Christmas in Halong Bay

It was a good night that we had in Hanoi, but we wanted to do something special for Christmas so we booked a tour of Halong bay with a nearby hostel. It cost about $80 for a 3 day 2 night tour including everything but drinks. The hostel that we were staying at offers a competing tour that costs more, but will surely have a younger and louder group. I guess that we thought that if we went with something else we'd end up with the same thing anyways. We mostly did, but we ended up being the loudest and most gregarious on the boat... so I guess we could have done that with just a rowboat instead of a small cruise boat.

Early in the morning, like 7:30am and that's insanely early by our standards, we got onto a shuttle bus and traveled for 3 hours to the coast while trying to sleep through as many of the potholes as possible. When there the group leader picked up a boat from a huge marina where we walked past a parade of beautiful wooden boats until we reached our comparatively modest new home. The boat was of dark wood, rather flat at both ends, and had the bunks on the bottom floor and a large dining room above. Jurre and I shared a room and it was pretty comfortably appointed with 2 beds and a clean bathroom.

When people finished arriving we found out exactly who our group was made of. We had an older family of 4 from Finland, a young and strangely quiet British couple, a solo woman from Bangkok who found a way to be negative about everything, and a female monk from Korea who didn't speak any English. I'd say that I really liked the Finns best but hey, the 3 of us are a mobile party anyways so I knew we'd have a good time.

We made our way through the fog shrouded karsts to a particularly large one with a sizable dock. We hiked half way up the spire to a cave entrance and paid the additional $0.50 for a ticket that was probably supposed to be included in the tour price. Eh, not worth the brutal fight that would ensue. I know people who fought these fights and told me about it... I just think it's pathetic on both sides. The cave blew me away. It was probably formed as the limestone rose out of the sea and carved out a huge hollow cavity with a roof that flowed like water trapped in stone. The whole of it was dramatically lit and had a lovely path that looped through. I also liked the view of the boats from the cave entrance.

Before getting too far away from the cave, the boat stopped again to let us take some kayaks out around the bay. It was a bit of a tourist madhouse and Jurre and I shared one so that we could paddle around in our Santa hats shouting 'Merry Christmas!' at people. It got a lot of cheers. We never did find the sea cave that was rumored to be in the area.

After a very good dinner on the boat, we got the night under way with some beers and free time on the roof of the boat. It was kind of cold, but not too bad, and I relearned and performed Merry Little Christmas on the ukulele for as many people as would listen. Who can resist a live Christmas song? The rest of the evening was dedicated to karaoke in the dining room. The lot of us sang for a solid 5 hours and drove our guide crazy. She hears these same songs every night of every week of every month so I guess that I can sympathize, but she doesn't have to sit around clapping all night... she could just go read a book.

The next morning the boat dropped us off at Cat Ba island for some bicycle riding. The island is the largest in the area and has a few thousand people living on it but is mostly empty but steep jungle valleys. We got dropped off in an area that was virtually flat and rode around for a couple hours before going back to the boat. It wasn't too great and I didn't take any pictures for some reason.

From there half the group departed and the rest of us were taken to our next night's stay at Monkey Island. It's a rather small pile of rocks with a piece of beach on either side of it. One of those two beaches had a group of bungalows as that's where we stayed. The rooms were really comfortable but the weather still wasn't with us and the clouds remained. Still, we fit in a dip in the ocean which isn't too cold, and several games of pool. Also, we hiked over to the other side of the island to try and find some monkeys.

They are famed as being extremely aggressive and thankfully we didn't find any that day. The one couple staying on the island when we arrived told us how they were assaulted while laying on the beach. A monkey ran off with a sarong so the guy gave chase until reaching the edge of the jungle and catching hold of the now dirty cloth. After getting it back, a large group of monkeys counterattacked and chased him down the beach. Meanwhile, a few others were investigating a backpack laying next to the girl. She quickly grabbed it but they sensed the cookies inside and proceeded to vigorously chase her down the beach as well. The both of them escaped with no bites and no need for rabies shots thankfully. Those aren't too fun.

Later that night, the English couple joined us for dinner and cards while the aforementioned couple (South African) joined us for cards as well. We all played a game that I brought with me (Bang!) and though I had to teach its rather complicated rules to everyone, they all quickly grasped it's awesomeness and we played for 4 hours while polishing off 4 large bottles of vodka between the 7 of us. We all had great fun though most of the group ended up throwing up when they got back to their bunks. I didn't though. That was a hell of a Christmas day.

The next day we awoke with just awful hangovers and made a slow return to the boat where we slowly made our way back to Hanoi. We didn't do much that day when we got back to the hostel. I think we napped, had dinner, and went to be early. That was a messy Christmas, and I didn't even get to call home from Monkey island since there wasn't any internet. Oh well, I'll do better next year.