Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 24 - Thursday June 2nd 2016 - Hanoi to Halong Bay, Vietnam

The alarm went off at 06:00 and like all days when you know you have to be up we had not slept very well again. Still, places to be, drivers to meet we were up and out and down to breakfast in plenty of time.

After breakfast and having just got back to our room we were called to say that our driver had arrived half an hour early so we zipped up the cases and headed down to reception to check out and pay the bill.

After the obligatory tip to the bag man we got into our private car that was taking us on the four-hour journey to Halong.

The road out of Hanoi was as busy as ever, more of those pesky scooters, the ants of the road over here. The road took us through industrial areas, towns, rice paddy fields, construction sites and more. The drivers really are

are erratic here, not ours but the lorry drivers are seriously misguided. They overtake with no room to spare, blast their horns nonstop and change lane on a whim. It’s surprising that they don’t all jack knife all over the road the way they drive. This does not make it a comfortable drive for a passenger. Trevor was in and out of consciousness, nodding off as we got out of Hanoi such was our lack of sleep. Me? I used the time to actually try and get the blogs up to date and gazed out of the window.

At times it felt like the trip to Halong should be relabelled How Long?? Once again we seemed to have been lumbered with the slowest driver in the world and combine that with the continual beep beep beep from all the coaches and buses and lorries that are on the roads it slowly grates. The road was mostly single carriageway and parts of the road where little more than dust tracks so it’s not a smooth comfortable journey but by far the most annoying thing is the constant use of horns. It’s relentless.

The driver made the obligational stop at a tourist shop, we were brave enough to refuse this time and just stayed in the air conditioned car. He really speaks no English so communication is really difficult, then again at the last count we did not speak one word of Vietnamese so no ones to blame and we are in his country.

As we got closer to Halong (about an hour out) the scenery started to change and by now you could see limestone mountains in the distance and to the side of the many micro towns that seem to have just popped up along the side of the road. It was a single lane of buildings on both sides of the road that lined the way to the coast and the semi industrial feel stayed with us for the whole journey. We really just wanted to get on that boat now and prayed that they spoke English!!!

At first glance Halong feels like Brighton is to London, Halong is to Hanoi (although at least double the distance). As we approached Halong you could see the biggest Ferris wheel up on top of the hill by the port, a cable car ride and a funfair complete with white knuckle ride roller coaster. There were sandy beaches and a really busy shipping port full of tankers and tourist cruise boats all waiting to go out to see. Now we just needed to get to ours.

As we arrived at our terminal we logged into emails etc. and unfortunately received one from Viajet regarding our flight to Ho Chi Minh, they had changed the departure time from 1800 to 23:30…..damn! We sent an email back saying this was not good enough especially as we could see they were still selling sets on earlier planes but we won’t know the outcome until we get back to the cruise terminal as we will have no internet…..third world problems eh?!

So the good news is yes, they speak English! The boat is actually amazing. It’s the size of an old London Barge with about twenty cabins on board. I actually booked this as part of Trevor’s birthday present (even though it is not his birthday until September). For that reason, I booked the best cabin on board. We don’t just have a balcony it’s a whole terrace right at the front of the boat. We have two sun loungers, a table and chairs and pot plants out on the terrace and inside we have a dressing area, sitting area, beds and even one of those weird Japanese toilets that you can heat the seat up on and then have the force of Niagara Falls going up your bottom to clean it!

We set off into Halong Bay more or less as soon as we got on board and you just knew right from the start that it was going to be really hard to not keep reaching for the camera every five seconds as once again Vietnam is spoiling us with its natural beauty.

We are in the South China Sea, an emerald green sea that is literally punctured by hundreds if not thousands of limestone mountains breaking the surface form the seas floor. These mountains are covered in greenery, not trees although there are some but hedges and shrub growth, wild yucca plants, a sort of moss like covering. All of the mountains are a unique shape and all of them breath taking (I’m going to be using that word a lot).

We had half an hour to find our way to our cabins and rest before it was time to sit and eat for our first meal on the boat. Well what can I say, the presentation of the food puts Royal Caribbean to shame and so does the taste! So lunch was a mushroom & seafood soup (all fragrant and Thai tasting) followed by a mango and vegetable salad with prawns. Next up and we had spring rolls with chilli dip and then for main course a sea bass filet with sticky rice and vegetables in a soy glaze and it was not over yet. To follow was a dessert and then coffee and tea if you wanted it. We have not eaten so much since getting off the last cruise (well it feels like that but that’s not quite true) but certainly for the last few days.

We sat out on our terrace, really chilling out and enjoying the breeze and the stunning scenery as we motored past.

I’d booked a bottle of champagne for us on board as well so we could sit out on our own private terrace and watch the sunset together with a toast to each other. (although we did not do that tonight).

