badly mangled.
Our driver stopped at the scene because the driver of the minibus was a friend of his. With the minibus unable to proceed, the driver had to parcel out his passengers, and we received a Russian couple who sat in front where our tour guide had been sitting. Our guide took a smaller-than-kindergarten sized plastic stool from under my seat and he parked himself on it next to me, in the aisle.
At our rest stop during the next half hour or so, the Russian couple was moved to a bus that had more room for them.
Being back at my hotel was like a homecoming. The staff here is so friendly and helpful!
While I was sitting here updating this blog, a moto driver came in and I saw him hand my passport to somebody at the front desk (it has a distinctive protective covering, so I could spot it immediately). It had my Laos visa in it!