Hanoi, Vietnam's bustling capital... and Halong Bay

We arrived into Hanoi's old quarter early in the morning (6a.m.) in the midst of a busy street market. Our guest house was tucked down a narrow alley that was full of vegetable and meat vendors, the later butchering and selling their meat right on the streets. Water was used to wash away remains of meat and blood onto the pavement which was quite a sight first thing in the morning after a restless, overnight, 12hour bus ride to the capital.

We spent a day wandering around the bustling city filled with motorbikes and then booked a three day boat trip through Halong Bay, an absolutely beautiful part of Vietnam. The Halong Bay area is an area in the North East of Vietnam where almost 2000 islands rise from the tropical waters into fascinating shapes of Karst formed limestone.

Our three day trip was really lovely and relaxing. We had a super group of people on our trip, mostly Brits (and a notable Aussie guy), which we have decided are a great bunch to hang out with and have a good time (and maybe cause a bit of innocent trouble). The trip began with a mini bus ride out to the docks of Halong Bay city, a busy dock with hundreds of tourist boats and where you begin to feel like you are on a sort of tourist assembly line. Right after we boarded lunch began while our big wooden boat puttered out of the harbour. We made our way to a small island with some giant Karst formed caves which were really spectacular, despite the tacky disco lighting that the Vietnamese have decided would improve things. You really felt the tourist assembly line in full effect here, along with the absolutely stupid comments from our tour guide of how certain parts of the cave looked like Dragons, Romeo and Juliet and giant breasts to feed a thousand men! All of these things were a stretch, even with the best of imaginations. So, we steered away from the group and ended up having a few moments of peace to enjoy the splendor of the caves, with out the moronic commentary. The caves were truly a magnificent display of huge and ancient stalagmites and stalactites and possibly the biggest caves we have ever been in. After the caves, we boarded our boat and sailed through some gorgeous watery scenery dotted with jungle covered islands . This is a really spectacular area of our planet, stunning Karst formations were in every direction. It is really no wonder that this region has also been protected and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We spent a night on Cat Ba Island where we were introduced to 'Bia Hoi' with our group. Hoi beer is a locally made fresh beer, without any preservatives, that costs less that 15 cents a glass, ironically much cheaper than water. Cheap beer and a bunch of Brits with us tagging along, it could have ended up getting really crazy, but we were all reasonably responsible, but in retrospect this was all just a mild warm up for the next night we would spend on the boat, but we will come to that in a bit.

The following morning we did a short hike on the island up to a viewing tower that would have surely sent UK health and safety workers into cardiac arrest. Feeling like living on the edge we climbed the old rusted tower to get a better view of the bizarrely shaped hills on the island. On top of the tower the platform was made of old wooden planks that just lie loose on the rusted structure. The tower was about three stories high, but also atop a shear sided hill, making it feel dangerously higher. After returning to the bottom of the tower we saw a hand painted sign warning that only 5 people at a time should be on the tower, which was clearly originally designed to hold many more than this. Upon seeing the sign the next logical question I thought of was; 'how did they figure out that this rusted beast couldn't actually handle more than 5 people?' Hmmm...

We slid our way back down the insanely slippery mud and sharp rock strewn trail, back to the road where we boarded our bus. It turned out that flip-flops, the footwear of choice, didn't make for greatest footwear on this trail that must have been sponsored by the island hospital's finance department. We all did manage to get away unscathed, albeit totally covered in red mud.

We then headed for the boat for an afternoon sail to a pretty cove where we all did a bit of Kayaking. There were interesting floating villages nearby which we paddled through while navigating around the small islands. It felt great to have the freedom to float around on our own and to enjoy the sunset with the tall, narrow islands as silhouettes. After this we boarded our boat again, there was already a plan in the works to negotiate a better price for the beer on board, our Aussie comrade had decided we should begin negotiations by offering to pre-buy 30 beers, uh oh, things were going to get interesting tonight. Following successful negations the nights liquid-fueled entertainment began. Lots of fun, jumping off the roof of the boat for a late-night swim, upsetting the crew, and threats that the local Vietnamese boat police would be called in to sort us out. I would say the evening went over successfully and we went to bed relatively early (2:30am) and left the Aussie and Scotsman to take things to the next level, or two.

The next day we puttered around the karst islands some more and swam in some fiercely strong currents. I was certain the captain was trying to drown us after the previous nights' performance. We eventually made our way back to Halong Bay City where we were greeted with some drama by a machette swinging Vietnamese man clearly trying to kill another man. The local bystanders were totally unfazed by this, so perhaps that man has a reputation for machete attacks, who knows? At times the conflict was looking like scenes from a Jackie Chan kung-fu film, especially when the defendant found a large stick which he used to effectively block swings of the machete. Following this bit of entertainment we headed in for lunch at a local restaurant and then made our way back to Hanoi.

Upon our return to Hanoi, we were invited to stay with a high school friend of Steff's, Kelly (Martin) Caleb and her family. Her and her husband are teaching in Hanoi at the UN school, raising their son and traveling through Asia at every opportunity. It was great for Steff to reconnect with Kelly and for us to spend time in a family home, a pleasant change from guesthouses and hotels.

New Photos have been posted in the Gallery.

Cheers everyone and we'd love to hear from those of you who are reading the blog, we're craving some update emails from friends and family!! :-)