Sunday, 12 July 2009

Halong Bay (Cat Ba Island) - 11th July 2009

I was up at 7.15 this morning, ready for a 7.30am breakfast. Thankfully I didn't need to have a rushed shower as I enjoyed one the previous evening. The coffee was a bit poor, and so was the rest of breakfast, especially in comparison to the buffet at the previous hotel. The Irish said that Rachel the mum, had popped out during the night for some fresh air at around 11.30pm, and from the distance, the small girl with the cheeky grin from before, had obviously noticed the movement, and started rowing up to the boat, asking if she wanted more beer!
After breakfast we were dropped off at Cat Ba Island where we waited to get a bus to the National Park where we were to be hiking for a few hours. Whilst waiting, there were lots of women and a few girls, with trays like they have in posh theatres to sell ice-cream, although these girls sold drinks, pringles and some sweets and cigarettes. There was a girl who looked identical in face and in personality and selling power to the girl from the boat last night, but she was a year older in fact. There was a lady trying to barter her way down to paying less than 30 pence for a packet of cigarettes from the original 45 pence, which shocked me rather, as for them usually costing $10-12, it seemed crazy that she'd quibble at such costs!!
We got on the bus, which was boiling, despite having air-conditioning. I felt a bit claustrauphobic because of the heat and the line of rucksacks that filled the isle, so should we need to escape, we couldn't, or at least not easily!
We eventually arrived at the National Park, where we stocked up on water, and after passing lots of peanuts out to dry, we begun our climb up the crazy number of steps, and later the less formed, mearly trodden out paths which eventually turned into practically rock-climbing our way up to the summit. I had to sit down several times on the way. Despite drinking heaps of water, as learned from Raleigh last summer, I still felt exhausted, although I didn't feel as floppy or as ill as Anja and Rachel, so I was thankful. We were both sweating like I've never sweated before, we were absolutely dripping. It was truely disgusting! I was glad my new backpack has an airy space at the back so it doesn't sweat so much, but in this heat, it's still impossible not to sweat profusely!
When we eventually climbed our way to the top, 3kms later, we were surprised at how unamazing the view was. Not only was the top littered with drinks bottles (tut tut! lazy ignoranuses), but the view wasn't even that special, it was just like the view from most other mountains on a huge landscape; green forestry with more hills! I had expected to see over the islands, and maybe some animals on the way... It was a bit of a waste of time to be honest, especially for all the exhaustion!
I landed weirdly on my big toe, which I seemed to have sprained when on my bike in Hoi An, so it was hurting a bit. Plus the rocks below my feet were quite sharp, and sometimes they were slippy, so they got wedged in some painful grooves sometimes. I was glad to have my trainers on, and have no idea how some people managed the walk in not only flip-flops, but some had bare feet!! Mental!!
We got a bus back to the part of the island, where we were to have lunch. It was at the hotel where we should have been staying, but the previous night Mai had informed us that they'd somehow overbooked us, and the food was quite bad and the staff hadn't been too friendly, so we'd be better off on the boat. We agreed anyway, as we didn't mind spending longer on the boat.
The lunch was a disappointment. Anja and I had gone towards the quieter end of the restaurant, but after the waitress kept on saying 'room number please' repetitively, and didn't speak enough English to understand that we weren't going to be staying there, the tour guide arrived and moved us to the very rowdy end, full of drunk Vietnamese men. It was awful! I ended up eating rice and the green vegetables again. They had given us tofu in a chilli sauce, except it was an extremely chilli-fied sauce, and I practically had a fit as it was so spicey!
We then had an hour free, before our 3 hour bus and then boat trip on a different boat, to our own boat. Anja and I wandered about, having a look at the very nice beach on the island, wishing we had been just able to go swimming instead of the hike that morning. There was a hotel/resort with flumes, and the bay looked really nice and peaceful. It seemed to be quite a popular place to be.
At 6pm, after I spend a few hours just reading on the other boat, we finally arrived back 'home' on our boat. We had a bit of time before the 7pm dinner, and were disappointed to find that for our last night, we'd be having a different tour guide. Thankfully it was still a she, and she was very nice, but didn't speak as good English as Mai. The dinner was identical to the previous night, and despite a request by the Irish family for chips (as we'd had them for lunch the previous day) for the son, the message obviously wasn't well understood, and they never arrived. I didn't get any noodles either, so had to make do with the rice and greenary!
Over dinner, there was some 'hot off the press' news from the new tour guide, a typhoon was on its way, so our trip would have to be cut short. We'd be setting back even earlier to go back to Hanoi. I was quite excited about it all, although some looked rather nervous!
The was now a couple of groups of young people in their 20s, who seemed a lot more talkative than the odd combination of people the previous night. They attempted to do some fishing, but thankfully were unsucessful, and by 9pm, the karyoke had started, and by 10pm, I was in bed! I missed the spectacular lightening storm that apparently became quite scary as it ventured nearer to the boat, and looked purple in colour. I had heard the thunder however, and got quite excited. Rachel had found it hard to go to sleep with the noise from the Karyoke, but somehow I managed to sleep!

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