Day 16 (Part 1) - Morning On Halong Bay

Got up early on November 24th for breakfast on the Halong Phoenix, the Chinese junk that was our base for the tour of Halong Bay. Once again our dining companions were Pete & Shelagh from Australia and Niko from Germany. After having our omelettes we packed up our things in the cabin we stayed in for the night, settled up the bar tab and threw some money in the tip box for the staff. We then went back up to the top deck for our relaxing cruise back toward Halong City. This morning was clearer than it was the day before so the views were even more stunning.

(as usual, click on any of the pictures for the larger image)



Our boat made a pass through a floating fishing village on the way. Like when we saw them in Cambodia, I just couldn't wrap my brain around what that life must be like.





Finally it was time to say goodbye to our newest friends. Pete & Shelagh and Niko were all on the three day-two night tour that included Cat Ba Island. So they disembarked onto a transport boat to go south to Cat Ba as we continued west to Halong City. We did the usual trading of emails with them, which we have yet to use but I plan to rectify that soon.

We waved at them as they pulled away then relaxed and took in the scenery as we meandered through Halong Bay. I was still very much in awe of the beauty of the place and was disappointed we didn't go with a longer tour. Oh well, next time we'll do Cat Ba Island.






We got back to Halong City for lunch at the big hotel there and sat with an older middle-aged couple from Malaysia that I had started talking to the day before on the Phoenix. They were there with a large number of family members, mostly their children and one grandmother, for just a weekend trip. A very sweet couple, but for the life of us we couldn't figure out the ethnic mix of their brood. The oldest daughter/step-daughter looked like she was part Hispanic and spoke with what sounded like an American accent. We didn't get to talk to them long enough to start asking those kinds of questions.

After lunch our ride back to Hanoi showed up. This time we were in a smaller van of the 13-seat variety. The Malaysian family and others rushed to the seats and Lisa and I were stuck with seats in different locations. Since she has the car sickness problem she volunteered to sit in the front next to the driver. I think she would have preferred to be sick over seeing the view from the front seat. It was the usual Vietnamese style of driving - zig-zagging through traffic, passing in the oncoming lane even at blind curves, last second lane switching as an oncoming car is bearing down - and I think her nerved were pretty shot afterwards. Add to that that the driver was actually drifting off as he drove like that. She kept talking to him as much as she could.

We were then delivered back to the splendid comfort of the Hanoi Elegance 2 Hotel where the congenial staff welcomed us back.

And they had tickets to a show waiting for us.

Next - Water puppets and bia hoi

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Day 15 (Part 2) - Caves & Kayaks In Halong Bay

We climbed aboard the Halong Phoenix Cruiser with all of the other passengers, set our bags on the deck and went into the dining room. We ended up sharing a table with the Aussie couple we had been talking to during the walk to the pier and the ride to the Phoenix. Their names were Pete and Shelagh, very nice people from the Melbourne area.

Our host made a bunch of announcements from the front of the dining room with a microphone. He started off by mentioning that it was a very special day today because "50 years ago today..." and Shelagh realized that he was announcing that it was her birthday, which he noticed after taking our passports. So after embarrassing her and getting people to sing happy birthday they started serving lunch. They asked if anyone didn't eat meat and Lisa and I were the only ones to raise our hands. After being asked about four times if we ate fish and answering no all four times they finally got that were were vegetarians.

The food was fantastic and plenty of it. There must have been nine courses. While Pete and Shelagh were eating calamari and cracking crab legs we were digging in to freshly roasted peanuts and french-fried potatoes. We got a feast every time we ate and the only thing not included in the tour price was the drinks. But those were only a buck each, both beer and sodas. That's the great thing about international travel in a lot of places, my beer doesn't cost any more than my wife's Diet Cokes.

After lunch they gave us the keys to our cabins and everyone went and threw their bags in the rooms. After settling in I grabbed another beer and we headed to the top deck. The Halong Phoenix got underway and we headed into the thick of Halong Bay. The ride was a jaw-dropping experience the whole way. The only way I've been able to describe it to people after I got back to the States was to say that it was like awe-inspiring nature of the Grand Canyon, multiplied by about a hundred.

