Day 51 – Day 53: Halong Bay, Vietnam

After a short but sound sleep we prepared to be picked up from the hostel at 8am to head to Halong Bay. We had our fingers crossed that the bus would actually turn up this time.

Almost bang on time the bus arrived! Relieved, we boarded and started the 4 hour drive to the boat. Our guide Uy was very entertaining. He had a great sense of humour, always cracking jokes. We weren’t 100% sure if he was funny on purpose, but it was good either way.  We had one 30 minute stop on the way at a craft market, selling paintings, jewelery and marble statues. Kyle and I had some pork fried noodles for s late breakfast, I was reaching the land of the hangry by that point.

At 12.30pm we arrived at Halong Bay and boarded the Viola Cruise boat. The boat had three levels: the kitchen and bedrooms were located on the bottom floor, the dining room, bar and bedrooms with balconies were located on the 2nd floor, and the top floor was the captains and tour guides rooms, a sundeck and a second bar. We had a double room on the bottom front end of the boat. The room had a good slope on it, but was tidy and comfortable with a private bathroom so we were happy!

After dumping our bags it was time for a buffet style lunch. On offer was vegetable fried noodles, rice, chicken curry, crumbed fish, chicken wings, morning glory, french fries and seafood and vegetable hotpot. Tasty.

Following lunch we had time to relax on the sun deck before starting our first activity – kayaking (or being rowed in a bamboo boat) around a floating village. A tender was used to move us between the cruise boat and activity locations. It was great to get out on the water and explore the village and limestone islands. Next on the list was a stop at a pearl farm. They showed us the three types of oysters used, talked through the process of how the pearls are made and farmed and then we had free time to wander through the shop.

Upon returning to the cruise boat, we had 30 minutes to relax before heading to the sundeck for the sunset party. Here we met the people on the 2 night trip who had started their cruise the previous day. A glass of local wine, and a selection of juice, fruit and cupcakes were provided for the party, while music was played and disco lights started once it got dark.

For dinner we were split back into first nighters and second nighters for two different menus. There were over 10 courses for the meal, brought out individually and put in the centre of each table for sharing. The food was good, but it was difficult to manage serving sizes of each dish as we never knew how much more food was coming. The courses included soup with french bread, tuna salad, prawns, “fish in a net” – a whole cooked fish covered with a carrot net, pork and egg rolls, fried pork spring rolls, sesame chicken and pineapple. Rice was brought out close to the end of the meal, which was a bit late and meant that it hardly got touched!

We had a diverse group of people in our tour group, with Germans, Persians, Americans, Canadians and Kiwi Aussies. The Kiwi Aussies were originally from New Zealand but have been living in Australia for the last 40 years. However, the man in particular, was as Kiwi as you can get and provided good entertainment constantly ripping into Australia and any other country that wasn’t New Zealand. We were getting a bit tired of the rugby talk though…

After dinner it was time for squid fishing. It was quite amusing watching people waiting patiently with their “rod” (piece of bamboo with two metres of twine tied on the end with a lure). No luck in catching anything, but it was a good excuse to sink a few more beers. We were glad that we had brought our own ones on board. At the shop a can cost 14,000 VND, on board it was 46,000 VND!!! Water was much the same, it cost 35,000 VND per 500 mL on board, the 5 L containers we brought prior to the trip were only 26,000 VND each!

Eventually the beers caught up to us and it was time to hit the hay. Our boats sleeping spot was in Bai Tu Long Bay which was very quiet, there was only 10 or so other boats around. This was helped for a good night’s sleep!

We were up at 6.30am in the morning to try Tai Chi on the sundeck. It was very short, consisting of only a warm-up and one track. It was interesting to try, and amusing because we were so uncoordinated and sore from trekking.

For breakfast we had fried eggs on toast, chicken / vegetarian Pho, fruits and tea/coffee. There was juice provided as but it wash very watered down and unpleasant to drink, as we constantly reminded by the Kiwi Aussie bloke who was not impressed.  It was the first time we had tried guava. Before knowing what it was, we called it the giant feijoa apple. Unsurprisingly, we were the first at breakfast and last to leave.

After breakfast we were transferred to a day boat. We had a bit of time to get ready which was nice, as the priority was to get the third dayers out on their day trip asap. The day boat was still quite large, with an indoor dining room downstairs and a sundeck on the roof.

Our first activity of the day was kayaking to a beach. It was a very slow 15 minute kayak to the beach. It was entertaining as we kept being crashed into by zigzagging inexperienced kayakers. This area was much quieter than the floating village had been the day before, so provided a good opportunity to get a better look at the limestone islands and watch the crabs.

We were allowed to swim at the beach we kayaked too, however, it wasn’t particularly tempting as the water was very dirty. Kyle was definitely out due to his munted toe, but I decided to have a quick dip. It didn’t last long as the rocky bottom was tricky to navigate in bare feet and the numerous floaties I kept bumping into made me quite uncomfortable….

Once back on the boat it was time for lunch. It was brought out in much the same manner as dinner the night before, and included prawns, squid, pork, chicken, fish and pineapple. The staff also snuck in a sneaky envelope to ask for tips.

Our final activity on the day boat was a stop at a cave. There weren’t many torches so Kyle and I had to stick right behind the guide to avoid tripping over and risk further munting Kyle’s toe. The cave was interesting, it had several developing stalegmites and stalegtites to admire, but the novelty wore off quickly. The cave was home to many sleeping bats.

It was then time to return to the cruise boat for the second sunset party. It was much the same as the first, so a group of us gathered to play converge a game in pairs where you try and say the same word.

For dinner we had the same soup and tuna salad as the previous evening, followed by crumbed squid rings and prawns, sweet and sour fish, tofu, morning glory, rice, a beef dish and pineapple.

After dinner it was back to beers and squid fishing. This time, one of the new couples on the boat actually caught a squid! One thing we are still confused about is what they did with the squid after they caught it… Who knows.

On the final day we skipped Tai Chi and went straight to breakfast. From there we went to explore another cave. There was a short climb to this one and it was absolutely packed out with tourists. There was a nice beach on the other side of the island which we stopped off at on the way back, however, no swimming at the beach was allowed.

Our final activity for the trip was a cooking class. It turned out to be more of a ‘learn how to roll spring rolls’ class, as the filling was already prepared for us to roll. The chef also showed us how he makes carrot and cucumber flowers, as well as the carrot net.

For lunch we had bun cha which included our own spring rolls, pork patties, noodles and broth. It was tasty and as usual Kyle and I were the last ones at the table cleaning up the leftovers.

From there we were back to the mainland and into the bus to drive back to Hanoi. There was only four of us on the bus this time, so it was relaxed and comfortable.

After dropping our bags at the hostel we walked to the beer street for a few brews. Kyle talked a promoter into 20k Halida beers which was enough for us to park up at this bar. We had a table on the street and it was hilarious watching the promoters battle each other to try and bring in customers. The promoter for the bar across the road was grabbing arms and latching onto people to try and pull them in.

For dinner we went to a restaurant around the corner, ordering beef and vegetarian Pho, a plate of morning glory and some Saigon special beers. All was good, but the morning glory had been fried in garlic and was particularly delicious!