Ha Long Bay does not take kindly to pirates

Posted on February 12, 2011 by ~Anna

Junks are dwarfed by the magnificent limestone islands around Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is a world heritage site and there aren’t enough words in the English language to justly describe the unique and spectacular beauty of this place.  Seeing it for yourself, however, is often the cause of many headaches for tourists, especially budget tourists. This is because there are at least several hundreds of tour options, ranging in price and purported quality, and, as with everything in Vietnam, it can be difficult to tell when you’re getting a good deal or when you’re getting ripped off, until the service is delivered and you’re on board.

I’d read about a do-it-yourself tour of Ha Long Bay from Travelfish, where the guys basically hired someone in a boat to motor them around. But they did this after sampling other cruises and would have known the lay of the land, where to go, what to ask for, and critically, they wouldn’t care if they missed anything because they’d seen it already. Even if you’re pressed for cash, I wouldn’t recommend a DIY tour of Ha Long Bay if you really want to experience the beauty of the place.

Ha Long Bay, after a hike to the top of one island

The only way to see Ha Long Bay is on a guided tour aboard a cruise ship. The more money you pay, the more services you receive, activities you can do, and better comfort you travel in (apparently—and I say apparently because I only did one tour, rather comfortably, so cannot compare it to others). I arrived in Hanoi and immediately set to work finding a tour. Being confronted with so many options and reviews of travel companies was overwhelming, and I finally just had to choose. I landed on a tour run by ODC Travel, which had several smart looking shops around Hanoi and a good looking website. Their prices for tours were higher than the budget range, but this was towards the end of my Vietnam trip and I felt like splashing out. Besides, after sleeping on the floor of a bus, I figured I had earned the privilege.

Most tours of Ha Long Bay are 3 day, 2 night tours departing from Hanoi in the morning. Several hours of driving (and a mandatory layover at some shop selling over-priced goods, all the typical snacks, cold sodas and the like) puts you at the docks and you find yourself, along with hundreds of other tourists all bound for Ha Long Bay aboard their chosen ships, following your guide to your junk. And yes, junk in this context means ship. They’re gorgeous once they have their sails up and some of the larger ones are quite comfortable. The tours include all meals (not tips, or booze), one nights sleeping aboard the junk, and one night on the island of Cat Ba, in a hotel. My ODC tour included entry to the Amazing Cave (other, budget, tours would go to a different cave), plus a guided cycle ride to a village in the Bay and kayak rental.

The Amazing Cave. Pretty amazing, especially with the dramatic lighting.

I had some time to kill in northern Vietnam and asked ODC Travel if they would let me stay on Cat Ba for an extra night, and return on another of their tours. Though they didn’t understand why I’d want to (which became clear to me once I got there), they granted my request, and because they’d made a prior error on my booking I was able to wrangle this extra night for free. Score!

The pictures will speak for themselves, but what cannot are the experiences. You motor around aboard your junk and, unless you’re visiting one of the caves, its very solitary—your junk may be the only sign of life for miles. You’ll see floating villages too, which you can visit from a kayak when you stop for this experience. Ladies in large rowboats float between junks when they are stopped, selling everything from candy to chips to alcohol.  If you buy any alcohol (the vodka and whiskey are especially lethal—watch out) the ships captain will be told, and you’ll have to pay for corkage. We tried to do this covertly and it didn’t work. Additionally, if you’re in a party mood, go aboard one of the party junks—the after-dinner activities on board the regular junks may be limited to star gazing and sleeping. My junk was one such quiet junk, though when we anchored for the evening we were within hearing distance of a party junk. Some of my cruisemates and I (by luck, all around the same age) wanted to swim out to the party junk, and got as far as constructing a floatation vest life raft before our captain stopped us. Told you the vodka and whiskey were lethal. The lesson seemed to be, Ha Long Bay does not take kindly to pirates or rule breaking. And everyone who makes a living off the tourists to the Bay knows each other and won’t hesitate to rat you out.