Pictures don't even come close to doing justice to the size of the area and the incredible number of limestone islands rising out of the water, but we'll give it a shot.

(these look great if you click on them for the bigger image)






After cruising for a while we came to a small harbor where a bunch of other Chinese junks like ours and other types of tour boats were gathered. We climbed back aboard the transport boat and docked at one of the larger islands. We climbed what seemed to be about a thousand steps to get to the entrance of Hang Sung Sot, one of the largest known caves in Halong Bay. We were guided through three massive chambers of the cave, which was really difficult to capture in a wide photo due to the low light. So all we really have from the cave is one of me in probably my dorkiest picture (non-drunk category) ever.



And another of Lisa with one of the trash cans in the cave, which were so cute that she wanted to take one home.


When we came out the exit to the cave we were really high up on the island and we got a great panoramic view of the whole harbor below us with all the tour boats.




Then we made our way down another thousand or so stairs and ended up on the dock. We loaded on our transport boat and made a quick run over to another dock where those of us that wanted to go kayaking got off. The others went back to the Phoenix. Our guide stayed with us to lead our kayaking trip.

Just like everywhere else in Vietnam, there were people in Halong Bay trying to eke out a living off of selling stuff to tourists, like this snack boat.



If you look in the background of the picture above you'll see our table mates Pete and Shelagh, which turned out to be our only picture of them because just like all the other times we met cool people we never thought to get a picture with them.

We climbed on kayaks and followed our guide, getting a nice closer look at the limestone formations as well as making feeble attempts to get a picture of one of the low-flying hawks overhead.




We then came to a tunnel opening in one of the islands.





On the other side was this fantastic, quiet and peaceful cove. The only way in was through that tunnel so we were finally away from all of the large tour boats and their wakes.




The sun was setting on the way back and I was able to get a couple of shots.




When we got back to the Phoenix there were more passengers than there had been before. There was a group of tourists that were on a multi-day kayaking trip who had been staying on board already by the time we arrived and they were now done with their day of paddling around.

We hung out on the top deck again for a while before dinner and Lisa started talking to this German guy who was traveling by himself. His name was Niko and he was from Munich. Whenever we travel Lisa seems to get a chance to use her German. When dinnertime rolled around we invited Niko to our table.

We had another feast for dinner and our guide announced that there would be Karaoke in the dining room later. We made our way to the deck again.

We spent the rest of the night up on the deck talking to Niko, Pete, Shelagh and eventually the tour guide who was leading the kayaking group. Khoa was a really interesting cat, he had a fantastic grasp of English and he was really smart. When we talked about the U.S. he would just start throwing out a bunch of facts he knew about whichever place you were talking about. When I mentioned I lived in Seattle he knew what state that was in and the capital. Any time a U.S. city got mentioned he could name the state. During conversations about Australia he started naming the different kinds of plants and animals there were there, and I'm not talking about the simple ones like kangaroos and koalas.

We also got to pick his brain about Vietnam and life there. I won't go into too much of what we talked about right now, as I plan to do my thoughts about Vietnam when I finally wrap-up this travelogue epic.

We could hear some singing coming from off in the distance from one or more of the seemingly hundreds of tour boats anchored in the general vicinity of ours. Luckily, no one on our boat was interested so our karaoke machine never got used.

After a great night of conversation and drinks we hit the sack.





Next - Morning in Halong and then back to Hanoi

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Day 15 (Part 1) - Ha Long Bay Tour

We got up early on November 23rd to get ready for our trip to Halong (or Ha Long as it seemed to usually be spelled in Vietnam) Bay. We packed up the small suitcase we bought the night before and headed down to breakfast. One of the ladies who works at the front desk got in the elevator, said hello and remarked that we were going to Halong Bay this morning. Like I said, the staff at the Hanoi Elegance 2 were on top of everything all the time. We were just going to take our bags with us to breakfast, but when we got to the ground floor she insisted on taking them and holding them at the desk for us while we ate.