So this was not just a leisurely cruise around Halong Bay and the stunning scenery we also had things to do, places to go and things to see and it was not long until we were boarding the transfer craft taking us off the main boat by tender to our first port of call.

Our first port of call was both fishing village and pearl cultivation factory, if factory is the right word to use? We landed from the tender onto a floating pontoon to be taken off to in a wooden rowing boat around the fishing village that at present was hidden behind all the limestone monoliths shooting out of the sea. Just like the other day our captain of the rowing boat was female and she had her work cut out for her with sea currents to face and the weight of six people to propel in the water.

The village sort of sat within a circle of the limestone mountains protecting all that went on inside, like a natural harbour but out in the middle of the sea as a shoreline to the limestone was never far away. Unlike the other day when we visited Tam Kok this lady rower did it the conventional way, she rowed with her arms not her feet.

Once we went into the limestone circle, floating houses were dotted around the place, like brightly coloured sheds on floating pontoons made from plastic barrels. Now call me cynical again but to be honest they really did not look that lived in anymore but that could have been that all the occupants were out fishing or harvesting pearls or something. The only living thing that we saw in this so called village were a couple of dogs and two cats. Never the less weather the residents occupy these houses for a short time or these are their forever homes it would still take a unique person to stomach life here. I’m pretty sure you would need to be born into it rather than choosing is as a way of life.

As we completed the circle we ended up at the pearl harvesting area, a sea of nets filled with submerged laundry baskets full of oysters of different types, the keepers hoping that they would ultimately produce a pearl. We were shown three different pearls that were found in these waters with one of them being called Southsea (the place I was bought up in, obviously not here but an area of Portsmouth). We had an explanation about how cultivated pearls are made, basically by force feeding the shell with the tools to make oysters grow and actually watched it happen. It was actually quite bizarre watching a tray of oysters being lifted out of the water then watching them open their shells, a bit like something out of a horror film as when they are covered with algae and sea urchins they don’t really look like clam shells at all.

We skipped the gift shop, neither of us is really in the market for a string of pearls and headed back to the boat via the tender.

Once on board we were given the chance to go swimming in the south China Sea so we both went back to the room, swimmers on (no, we don’t wear speedos) and jumped in. The water temperature was like a warm bath and actually not particularly salty. What was difficult though was the current and you could feel it pushing you further away from the boat. At one stage they got a bit worried about Trevor and actually threw him a ring on a rope but he simply changed swimming stroke form breaststroke to front crawl and came back to the boat without needing it.

Swim over, showered and de salted we headed upstairs to the main dining room where they were doing a Vietnamese cookery lesson and todays example was the cold rice paper spring roll. We had arrived about three minutes late but one of the crew was still giving the demonstration on how to make and prepare one of these yummy creations. The ingredients were all laid out, Mango, Coriander, Mint, Carrot, Peanuts, the homemade sauce for dipping the finished roll into and the rice paper itself. Eventually Trev went up and had a go himself and did a really good job, he received a round of applause for his efforts and we got to taste his handy work…. yum yum.

Cooking display over and it was now happy hour on board so with two beers and two gins on the way it was looking like the beginnings of a good night. Half price alcohol whilst we got to watch the sun go down in spectacular style as it slowly disappeared behind one of the limestone edifices.

As the sun reached the horizon line we all headed in for dinner and what a dinner it was, honestly the food on this trip is outstanding and presented like it is a Michelin star affair, we have never seen anything like it. We started with pumpkin soup followed by a banana flower salad with pork cake (if we were being honest here the pork cake was a fancy normal sausage and we still don’t know what banana flower is but its yummy). Out then came chicken rolls with a vegetable followed by BBQ’d seafood with mash potato and veg that again looked divine and tasted just as good.

We sat next to a couple who were originally from Canada but now lived in Thailand and they were here to escape the summer sun in Thailand. They had been in Vietnam for three months but were still to go to Hanoi. They were fascinating people having walked away from their whole lives sixteen years ago and found peace for themselves in travel, inspiring and motivational they were, their names were Olga and Nori and they now lived in Chang Mai in the north of Thailand.

We finished off the rest of our happy hour drinks and make our excuses and headed for the cabin hoping for a good night’s sleep. The boat was anchored in a shallow area, along with many other boats for the night so our only movement was by the currents and the breeze.

I sat and wrote some blog whilst Trev read a bit of mac format (computer magazine) and then it was lights out and sleep…. Well hopefully as at the time of writing this all we could hear were constant footprints from the deck above our cabin and party noise from the boat next to us, we will let you know in the morning how things went!

N.B. The time of lights out on board for us was 2130……such lightweights!