One of the many floating villages

The food ODC provided was on the whole good, but every meal was exactly the same. I ate the same dinner of fried calamari and whitefish with bell peppers for every meal besides breakfast. Sleeping aboard the junk was fun as well, and when a storm rolled in the gentle rocking of the boat lulled me into a comfortable sleep. Ha Long Bay is well worth a visit, and I’d definitely recommend ODC Travel as a reputable tour company, with one caveat: I met people on my return trip (aboard a different tour run by the same company) who had been robbed aboard the boat. The sum was small, maybe $300, but to young backpackers, it was all they had. And the red tape and bureaucracy for reporting the crime to either the police or to the ODC headquarters was unnecessarily onerous and enough of a deterrent to prevent them from complaining (they would have had to stay in Ha Long City and wait until all of the employees could be fingerprinted). Do watch out for your belongings aboard the ship. And bring cards to play in the evening, unless you want to go to bed the minute it gets dark.

Share with others:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • RSS
Posted in Ha Long Bay, travel advice, Vietnam | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Don’t Tread On Me

Posted on December 19, 2010 by ~Anna

Selling kites in Hue

Travelers coming through Vietnam either love or hate the place. While I was in Cambodia I’d met several people who’d just crossed the border and couldn’t have been more thrilled—“escaped Vietnam” was the term they used. After several weeks here I’ve become completely infatuated with this country—the people, the food, the natural beauty. I’d had too many great experiences in my short time here that it seemed unnatural. Streaks of luck never last long, and at some point I was expecting the other shoe to drop. It happened in the town of Dong Ha, on the route between Hue and Hanoi.

I’d just completed a tour of the DMZ, organized through the Café on Thu Wheels in Hue, and had arranged for my overnight sleeper bus to pick me up in the stopover town of Dong Ha. In the advertisements, these sleeper buses seem to offer luxurious comforts: thick, cushy, flat-laying mattress pads, blankets, even plush Vietnam Airlines pillows. Despite my original inclination to take the overnight train from Hue to Hanoi, I opted for the bus. From what I’d seen and heard, it all seemed quite civilized.

One of the war memorials in the Demilitarized Zone, Vietnam

9 pm: My bus arrives (two hours behind schedule). I load my bags on board with confidence and show the driver my ticket. He smiles initially, before his face changes to one of rage, yells something incomprehensible and throws my bags off the bus. “What the hell is going on!” I shout, but the only word the Trekking Travel driving staff knew was “No.”

9:15 pm: The restaurant proprietor (bless him, whoever he was) comes to my rescue and phones the bus booking office, who had sold my seat to someone else. “I’m getting on the damn bus,” I assert. This was possible, the agent says, but I’d have to ride in the aisle. 12 hours on the hard aisle of a bus. I contemplate this. I really have no options–getting back to Hue is impossible and there are no hotels here. I shoot the driver and his staff the dirtiest look imaginable and say I’d do it.

By this point my plight has gotten the attention of the other English-speaking passengers on board. An Aussie man buys me a couple bottles of the local brew, which I use to wash down some sleeping pills. If I am going to be sleeping in the aisle of a bus, I am damn well going to be unconscious for the experience.

10:30pm: The effects of the Vietnamese Valium I’d taken have kicked in and I’m as high as a hippy. My delirium just about drowns out the terrible TV music that for some inexplicable reason is still playing. I’ve scrounged a few extra Vietnamese Airlines pillows that were lying around the bus and have constructed a makeshift cocoon. Laying flat on my back, my shoulders exceed the width of the aisle (see picture below). It feels like I’m laying in a coffin.  I’m determined to rough this one out till morning. Besides, the driving crew keeps looking back at me and laughing, getting a kick out of the white chick squirming in the aisle. I smile back, not giving them the pleasure of letting them know I hate their guts. Besides, I’m too high to care.