After that we waited in the lobby for our ride to Halong City, which was supposed to show up at 8:00. There were several other guests waiting in the lobby going on various tours that day. A driver would show up and the front desk staff would know who was going with who. Eventually we were the only ones left waiting and it was way after the time we were supposed to leave.

Something I forgot to put in my last post was this picture of Lisa getting her shoes shined and fixed by one of the shoeshine kids on the street our hotel is on. This was the previous morning when we were leaving and he convinced Lisa to let him shine her shoes, which really needed it, and he also fixed the front of the sole that was peeling off and had been bugging her for a while. And he only asked for like a dollar or something, so of course she gave him a pretty big tip.

Unlike in the States, here they don't shine your shoes while you are wearing them but instead have slippers for you to put on while they work.



Anyway, as we were waiting for our ride to Halong City the shoeshine kid was outside again looking to get Lisa to come get another shine. Problem was, she was wearing the same shoes he did the day before and they still looked fantastic from his work. I really think the kid had a crush on my lady.

Finally our ride showed up and we went out to a crowded mini-bus. Luckily we were the last pick-up, so we didn't have to go through the whole snaking slowly through the city for an hour or so picking up a bunch of other people. Lisa and I sat down, with me on a seat that folded out from the row into the aisle, next to another American. We started chatting him up, his name was Richard and he was from San Francisco. A really super nice guy who was traveling alone. A few times he would say something about his "friend" not being able to come on the trip with him this time. My wife and I, being people who have had a ton of gay friends and like hanging out with gay people, have pretty good gaydar and it was beeping.

I don't remember what exactly we said but we threw in a few comments here and there to make it clear we were "gay-friendly" people and Richard finally started using words like "partner" instead of "friend" when talking about his other half.

After a few announcements by the guide of our bus, including a bunch of jokes about how the Vietnamese drive, we were left to chat with Richard for the whole trip. I always love talking to other Americans when we travel to the more "exotic" foreign countries because they tend to not be Republicans. Conservatives are usually afraid of things that are different from them so they stay at home or only travel to places where other white people live.

And certainly a gay man from San Francisco is not going to a member of the GOP, generally speaking. So we had a great time talking to Richard on the ride, spending a lot of time on the topic of politics and how it can be embarrassing these days to be from America when you travel to another country.

We had hoped to be hanging with Richard for the whole time in Halong Bay but it was not to be. He was only doing a day trip to Halong before leaving for Laos the next day, so when we got to Halong City we had to say goodbye as we were going to be on different boats. We were somewhat disappointed because talking with Richard was the best time we had talking to someone since we had met Roger from Australia in Cambodia.

We said goodbye to Richard, exchanged emails and then followed our new tour guide with about a dozen other people.

The pier area in Halong City was a chaotic scene with throngs of tourists trying to stay with their guides while having to navigate through all the other people trying to follow their guides. Losing our guide wouldn't just be an inconvenience because of missing the boat, this guy also had our passports. This was how it was in Vietnam all the time, by law the hotel you are staying at has to hold your passport.

We had started talking to a couple from Australia as we were walking with the group. The conversation started because our tour guide, when he was collecting passports, noticed that it was the woman's birthday that day and made kind of a joke out of it. So after telling her happy birthday and commenting on how this was a cool way to celebrate, we started talking with them about all the same stuff you talk with fellow travelers about; the places you've been so far on this trip, where you are going next, the craziness of the ride here, that kind of stuff.

Finally we made it to the actual pier and we walked down the concrete steps to the water's edge to climb aboard the small boat that would take us to the larger boat for our tour.

We snaked our way through the harbor and the maze of other boats waiting for their groups of tourists.

(click on photos for larger image)



Then we came to the Halong Phoenix Cruiser, the Chinese junk that would be taking us on our tour of Halong Bay and that would also be our hotel for the night.





Next - Cave exploring and kayaking in Halong Bay

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