The money situation didn’t exactly help us with the cold. We realised that not even Alice, whose bank card seemed fearlessly able to deal with ‘high risk’ countries, could take out enough money to pay for our hostel (that didn’t take credit card) and eat and pay for a trip to Halong Bay in one day. So we took out two million dong a day (about €67) until we had paid our debts. And that my friend is all I will say about our financial woes.
Having arrived so early on that dreary Monday morning, we decided we had to do our Halong Bay cruise the next day. We had initially wanted to do the two night one, but due to the money issue (oops, I mentioned it) we realised we couldn’t possible pay for it before leaving on the Friday morning at disgusting O’clock in the morning as there was no ATM in Halong Bay (obviously).
We boarded the Jolly Roger bright (ok not so bright) and early on the Tuesday. The night before we bumped into a girl called Sinéad at the ATM (whilst we were discussing what to do) and as it happened she and her travelling partner, Rachael, had gone to the same school as us; of course Rachael had Mammy for English too; only re-iterating our previous thoughts that the world is too small…or The Bower is too big!
So they were our friends the next day too on our Halong Bay cruise. It began strangely when we realised our guide was a tool, but as soon as we stopped listening to him we began enjoying ourselves. I suppose I hadn’t realised what exactly I was missing with the bad fog blocking our view, but apparently there are thousands of islands in the Bay; we actually only saw the ones directly in front of us.
After people jumped into the freezing water, and froze a bit, we went kayaking. We went to, I think it was called, Dragon’s Cave. It was interesting but I couldn’t understand our Israeli* guide very well so I actually learned nothing. Then we kayaked around the corner and into a floating village. It was at this point I began to slightly regret my choice of kayak buddy. I cannot for the life of me remember his name but he was a charming enough English boy who’d just come from a big mad trek in Nepal. I chose him because we were supposed to go Girl/Boy to a kayak for strength’s sake and he had no partner and neither did I. Simples. His idea of fun, however, was paddling up to an innocent looking boy on one of the flotillas and saying hello. This ‘innocent’ little boy, with what was actually a vicious dog, then grabbed on to the front of our kayak and would not let go. It seems this was the little boy’s idea of fun. He seemed practiced at it too. After that incident, I was not going to take direction from my private schooled friend. We had our qualms about the way I paddled etc. but in general it was an enjoyable two hours.
During Lunch I was displaced from our table due to dietary requirements and put sitting beside a hungover American named Leo. As a table we talked about X factor, pop music and Leo’s inability to get any decent British pop in the states. Oh and we also spoke about his love of Cheryl Cole. It was during this interesting conversation that it came out that Leo had been on American Idol two years previous and had made it as far as the cut off point for the live shows. He was officially my favourite person on the boat. Later that night, we coaxed Leo Marlowe into an impromptu live show for the Athlonians up in our room. He was awesome. I can’t wait to meet him again when I get to Sydney, where he is now, bartending, and by his Facebook statuses, he’s loving it!
That night, I was the only one of us who seemed to have a thirst, and after a disastrously awful game of Kings, after the live show, and after the girls went to bed, I stayed up a bit with some new friends; notably Leo (obviously), Leo’s friend Katrina who was teaching English in Bangkok and Polly, who was off to Chiang Mai to Meditate with Monks.
The next day, we woke up ridiculously early to a noise we didn’t recognise – an alarm through a speaker on the boat. Half the tour went on to the bug island, whose name I can’t remember, to stay in shacks and be bitten alive, and we headed back to Hanoi with the Athlone girls and a gang of others.
We spent the next day, Thursday, in Hanoi itself. We were delighted we only stayed one night on the cruise because we got to spend a good day strolling around the French/Asian city. We went to the prison, but apart from that we just looked around the city. The French influence was so obvious, we couldn’t believe. It was like Paris, but with heaps of Asians. The atmosphere and the feeling of the city was just the break we needed from the hustling bustling Khao San Road of Bangkok (more of that later).
I forget most places we ate in Hanoi. But the food was lovely. I do remember Pineapple on our last night though. We had, because I had suggested, left it until the last night because it was very expensive (90,000 dong for a meal).
Hanoi and Halong Bay were just a brief taster of what Vietnam had to offer. I will return some day for sure to go south to Ho Chi Min and experience the rest of the fascinating country with its paddy fields and women with triangular hats.
*I’ve spelled this word incorrectly my whole live. English degree, what English degree?
