Hanoi – The boat trip tears, fears, & caves,pt 1
Waking up in Hanoi is exciting, anticipating the day ahead! We are both really looking forward to Halong Bay overnight cruise.
After a tasty egg breaky at the Golden Sun, we hop on the bus. Every couple/ group are from a different country! I like this! It makes me feel I am getting an extra bonus of learning more about even more cultures!
So the bus is a bit of a squeeze and I manage to squish 4 mozzys on the 4hr journey. Ok, well it will all be worth it with the beauty of Halong Bay. When we get off, the sky is completely cloudy and quite smoggy! What a shame! Ah well. We get chatting to a really cool couple from Hungary about our Easter hol & the story of our win to Leonardo hotel in Budapest.
We go to get on the small transfer boat down some steep stone stairs with no rails, and I am not the best at balance. But Leon hangs onto me. The penultimate step is brown, and my foot went from under me! Luckily, Leon’s grasp and my other foot come to my rescue. I’m a bit shaken but ok. Prob just the what ifs, and the slight embarrassment. They order us to put on the life jackets, and the top clip won’t do up over my chest. I look around and everyone looks much fitter than me… hiking types. I get a bit worried I am out of my depth here. And the anxiety hits. We now all have to get off the little boat onto the bigger boat. Leon gets off with the two back packs, and I just have the carrier bag with a few packs of crisps, my hoodie, and some toiletries in. This disabling my left hand. Leon has been ushered along, and my trusty hand to hold has vanished. I step up onto the rail of the first boat, and onto the rim of the next, which also has quite low ceiling, and a steep drop to the deck. I inelegantly bungle my way into the boat unscathed, and we go to sit at the tables. I sit in a chair opposite Leon, and next to our Budapest friends. It has no place made up and a massive wide wooden leg in the way. So I have to move to a different table. Next to two men that seemed to speak no English. Leon came across next to me, and we sipped some slightly cold, lack lustre tea.
We are all called to collect our keys and take our bags to the cabin. It is lower deck at the back, next to the engine room. Noisy, smelling of petrol, damp masked with air freshener, and no lock on the door. I can’t breath so well, and the vibrations make me feel ill. I burst uncontrollably into tears, poor Leon dealt with it like a trooper. I was so disappointed, and anxious about what the days ahead may bring. We go up for lunch, and I’m fairly self conscious about my puffy red eyes. The food looks unappealing so I just drink the beer and nibble some clams. I gave myself a bit of a talking to and made talk with the chaps opposite. One speaks a bit of English although not very confidently, and tells me he is from Iran! Amazing! I strike up conversation about our Persian friend Bidjan, and try to recollect the things he has told me about their architecture, singers and culture. The Iranian tells me not many English go to Iran because of the Hijabs (I don’t bother telling him it’s more fear of war going on), and Iranians can’t get visas to England easily. I begin to feel better now, and the Iranian man thanks me for helping him practice English.
We take a trip to some mammoth caves inside one of the the Halong Bay mountains. There are soooo many steps! All the way up, all the way down, back up, and then back down. More up and down than the grand old duke of York! I realise I probably won’t be able to walk tomorrow after these caves haha! While the twisting deep high caves are filled with stalactites and stalagmites, smelling damp and sandy, the tour guide points out ones that are shapes of various things, including a monkey, a turtle that people left money next to, and a ‘banana’, shall we say. I would have perhaps enjoyed a little educational info, such as the years it dates to, the geological composition… nope! Many more shapes such as the happy Buddha and the dragon and babies. Reminded me of cloud spotting. We sail to the next island, dedicated to Ti-Top, the Russian pilot that helped the Vietnamese defeat the USA. I think the USSR has a large part in making sure Vietnam stayed Vietnam. Lindsay will be telling me the parts I may not have absorbed in history lessons at school. There is a golden beach and some mentalists are our swilling in the sea, even though it is dusk and a definite chill. Hoodie on day today!
When we get back, there is a ‘cooking class’. It is rolling some strips of veg & other bits of reconstituted meat into rice paper. It’s a great bonding exercise more than anything. We have Portuguese, Swiss, English, Irish, Greek, Hungarian, Iranian, 3 devoted Muslim ladies who haven’t really spoken to anyone, and appear to not want to. I am told their passports were Singapore. And of course our Vietnamese guide. How amazing to have so many nationalities, all famished and unimpressed with rice paper and veg strips. I have some funny photos and everyone looks like they want to die. (Below)
There is dinner too, thank goodness. It was some cold chips, a really bony fish and some other revolting items. I’m not s fussy eater AT ALL, but I couldn’t manage more that a few bites of the reconstituted lemony fish. So all is not lost, as it is happy hour! I had a few mojitos and margaritas and it made things much better.
Leon tried late night squid ‘fishing’ with what looked like a garden cane with some wire and a green plastic hook with a few of the others. Needless to say, they caught nothing but it was really fun to sit and watch the moonlit, still waters glistening with the flickering lights from neighbouring boats. We had a long conversation with Juang, our tour guide about eating dog, cat and rabbit, and the morality in which animals are ‘ok’ to kill and eat. He eats cats and dogs but not pet ones, and doesn’t eat rabbits, as rabbits don’t hurt anyone. So I asked him on that basis, if he would eat violent prisoners. It was a bit lost in translation, but I think he would!
*I later found out this is because many of the Vietnamese are so poor, they don’t have the luxury to choose what meat they eat, and will eat almost anything, as starving hungry. A complete revelation to my ‘rich country’ thinking. Cringe at myself laughing at this!!