2:30am: I’m abruptly awoken by someone stepping on my face. “What the fuck man!” I thrash instinctively and kick the perpetrator a few times in the process. He disembarks and I maneuver into his vacant sleeper bed. I’m surprised at the lack of leg room—at 5’7” I’m by no means a giant (by American standards anyway), but I don’t fit into this either. I sleep the rest of the night with my legs curled up and over the leg compartment. I can’t imagine what this would be like for someone taller than me—and if you are, don’t take the damn sleeper bus. Ironically, I was more comfortable  in the aisle with my legs fully stretched than in the cramped bed I was supposed to have paid for.

9:30am: I awake from a marvelous, lucid dream. We’re in Hanoi, and half of the bus is empty. I look toward the front of the bus to see one of the driver’s mates sleeping in the aisle–my aisle–on a thick foam mat. Bastard. Some English girls nearby inform me we’re approaching our stop but no one has told any of us where that will be. I scan the street names and determine we’re in the Old Quarter, where we’d all planned on staying. I charge up front and tell the driver that we wish to get off now. For the first time in 12 hours, I get my way. I think my roughing it had earned their respect.

Rather enjoying my bus aisle bed!

All told, the journey was a character building experience. It was one of those moments where I thought about all the people who’d told me I wasn’t tough enough to survive a month backpacking through Vietnam on my own. The picture of me high and smiling on the floor of a bus sums it all up. The lesson also was, when Vietnam gives you lemons, as it undoubtedly will, drink a beer and chill out. That’ll do you more good than any amount of yelling will, and you’ll earn more respect in the process.

Share with others:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • RSS
Posted in budget travel, getting a bit tipsy..., Hanoi, Hue, Vietnam | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The Prettiest Train Ride I Slept Through

Posted on December 19, 2010 by ~Anna

Before passing out myself, I snapped this photo--train rides just seem to lull people to sleep.

Vietnam is a bigger country than most people expect, and backpackers will at some point find themselves traversing from one length to the other on some form of time-quickening transport—plane (for those who didn’t go bust in Hoi An), or overnight train or bus. By the time I left Hoi An heading north I was running out of time—I still had nearly two weeks remaining in the country, but I wanted to be sure that I maximized relaxation and minimized needless hurrying along. The next big stage of the journey was from Hue to Hanoi, but the distance is vast and the roads slow going (it takes between 12 and 16 hours). Still, I couldn’t fathom wasting a day by sitting on a bus with cabin fever as I longed to be outside stretching my legs and exploring. This meant I’d need to sign up for some sort of overnight journey.

If at all possible I don’t regularly choose the overnight journey option—I’m always skeptical of a driver falling asleep, or of having a replica situation occur as what myself and some friends experienced when driving between Livingston and Lusaka (Zambia) on an overnight bus in 2007. Never mind that our driver fell asleep at the wheel;  at a random checkpoint several of our bags went missing, permanently. It was at the end of our trip, but being robbed while you’re “sleeping” in your upright seat, three-abreast along a bumpy African road just sucks.

So which would it be, train or bus? I still haven’t chosen. I’m on a train right now, on the stretch between Da Nang and Hue, said to be the most gorgeous railroad stretch in the country. And it just might be—we’re passing mile after mile of white sand beach and evergreen jungle, gazing at deserted islands just off the coastline.

Despite the beauty just on the other side of the glass, I can’t help but feel drowsy. I recall an event of my childhood—15 years ago, perhaps, on a train ride through Russia, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I cannot recall where we—my mother and I—were going (she was there conducting doctoral research, I was her small child along for the adventure), but at some point we took an overnight train to get somewhere. Though I must have been 8 at the time I remember very clearly that train journey, since it was my first. Trains in California had long since been replaced by cheap airfares and car travel, and I can count the number of times I’ve ridden a train in California on one finger. Besides the elegant red carpeting and décor of the compartments, I remember falling asleep on the top bunk of a padded sleeper bunk, only to wake up on the bottom. My mother informed me that in the middle of the night, I rolled off, and somehow managed to stay asleep despite the fall. I’m no longer such a heavy sleeper, but maybe there was something about the gentle rocking along the tracks that lulled me into an almost hypnotic sleep.

