Halong Bay, Vietnam

Our first side-trip was to Halong Bay on a 3 day 2 night tour we sorted through our hotel. We were picked up from the hotel early on the 2nd January and taken by minibus to Halong City, a trip of 4 hours or so with the requisite rest stop to break up the journey at a huge big touristy mega-mart. All the souvenirs were about 5 times the price of what you could get them for from the street stalls in Hanoi, and I wondered whether anybody actually bought anything... Sure enough, one of the Americans returned to the bus with  a bag full of goodies. She was happy with her purchases, so fair enough.   

We arrived at the busy port and a small boat took us out to our junk. We used the Huong Hai Junk company and were pleased with them. It was a gorgeous wooden boat with a maximum of 8 cabins, but there were only 8 of us on the trip.

The cabins were on the lower deck and had everything you needed with a compact bathroom with toilet and shower. The view out was absolutely superb!

The middle deck was the dining room. The food for the duration of the cruise was superb (and plentiful!). Lots and lots of seafood including fish, prawns, crab and oysters. The presentation of the food was also excellent, they were very big on their carved vegetable garnishes!

Upstairs was the sundeck where we spent most of our time while cruising. It was winter in that part of Vietnam, so got a bit chilly once the sun went down. The others on the trip with us would retire indoors then, but Will and I made the most of it, staying outside until dark. It was a magical place to watch the nearly 2000 limestone islands and islets go by... Plus, there were cosy fleece blankets on board in which to snuggle under and stay warm.

Our first stop was Sung Sot (Surprise) Cave.This was a big cave with three compartments. It was nice enough, but I wasn't as 'wowed' as others on the trip (you get a bit spoilt for that type of scenery coming from NZ!). It was pretty busy with most of the boats stopping there.  

After the cave and once we had returned to the boat we had the choice of kayaking or going on a small row boat to explore another bay.

Will and I chose the row boat as I didn't think my knee would straighten enough for the kayak! We went under a nice rock arch and into a quiet little bay. Our guide had bought a bag of bananas with him, and it soon became apparent why!

Once back on the boat we chilled out on the top deck, playing some cards, enjoying the sunset, and basically just watching the world pass by...

 

There are still a few small communities who permanently live in the bay in small floating fishing villages, and this enterprising women did the rounds of all the tourist boats, selling snacks and cold beer cheaper than that on board!

 

There are only three places in the bay where the tourist boats are allowed to anchor overnight, and 80 boats are allowed on any one night. It meant sharing our space overnight with a lot of others, but we enjoyed the pretty lights...

 

The next morning was a bright and early start. We turned down the 6:15am Tai Chi session for the sake of an extra half hour in bed!

 

The first stop in the morning was an island where you could climb up (a LOT of steps!) to a pagoda on the top for 360 degree views of the bay. I stayed down and chilled out on the beach as it would have been a bit tough on my knee. Ours was one of the first boats there that morning, and Will legged it up the hill so got to enjoy the views with only 1 other person for a short while until the rest of the hoards arrived...

After the island, Will and I, along with an Australian couple, boarded a 'day boat' (which was another junk very similar to the one we'd been staying on) and went off to explore a different part of the bay. Our original boat returned to port with the other people who were just doing the 2-day/1-night option.

It was lovely getting away from the masses for a while. We saw very few other boats as the majority of people opt for the 1-night option. Due to all the islands, parts of the bay were really sheltered with the sea like glass.

We then boarded a (very) small boat to explore one of the floating fishing villages. We were slightly perturbed when the boy rowing the boat for us spent about 15 minutes bailing water out of it before we got on! However, it ended up being fine.

It was interesting exploring around the fishing village and seeing how the people lived. It would be a pretty tough, not to mention isolated life!

Next on the agenda was a visit to a pearl farm which was also very interesting.  I wasn't interested in buying (being more of a diamonds girl myself!) but the Australian lady bought some nice earrings.

We enjoyed another superb lunch back on the boat, then for the afternoon there was the option of some kayaking. Will and the Australian guy went out together, while his wife and I chilled out on the boat and read our books.

When they returned we headed back to our original boat which another two couples (doing the one night trip) had boarded. Once again we enjoyed a relaxed evening and another lovely sunset.

It was another early start on our final morning (and once again, we weren't tempted by the Tai Chi!). After breakfast we arrived at another island with another walk up to a lookout. I decided to give this one a go as the steps were a bit more user-friendly than the last one. I made it up without any problems and was rewarded with a lovely view.

Coming down was a bit harder on the knees, but we had a stop half-way down to check out some monkeys. There were several, but the one in the pic below was obviously the boss. The rangers put a bag of food out and this monkey ate 3 bananas one after the other, then several slices of bread! He would snarl if any of the other monkeys tried to get near the food, and would also bare his teeth and pretend to leap out if any of the tourists got too close to him as they went up/down the stairs.

Once we returned to the boat we had an early lunch, then sailed back to port. Then it was time to hit the road back to Hanoi. We had a magical time in Halong Bay. It was great to visit a place that I had seen so many pictures and postcards of.

 

Hong Kong and Hanoi

We flew into Hong Kong on the 30th December and made our way by airport bus to my brother Warren's brand spanking new hostel The Mahjong where he had booked us into one of his 'deluxe queen pods'. It was a rather interesting bus trip, with the first bus we caught literally catching on fire! We were pulled over by the police who noticed the black smoke coming out the back of the bus. We then stood on the side of the motorway for a bit until the next airport bus came along and we all crammed into it. Eventually we made it to the hostel. The place is great, Warren and his two business partners have done an excellent job fitting it out and anticipating travellers needs...    It is things like free super fast wifi and numerous power sockets all over the place that make a difference. It is a wonder Warren has any spare time as he has already set up Hong Kong Pub Crawl and Dim Sum Experience businesses, as well as holding down a part-time teaching job!

The next day we flew into Hanoi for our 2-week Vietnam adventure. If anybody needs a super cheap, super awesome hotel in Hanoi we can highly recommend the Hanoi 3B Hotel. We had a deluxe room which cost us the princely sum of USD$25.50 per night and included free wifi, a couple of bottles of water each day, plus an amazing breakfast each morning, including some very good beef pho. The pho, along with some of the exceptionally good (and super strong!) Vietnamese coffee was the perfect start to the day.

 

The hotel was ideally located, right in the heart of the old quarter with excellent restaurants just moments away.

The thing that made our stay in the hotel so memorable was the staff. They were incredibly friendly, and couldn't do enough for us. We used the hotel as a base for our whole time in Vietnam as we were flying back out of Hanoi 2 weeks later. We did trips to Sapa, Halong Bay, then down to Hue and Hoi
 An, returning to the hotel each time. This meant that we could leave one of our big packs at the hotel and just take the things we needed for each  trip. They really were sweet... Every time we headed off on an overnight train they would send us off with extra bottles of water and a roll of toilet paper! The lobby boy would also travel by scooter to the train station, meet our taxi and take us to the correct compartment on the train. Whenever we checked into one of the rooms we had a towelling animal and fresh rose petals to greet us!

Since it was New Year's Eve when we arrived, we thought we had better wander down to the lake in the old quarter where all the action was. Apart from a random rave, blasting out dance music, there wasn't actually a huge amount happening, despite the thousands of people lining the lake's shore. We got a few fireworks at midnight, but they were bit of a fizzler really... I think they save the big celebration for the lunar new year!

Hanoi is a pretty frenetic city. Crossing the roads is an interesting experience thanks to the numerous motorbikes and scooters that rule the roads. A 'green man' on traffic lights gives you a sporting chance of getting across a street, but only about half the traffic actually obeys the red light! We got our street crossing down to a fine art... Our favourite tactic was to find a local woman with a baby in a stroller, then use that as a moving shield with the assumption that nobody would hit the baby! We soon figured that you just had to start walking, regardless of how busy the street was. As long as you maintained a constant pace and didn't deviate from your path, the motorbikes would just go around you. Families of 4 were the most we saw on one bike, but friends who have also been to Hanoi have seen 5...

One day we happened to walk past a school at finishing time. The 'school pick-up' is rather different than what we are used to in NZ!

Some of the wiring in Hanoi is 'interesting' to say the least. We hoped the linesman knew what he was doing!

Our favourite thing to do in Hanoi was just wandering the streets of the old quarter. You got whole streets selling the same type of goods. We also loved walking around the lake which seemed to be a popular past time with the locals. The couple of days after New Year the area was totally packed.

  

 

The Vietnamese food was amazing, I don't think we had one bad meal, and it was all incredibly cheap, including being able to buy beers in restaurants for less than NZD$1 each, In general the food was super fresh and tasty. They use lots of chili, lime, lemongrass and fish sauce, as well as loads and loads of fresh herbs. My type of food! We enjoyed just wandering the streets and coming across little local market areas like below. The fish was so fresh it was still twitching!

They also have some very interesting trees in Vietnam!

We had a favourite restaurant in Hanoi just up from our hotel. On our last night there we managed to get a premium table on a private balcony where we had an absolute feast. 

The green mango salad is one of my favourites and their version of it was awesome. This huge plate of it cost less than NZD$2 too!

 

We also paid 'tourist prices' (which were still far less than what we'd pay in NZ) to have coffee and cake in a pretty upmarket cafe by the lake. Nic and Claire, this is where your postcards got written!

 

 

One of the few cultural things we did in Hanoi was to visit the Temple of Literature which is Vietnam's first national university. It was an interesting place to wander around. Below is the shrine to Confucius.

Will likes his dragons, so he was happy getting his fix. He especially liked these ones that looked like they were breathing fire from the incense.

 Here are a few more pics...

All in all we really enjoyed our time in Hanoi. It made an excellent base for all of our other adventures.