Andrew Pell: Hanoi & Halong Bay

On the overnight sleep bus from hue to hanoi I somehow ended up in one of the smaller sleeping compartments. I met a couple of girls from Norway on the long bus journey who were also doing similar things whilst in Hanoi. We ened up splitting a hotel room for $4US each that included an interesting breakfast and a free beer each day, which for one reason or another we never had! Hanoi is a crazy crazy city with millions of motorbikes and very small streets. You do the maths! They even have a street dedicated to fruit smoothies! Yum! We used Hanoi as a base to book a tour to Halong Bay. We booked the trip through the Hanoi Backpackers, a little pricey but were assured of tasty food and good service. There was also a few extra activities to choose from which included water skiing, tubing, wake boarding or rock climbing. Our group was rather small consisting of only 9 people doing the 3 day tour. At first a little disappointed with the small turn out we soon realised that you could still have a blast with minimal numbers. The first day of our tour was bloody freezing! A 4 hour bus trip to get to Halong City before being transferred onto our boat the Jolly Roger who cruised us slowly into beautiful Halong Bay. After an hour or so cruising around the bay we anchored up and it was time for some kayaking in and around the caves. Not the most perfect weather to be sitting in a kayak but the scenery soon made you forget how damn cold your hands were. We kayaked for around the limestone cliffs for 2 hours with a stop at some caves along the way. Halong Bay is stunning, but the Vietnamese need to be educated about littering as quite often you would see plastic bags and other trash floating around. After a semi warm shower is was dinner time. We weren't disappointed with a huge spread of different meat stir fries with rice and other interesting fried goodness. Next came the happy hour & drinking games which allowed the laughs to continue all night. We had an older German couple in our group who were great value and joined in on the shenanigans!

The next morning we were served up some lets say intersting eggs/omellette for breakfast. Then after checking out of the Jolly Roger we were transferred onto another smaller boat to be taken to Castway Island (the Hanoi Backpackers own private island). The island did make you feel like you were in the middle of nowhere which was very cool. The island was fitted out with western style loos, hot showers, volleyball court, sharp coral, table tennis and most importantly a chef! That afternoon went tubing which was so much fun and a decent work out to hang on as the crazy Vietnamese driver went round and round!

After a day of activity it was time for a few drinks and a very yummy smokey BBQ, not exactly sure what meats we were eating but it was tasty. A few more drinking games, a game of spoons (card game) and then for the finale..... Vietnamese tabletop beach cricket. This game is only to be played under severe influence of alcohol. I have to say that trying to teach Norwegians & Germans how to play cricket was a challenge!! But i think this style of cricket will be alot more exciting for them than watching the real thing.

Our beds on the island were basically a thin mattress on a raised bamboo ledge with bamboo roof and mosquito net. Actually pretty comfortable! The next morning we were awoken reasonably early by the horn of a transport boat which was ready to take us back to the Jolly Roger. We then sat on top of the Jolly Roger with some lovely sunshine and headed back to Halong City after a whirlwind 3 days of fun.