Everyone who has been to Vietnam told me that you must got to Halong Bay for a cruise around the islands. Halong Bay is due east of Hanoi and takes about 3 hours to drive there. We had booked a two-night, three-day cruise on the Imperial Junk. Of everything planned for this vacation, I had the most concerns about the arrangements for this cruise because the booking agent sounded a bit sketchy. As it turned out I was right to be concerned.
At 8 AM, the cruise company picked us up to take us to Halong Bay. I was expecting a small van, but as it turned out, it was a large bus. This large bus proceeded to pick up over 20 people from different hotels. By the time we got out of the Old Quarter, it was almost 9:30 On the bus, we met our tour guide Tony who would be the source of many laughs both during the tour and long after it ended. Tony is Vietnamese, but his accent sounded more Italian, or at least our lame attempts at imitating his accent ended up sounding Italian. Tony loved to talk, and he told us all about the boat, and all the complaints people may have about the boat, as if telling us ahead of time that the cabins would smell like diesel was going to make us less annoyed when the cabins really did smell like diesel.
On the bus I called Tony over to confirm that the bus would drop us off at the airport after we docked at 8 am since we had a 1 PM flight to Danang. Not only did he say the bus would not go to the airport, he said the boat was docking at 12 PM and not 8 AM. There would be no way we would catch our flight. I spent most of the bus ride calling Vietnam Airlines to see if there was a later flight. There was, but it would've cost twice as much as what we paid. Tony kept coming back to inform me that the cruise would not do anything to fix this problem and that it was the booking agent's fault for giving us the wrong information. I finally said we'd talk about it on the ship.
Halfway to the docks, the bus made a stop for a pee break, but really it's to stop at a silk embroidery factory where tourist can spend some money. The profits from the sale of the silk embroidery supports people with special needs, many of whom make the embroidery. My boss had mentioned this place to me and he wanted me to buy him a piece depicting pastural life in Vietnam. As it turned out, silk embroidery is pretty expensive, and I didn't want to spend that much on my boss. The one piece I found was almost $400 dollars - so that was out. I found another that was about $50 bucks. But since I said how much I liked the first piece, the clerk kept trying to sell it to me. Inadvertently, I had the best bargaining session of my life, because I didn't really want that first piece. The more I said no, the lower the price went. Eventually they offered the first piece and the second piece together for $250 dollars! Just to get away from them, since the bus was only there for 20 minutes, I agreed to pay, but I only had a credit card. The credit card machine though wouldn't connect or the line was busy. They kept trying over and over again. They tried all my cards. Finally almost another 20 minutes went by I said I had to go - the bus was waiting. I went out to the bus and people were still shopping, so the woman ran out and ask if I could just buy the original piece that I wanted, for which I had enough cash. I said yes and went back to buy it. I was still the last person back on the bus, and the some of the passengers looked at me as if they wanted to leave me there.
For the three weeks I was in Vietnam, it barely rained except when we arrive to the dock at Halong Bay. It was raining. It started out light, then gradually got worse. Though we packed umbrellas, none of us wanted to take them out. It was also cold. We waited until Tony got our tickets, then we boarded a motor boat in the rain, and made our way to the larger ship. Once inside, we dropped our bags and went upstairs for the orientation and lunch. Tony talked some more. And then some more. If it weren't for his accent it would've been tedious, but the way in which Tony said things was hilarious. Most of the shipmates just politely smiled because they were about as much fun as undertakers, but us loud Americans yucked it up with Tony.
After lunch, Tony and I sat down to discuss our situation. Amy and Karen joined me while we sent Ryan upstairs so he wouldn't get aggravated. Tony kept insisting it wasn't his fault, that the booking agent made a mistake and there wasn't much they could do. This is where I made the mistake of saying that the booking agent represents the cruise company and that if the cruise company doesn't make this right I'd go on Trip Advisor and Agoda and write a bad review. This freaked Tony out so much that he didn't leave me alone for the rest of the trip. As much as people complain about yahoos posting bad reviews on such sites, Trip Advisor is a powerful medium and can impact a companies' business. It certainly got the situation solved. We agreed to only spend one night on the boat and one night at the hotel in Halong Bay (which included dinner and breakfast all paid for by the company). I arranged with the hotel to take us to the airport and it only costs each of us about $10 dollars. Tony kept insisting we go back to Hanoi instead of staying at Halong Bay, and at the time I didn't understand why. We would soon find out.
The boat itself was very nice, and Halong Bay is beautiful. The rain did stop, but the sun never really came out. The mist, though, added a certain beauty to the islands and it felt as if we were sailing to Skull Island or Jurassic Park. After lunch, we went to so see some caves. The caves were actually better than expected, and Tony's commentary was hilarious. I wish I could do his accent justice in this blog, but I can't. At one point he pointed his laser pointer at a rock and said "Some people thinka this looka like a whale, but I thinka it looka like a dolphin." Well, this line became a frequent refrain for the rest of the trip and we still joke about it now.
After the caves, we went up on the top deck and started drinking before dinner. Drinks were cheap on the boat, and despite the cold weather, sitting on the top deck was beautiful. It was only us and a quiet French couple whom I thought would hate us, but they were really quite enjoyable. The rest of our ship mates, with the exception of a young German guy, were dull and annoying. They probably thought the same about us, but we didn't care.
