Cruising through Vietnam

Ninh Binh – It’s been several days since I wrote last. We spent the whole time in Halong Bay, mostly on Cat Ba Island, where there was limited Internet connectivity. The good news is that Internet was one of the very few limitations of this area, which was breathtaking. In fact, it looked even better than the tourism pictures we had viewed online, which we all know is a rare thing.

We spent 12 hours of insanity in Hanoi; none of us enjoyed the city at all. Even at night, this city rocks in the way that George Street does at midnight on Mardi Gras. The streets are packed with people, Vespas (mopeds), street vendors, cars, and dogs. There is garbage everywhere, horns honking constantly and it feels like every step you take is a risk. That all said, we suspect that our negative feelings about Hanoi have much to do with the fact that we are a group of 10, including six children, and our nerves are a little on edge keeping everyone safe. We’ve met other travelers who enjoyed the Hanoi scene so it all depends on your perspective I guess.

So we were all happy to leave Hanoi by bus, destined for Halong City, where we boarded one of the many “junks” in the bay. These boats are wooden cruisers that, collectively and from a distance, look like a fleet of pirate ships. That analogy got stronger when we were pointed to our boat, aptly named the Black Pearl. Onboard, we moved into our cabins, all lovely, and settled in for lunch as we cruised out the islands of Halong Bay. This place is definitely worth the visit. Three thousand high, rounded islands stand like pillars in the bay and they create a backdrop that almost feels fake. The air here is hot and still so there’s not a ripple on the water.

During our day on the junk, we kayaked and swam, hiked to an amazing limestone cave that looked like something out of Indiana Jones, sunbathed on the top deck of our junk, and spent the evening chatting while Len played and sang in the background. The next morning, everyone was up early for breakfast at 7:30 and we spent another day on the bay and the islands. The highlight was a bike ride and trek around Monkey Island, where a local man took our tour group into the jungle and to a cave where locals hid during the Vietnam war. 

Around 4 pm we were dropped off on Cat Ba Island, where we moved into our “deluxe” hotel for the night. After a questionable supper (unless gelatinous seaweed soup is your cup of tea), we rented bikes and cycled around the town, which is anything but your typical North American tourist town. In Halong Bay, people live and work on run-down boats. Even in Hanoi, it was evident that work and family life blend into one, with people wearing their pyjamas and walking the busy streets with their babies late in the evening. There was much to catch your attention on the streets of Hanoi’s old city at night – things like old bent over women washing dishes on the sidewalk. They actually set up their dish pans next to the road and crouch next to them to wash dishes – since there were so many dishes, we guessed they were from the restaurants. It’s all very, very different.

Back to the “deluxe” hotel (a joke among us because we had paid for the upgrade to a deluxe tour)….during our bike ride around Cat Ba, we stumbled on the area’s true deluxe hotel, a gorgeous resort on a secluded beach, with a pool and an outdoor bar and patio. We all salivated and after a quick conversation with the manager, Len and Steve got us a good deal for two nights. We hightailed it back to the other hotel, cleared out of the rooms, collected our passports, and made a bee-line for our new accommodations. Within a half hour of finding the place during our bikeride, the children were in the pool thoroughly enjoying their new digs.

What we didn’t count on was the reaction of our tour company to our spur-of-the-moment move. We basically jumped ship on the tour, since it was a package deal that included everything up to our return to the hotel in Hanoi. To make a long story short, abandoning the tour was an insult to the tour company and also a worry since we were in their care. We had not given any thought to this and realized that even though we meant no harm in leaving our tour early (and did not ask for any money back), our behaviour was not the thing to do in this culture. Lesson learned. (but we still had an awesome time in Sunny Cat Ba resort!)

So we reluctantly left Sunny Resort early this afternoon and got the bus and ferry back to the mainland. We arranged a driver to take us by mini-van to our next stop: Ninh Binh, which is only 140 km from Halong Bay, but it took 3 hours to get here. The driving is wilder than China. Cars, buses, motorcycles, cows, donkeys, and pedestrians weave their way among each other and from the front seat of a vehicle, you constantly feel like you’re about to have a head-on collision. The funny thing is, though, there really is a system to this madness. We’ve seen only one accident and all drivers seem to understand the code of conduct on the road. It seems to work around here, partly because you can never really get up much speed. The fastest our driver went today, for example, was 70 km/hour.

Tonight we’re in Xuan Hoa Hotel (more like a hostel), where we just had a nice supper that involved cooking your own meat on little grills at the tables. The children had the biggest meals they’ve had since McDonalds in Beijing. Tomorrow we’re renting Vespas and cruising around the back roads of this town. It will be our last day together with the Renaults.

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