Halong Bay, Vietnam

Our first drink of shady vodka. Monkey Island, Halong Bay.

On a lovely bike ride in Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay.

Boy with cow. Cat Ba Island.

Napping woman. Halong Bay.

Their boats were like convenience stores!

Janine and Gen, slightly mysterious looking. Outside the "Amazing Cave".

The harbour in halong City.

Selling everything, everywhere, at any time.

The other side of the cliff: Monkey Island resort (not our beach).

Our own little cove: Monkey Island

Our beach huts: Monkey Island

Cat Ba Island.

Scott on a bike. Cat Ba Island.

Me on a bike. Cat Ba Island.

Halong Bay

Amazing Cave

Amazing Cave

Our junk, as seen from Amazing Cave

Seriously; convenience stores!

Enjoying the balcony on our boat.

Halong Bay

Our guardian dragon.

After about two days in Hanoi, we were definitely ready to head off to Halong Bay, the famous World Heritage site in Northern Vietnam where the limestone cliffs shoot straight up out of the sea and you can explore vast caves. The woman who sold us the tour made it sound really great: the first day spent in a fancy room on a traditional Junk, yummy seafood on the menu, a cave to explore, kayaking and swimming followed by dinner and then chilling out- the second day would be spent on Cat Ba Island, the largest island in the bay, where we would bike, then hike, and finally bike again to a ferry that would take us to "Monkey Island" (self explanatory name, right?). On Mokey Island we would stay in some fancy bamboo huts and we could go kayaking, fishing, swimming and do lots of other fun activities. The final day would be spent travelling back to Hanoi, with a nice lunch as a final farewell.

Sounds really great, right? We thought so too, and Lonely Planet said that, as far as Halong Bay was concerned, you pay for what you get. So we didn't mind forking over 30 bucks a day since we thought we'd be travelling in class and style.

This sounds ominous, doesn't it? The truth is, our trip was fun. We had a great time. But either the woman who sold us the trip, or the tour guide who took us around, lied about almost everything that was in the itinerary. Not that it was a big deal, and not that we're complaining, but that was our first taste of the common deceptiveness many Vietnamese show towards foreigners... and there would be much more to come, but that's for another post. Bottom line: we love Vietnam. This country is amazing and we've had an amazing time. But very few people have been honest with us, and many have outright stolen from us. Can't have a rose without a few thorns, though, right?

So, at around 8 AM, we were picked up at our hotel. The hotel management gave us an icy goodbye, clearly angry that we had not booked our trip through them, and we were greeted on our mini bus by our first surprise- all of our boatmates, save for a brother/sister duo from Germany, were Vietnamese! Nothing wrong with that, of course, as we had fun meeting them and swimming with them was quite humourous, but the woman had told us we would be with other foreigners. Oh well! Not a big disappointment as foreigers can often be the worst travel buddies.

We left Hanoi and drove for about 3.5 hours until we reached Halong City- our jumping off point. Everywhere we looked there were tourists! Foreign and Vietnamese, old and young, rich and poor... you get the idea. When we saw the vast amount of Junks in the harbour waiting for their passengers we got a little overwhelmed. Which one was ours?!

It turns out, our was the super nice one that was anchored a little further away from the others. Sunchairs on the top deck, rooms on the bottom floor, dining room in the middle, and ladders going up the sides so you could just jump off the boat if you felt like a swim. We didn't really feel like swimming because it was drizzly and the climate up North was actually much chillier than we had been used to in the last few countries. It was a nice change from 35 degrees (or more) and sunny every day.

We lucked out even further when our guide told Me, Pat, Gen and Scott that our rooms were away from all the others, up on the same level as the dining room. When we got to our rooms we were very happy with what we saw: TV, mini fridge (for the booze and mix we were smuggling- way too expensive to buy drinks on the Junk!), nice big, comfy beds and lovely decor. Oh, and a nice bathroom with shampoo and soap and toothbrushes and hot water. Yay.

(Later we found out that the TV and fridge were just for show- indeed, Scott looked for his fridge's plug in and saw that it was non-existent- yet another little fib!)

We had a lovely lunch of fresh steamed prawns, cucmber salad, rice, meatballs and a nice seafood stirfry that was a bit spicy and featured cuttlefish. My fav.

Afterwards, we settled in on our communal balcony (only for us two couples, though- our rooms took up the back of the junk so, even though we got privacy to consume our illegal rice vodka, we also got the exhaust from the back of the boat's motor) and had a few drinks. Then we arrived at the cave (another point worth mentioning was that we passed by an island that we were supposed to visit but didn't. It looked fun, a bunch of Koreans were dancing and partying. When we asked our guide about why we didn't stop he said it wasn't on the itinerary. Liar!).

The cave was called "Amazing Cave". And actually, it was pretty cool. That being said, I never cared about seeing a cave and had very low expectations. But I think everyone thought it was pretty cool. Pat got some nice photos!

After the cave we went kayaking, although at this point it was raining pretty heavily and my glasses were wet and I couldn't see where we were going. It was still fun, though, and we weren't going to have another activity taken away from us! We passed by entire villages built on rafts. Puppies were tied on a short leash so they wouldn't fall in the bay and drown. Other dogs barked at us, and the locals stared us down as we glided past. We got up close to a few of the limestone islands and saw the grottos and small caves that are prevalent in the area. We had fun.

When we stopped kayaking, it had stopped raining. We were already wet, so we jumped off the boat into the bay. The guys jumped from the very top of the boat, while I was content with jumping off the first level. Poor Gen looked cold and didn't go in at all, but she got some pictures of us splashing around.

The next day, we were told that we could choose between biking and hiking. Woah... what? The woman told us we would be biking first, and then hiking, and then biking again. But our guide, as per usual, said that was "not part of the itinerary". We started to wonder why we booked a more expensive trip than other people. So we chose biking as we all had done our fair share of hiking already.

It was beautiful! I wish I had gotten a chance to spend more time on Cat Ba Island. It was eery; shrouded with mist, and very beautiful. The people in the village were quite friendly as well. It was a great bike ride along the vegetable fields and we all felt that we made the right decision, especially since, if we had hiked, we wouldn't be able to see anything by the time we made it to the top.

After our bike ride we made our way to Monkey Island, where we were promised a BBQ lunch on the beach. When we arrived, we saw a deserted (but nice) set of bamboo huts with a few poor souls holding up the fort. And no BBQ. But lunch was nice nonetheless- I REALLY like Vietnamese food! So, like I said, it was deserted. We were the only guests. Awesome! Our beach was isolated and only reached by boat, and it was a bit stormy when we arrived so we couldn't really do anything except drink some shady vodka we found at a street vendor (the boys drank first in case it made us go blind) and play cards. It was still pretty fun.

The next day we made it back to the mainland, had a really delicious lunch and went back to Hanoi. And that was the day we realized not to trust the average Vietnamese salesperson.

The End. (Next comes Sapa).