Dinner was quite good. We had brought a bottle of wine with us, so we drank that for a small corkage charge. After dinner you had the choice of singing karaoke, playing board games, or just relaxing. We went back up deck and began to order "fun buckets". Fun buckets are small buckets of mixed drinks. I ordered the pina colada which wasn't very good but cheap. Ryan and Karen and Amy ordered some as well. I was tired so I snuck off to bed. This turned out to be a good decision since the rest of them drank further into the night and the result of those fun buckets wasn't so much fun the next morning.
The next morning we had breakfast, visited a pearl factory (boring), and then sailed back to the dock to drop us off and pick up more passengers. Our hotel was within walking distance and turned out to be the scariest and probably grossest hotel I had the pleasure of visiting. The rooms themselves weren't so bad, but the hallways were a disaster. They stuck us on a floor that was under construction. Many rooms were being renovated, and the carpet was stained and filthy. Everything was covered with dust. It looked as if they had just finished our rooms, but still had work to be done since the bathtubs weren't sealed to the walls with caulking, but just sort of sitting there with a gaps all the way around. As a result, the water just drained down the tiles, under the tub, and onto the floor. The room carpeting was not clean and I wore my socks the whole time. I did check the sheets for stains and bed bugs, but it seemed safe.
After resting a bit, I decided to walk into town. I asked the front clerk which direction to walk, and he said the night market was to the right, and town was to the left. Since it wasn't night, I went left. Halong Bay City is a work in progress. In about three years, it might be worth visiting. For now, it's not. The entire waterfront was blocked off by large pieces of plywood showing you what is coming, but for now it just an empty construction site. The dust from the construction was awful and coated everything - plants, trees, the sidewalk, and you. On top of the air pollution, it made it almost unbearable to be outside. I walked about 2 miles into town, and found nothing. The place was deserted. I did manage to find the red light district where sad looking girls came out to offer me a massage, but I couldn't even find a coffee shop. Eventually I came to one that was completely empty. They served me probably the worst cup of coffee I had the whole trip. As I was heading back the rest of group wanted to go to out, so I jumped on the back of a motorbike and took the fast way back.
I should've stayed where I was because we decided to go to the casino and I was right next to it when I got on the bike. I ended up walking back the same way. The casino was located in a supposedly five star hotel in Halong Bay. When we got there, we asked about the water puppet show which a friend of Amy's highly recommended seeing. None of us knew what a water puppet show was, but we had nothing better to do before dinner, so we booked tickets for the 5 PM show. Before the show started we went to the casino - a truly depressing part of the hotel. There were a few slot machines, a couple of black jack tables, and a small bar. The place reeked of stale cigarette smoke. I lost my $20 dollars within about 10 minutes and went out into the lobby for a drink. The lobby was decorated with the worst Christmas decorations and the PA system was playing Christmas songs sung in Vietnamese. It was surreal and creepy. There was no one in the hotel either, and people who worked the bar at this supposedly five star hotel didn't speak of word of English. Out of frustration, I just ordered a beer. Karen and Ryan quickly lost their money as well and joined me. One of the staff members turned on this automatic piano which began to play some dreary musical piece that did not lighten the mood. Amy arrived much later after having much success on the slots and winning $60 dollars!
Next came the water puppet show. We thought we'd be the only ones in the theater since there was no one in the hotel, but about 20 minutes before show time, the busses arrived -busses filled with Chinese and Korean tourists. Suddenly, the larger than expected theater filled with people. We sat more towards the back because the guy who directed us there said we would have a better view. He turned out to be right. The pool of water which comprises the stage is high, and if you sit close up, it blocks your line of vision. Not that there was much to see.
Soon the musicians came out as well as the singers and narrators. Everything was sung and narrated in Vietnamese except the television screen announcing each act. Suddenly puppets emerged from the water and begin to "swim" around the pool. The action is narrated or sung by a group of ladies and the music is that very twangy, sitar-plucking, and slightly annoying Asian music. As soon as the puppets emerged, all four of us started giggling. We tried to be quiet, but our laughter was causing the seats to rock. We were shushed several times by the Chinese tourists who apparently found this show engaging. Each water puppet act depicted a part of Vietnamese folk lore, and though I was curious for about five minutes on how they controlled the puppets (were they under the water?) I quickly lost interest and we were stuck there for 45-minutes. At the end of the show it was revealed that the puppets were controlled by long poles and the puppet masters were standing in the water behind a curtain. As soon as the lights came up, the entire audience flooded out of the theater, back onto their busses, and then disappeared. We walked back to the restaurant by the hotel and had our free dinner.
After dinner, we were all so thoroughly depressed by Halong Bay City, we skipped the night market and locked ourselves in the rooms hoping that deformed dead babies or vampire countesses didn't come kill us in the middle of the night. I felt so dirty from the air I decided to take a shower. As the water splashed onto my head, I looked down and saw brown water swirling down the drain as all the dirt and pollution washed off my body. It was that bad.
We survived the night, and breakfast the next morning was actually pretty good. Our driver arrived in a very comfortable SUV and the ride to the airport was so much nicer than getting back on that annoying bus. We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.
Next destination: Hoi An!