So maybe I’ll choose the overnight train. Were it not for the multiple Vietnamese coffees I’ve ordered since getting on this train I’m sure I’d be dozing, like the rest of the passengers. Perhaps they’ve seen this stretch of coastline before. I, however, am not going to miss it… to miss it… missing it… zzzzzzz.

Share with others:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • RSS
Posted in Central Highlands, Hoi An, Hue, Vietnam | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Memorial Day on China Beach

Posted on December 19, 2010 by ~Anna

Gazing down China Beach

Hoi An, Vietnam, is known internationally for several things—cheap, made to order tailoring (there are well over 100 bespoke clothing stores here); it’s famous noodles, said to be made out of the local well-water; and for being a World Heritage site. I’d arrived as a passenger on a motorbike. Hoi An was the end point for my tour de Highlands with the Da Lat Easy Riders. Filthy, sweating, covered in road grime (but happier than I’d ever been—and still a bit buzzed from all the scorpion whiskey I’d consumed only two hours prior), I was dropped off at a hotel and got to work.

It’s an incredibly charming town despite it’s admitted kitch-ness, which panders to the tourist masses. Coming from my small Highland towns and minority villages, I was immediately overwhelmed and wanted to hide in my airconditioned hotel room, at least until I sobered up enough to be able to take on the motorbike traffic and sunburnt 18 year olds. This was impossible, however: I was immediately pulled aside by “the best tailor in town” to be fitted for new clothes. Though I wasn’t quite ready for picking out suiting materials and having women wrap tape measurers around my crotch, I was up for the challenge of negotiating Hoi An’s picturesque passageways and lantern-lined streets.

These round boats can be taken out to the horizon.

It’s very easy to forget what day it is when you’re off gallivanting around the world, and it took me while to remember that Memorial Day was coming up. A secondary attraction of Hoi An is its proximity to the beaches—5 kilometers to Cua Dai (very western, touristy feel) or ~8 kilometers to An Bang (local vibe where the beach loungers are free with a drink order). Between Hoi An and Da Nang, the next major city north, lays China Beach, a beach of legendary gorgeousness and seclusion that was used as a retreat for American and South Vietnamese soldiers during the war. I’d be spending Memorial Day in a country where millions of American soldiers fought, and I wanted to pay tribute, even though none of my family were involved in the war and though I have my own personal views against its function in American diplomatic relations.

With the steel will (with a dash of impetuousness) I have refined lately I chose to cycle to China Beach from Hoi An. It would be good to use my legs for something other than balancing myself on a motorbike, and admittedly, after all the noodles I’ve consumed since arriving, I could definitely use the exercise. My bike had one gear and lacked functioning brakes. It did have a basket, which I stuffed with a towel, sunscreen, and bottled water. I’d brought a bike helmet from home, in the expectation that I’d get on a bike at least once. Even if my professional-grade Giro helmet attracted a lot of stares, I took comfort in the fact that I was reducing my chances of dying from a head wound while wallowing in a rice paddy.

The beach was deserted when I arrived. Several beach loungers had been set up, one of which I sank into after plunging myself into the sea’s cooling waters. I still cannot believe how much I am sweating here—every ounce of liquid I ingest comes straight out of my pores. I drank out of a coconut and drifted in and out of the peaceful sleep that only comes when you’re on a tranquil beach. I was woken by two American visitors who had come to the beach that day as well—with all love to my countrymen, you can hear us coming a mile away, recognizable more by audibility than by accent.

I joined them in the cool waters to wish them a happy Memorial Day. “Oh yeah!” each exclaimed. These two men seemed completely unaware of their significance of being on this particular beach on this particular holiday.  For reasons I cannot explain I’m drawn to learning more about and appreciating the long-war fought in this country. As when I was in Ben Tre, I couldn’t escape the feeling that countless souls had passed here before me who had suffered untold horrors of war. My consolation was that here—on this stretch of sand—peace could be found, even if only momentarily.

Cycling out of Hoi An, past the lagoons and water-side houses

Share with others:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • RSS
Posted in cycling, Hoi An, Vietnam | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments