Day 24-27 - Halong, Cat Ba Island and Country & Western!

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We were going to book our Halong Bay trip at the SInh Cafe Travel Bureau round the corner from our Hotel. Last time we were Vietnam, SInh Cafe had only one shop in Saigon and we booked our Mekong Delta trip through them. Now they are all over Vietnam and one of the largest Tour Operators in the country. However, only 3 1/2 weeks into our trip, we were convinced by our amiable Hotel Manager to go through him! ............. many things in Vietnam are toooooooo good to be true!! As we had been unable to visit Halong Bay 18 years ago, we were keen to see it this time, as it is proposed as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
Unfortunately on the 4 hour bus journey from Hanoi, the weather turned to light rain!! And on arrival at Halong Bay the sky was cloaked with a light cloud, with the beauty of the rising limestone mountains disappearing into the haze as you looked into the distance, but the air remained hot and the haze offered some protection from the sun. This was to be the weather for the next 4 days.

Now, ...... 3 1/2 weeks into the trip and the 'Beard' was coming on well!! ................. That's mine not Harry's!! ........... and like every bloke when you start your holiday and cast aside your razor to go for that rugged travelling look, in our eyes, we ALL turn into an unshaven George Clooney!! ........... Unfortunately, in the eyes of the family, they were now on a major Country & Western Tour with Kenny Rogers!!! ................. All I needed was a cowboy hat and guitar and with a couple of verses of ... "you picked a fine time to leave me Lucile", I had a whole new career ahead of me!!! .......................................................... Kenny will have to go!!

We arrived on our mid range cruise ship, (wooden boat) and it became quite apparent that the boat in the brochure was ............ just a little different to the boat in the water. But to give our amiable Hotel Manager the benefit of the doubt, he probably, accidentally, showed us the wrong brochure!! .......... and more for that charged us the wrong price!! However, it floated, the bedrooms were ok and the food was pleasantly edible.

The cruise was very quaint in its own way, although it became very apparent that every cruise had a set routine and the Vietnamese ran it like clockwork. "My" .... our initial Vietnamese guide, had clearly learned his English 'patter' from Tony Blair and complete with hand gestures he would repeat everything he said twice! "wha we do today! ......... Wha we do today" ............."yu will have 30 minute rest...... yu will have 30 minute rest" ......... "yu will then go kayak for 40 minute .......... yu will then go kayak for 40 minute!" ................... "YU, will then come back 12 oclok .......... YU, will then come back 12 oclok" ................. ""Yu, not be late .............. Yu, not be late!" ........... mmmmh, murmers from the guests of "is this some kind of concentration camp??" ... and "heh, 'My', chill out we are supposed to be on holiday", fell completely on deaf ears! ....... "time keepin very important in my country!" ............. "time keepin very important in my country!" ................ This was going to be an interesting trip!!
After we completed the first day with the masses, the other guests left and we had an extra day, which meant we were moved to another boat for the day ........ our own day boat! (above) with kayaks in tow. Fantastic, now we could go where we wanted, away from the masses! ...................................... "we go cave,... we go pearl market, .... we go fishing village, ... we go kayaking, .... we return to big boat"!!!! ...........Ahhhhhh! .... Our new guide had similar ideals!!.............. Following various elements of torture and threats of mutiny, ..... that was from Jo, by the way, ........ plus a few frantic calls to his boss, we eventually got our own way! .......... and thouroughly enjoyed the rest of the day chilling in Halong Bay.

Halong Bay is undoubtedly a beautiful place, and did deserve its proposed attribute as one the the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. However, the water was heavily polluted and far too bad to swim in! When you consider the huge scale of this area which has over 3,000 islands, Vietnam has a problem it needs to address quickly. Unfortunately, this very much summed up the current attitude of the Vietnamese Tourist Industry. The new young generation of budding businessmen were only interested in one thing, ..... 'The Yankee Dollar'. This was their new God and both the client and the ecological importance of the destination certainly took a back seat. If this isn't addressed soon I am sure the next ten years will see a huge decline of their tourist industry.

Another phrase that springs to mind in Vietnam is: "this time next year Rodney, we"ll be millionares!!" ......... at 20,000 dong to the dollar, a meal out at "The Green Mango" would set me back a cool 1.4million dong!!! and I didn't even pick up $500.00 after passing "GO"!!


The next two days we stayed on Cat Ba Island and through our amiable Hotel Manager, we had booked some very nice accomodation for two days at 'The Sunshine Resort Hotel' for a bit of respite! ........... or so we thought!! ........ This was suposed to be the best Hotel on Cat Ba Island but our new, female guide, dropped us off at 'The Cat Ba Island Resort Hotel' ................ After some confussion with our guide, the children had spotted the water slides in the swimming pool and had already decided that this is where we would stay! .................. Part of this Hotel was still under construction, but, as one of the only guests in the Hotel we did receive impecable service from our Tawainese Manager. In giving our amiable Hotel Manager in Hanoi the benefit of the doubt agian, he had clearly mistakenly shown us the wrong brochure, clearly got confussed with the actual name of the Hotel, ....... easy mistake!! and clearly, mistakenly, charged us a much higher price for the Hotel we weren't staying in!!! We did decide to give hime a bit of a "rocket" over the phone at this stage and he did treat us to dinner as an apology! ............. but heh! .......... this was Vietnam! The Hotel was actually very pleasent and the swimming pool water slides were the best thing ever, according to the children ................................ could have taken them to the Taro in Petersfield!!!! This gave us a bit of time to catch up on some tuition by the pool which worked very well.

The last day we got up at 6.30am to do a bit of beach-combing before breakfast and headed back to Hanoi for our last night before departing for Laos. The last day at Hanoi was good fun and the locals seemed a bit more genuine today. I managed to replace my damaged camera lens - the one that fell out of the aeroplane luggage compartment on day 1 due to the "muppet" sitting behind us - and the following morning we took another, this time small propelled flight, from Hanoi to Luang Prabang in Laos. The children seemed to get very over excited about flying, but understandibly so having regard to their age and they all felt very much like Tintin getting into this small propelled plane! ................... Laos was going to be hot!!