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Hanoi - Sapa - H'Mong Village - Halong Bay

13 November 2006

Hello again – since I last wrote I have had a very eventful three days. A combination of good and bad.

On Monday we set out on a three day and two night tour on a boat to a place called Halong Bay, which is east of Hanoi by the South China Sea. It is truly beautiful there, like Yangshuo in China with the limestone pinnacles, but here they are coming out of the sea. There are over 3000 of these pinnacles here and of these, only a couple are inhabited.

We spent the days here cruising around on our boat, swimming in secluded bays, kayaking and sunbathing. The weather was great - blue sky on the first day but then it turned slightly cloudy – but it was still hot, so no worries there. The scenery was a bit like out of the Jurassic Park movies – very dramatic.

The beaches we went to had crystal clear water that was incredibly warm, like swimming in bath water and the sand was pristine white. Also while we were there we visited 'Monkey Island' and what an experience I had there.

A local man had enticed the monkeys down with food and a can of Fanta and they started munching away and drinking out of the can. We had been warned that they can be slightly furious at times, but silly old me didn’t really listen. So down I bent to say hello to one when it was near me and at first it looked so friendly and cute, then it turned and I saw teeth and next thing, it’s lunging towards me!

You should have seen me jump up and run like lightning – at the time my heart was racing, but afterwards I saw the funny side.

In the process of running away, I knocked into someone and left my shoe behind. Naughty monkey scaring me like that – I've learnt my lesson now – 'listen to people's warnings!'

What made it bad was who we had booked it with, and the price we were paying. When we booked it, we had thought that we were going to be getting the deluxe tour at USD 65, which in Vietnam is a lot. But little did we know what we were paying for. Once on the tour, we found out that the other people along with us had only paid USD 40 – 50. As you can imagine, we were a little annoyed that we had paid so much more. I will admit that we had a few things slightly different – but not enough to justify paying that much more.

All we had extra was during one meal, a small crab each and a fruit basket to share – apart from that it was all the same as everyone else. So you can just picture me kicking up a fuss can't you. I refused to pay the guide anymore money (as we had agreed to pay half at the start and half at the end), until we had been back to the office where we had booked it and had a chat with the tour operator. And that's where it all began – an hour of arguing with the man in his shop – in the end he wouldn't even talk to me and he just ignored me and said how he hated 'backpackers'.

Deary me, it was all such a pickle – but eventually a lady from another shop came in to talk to us and we explained the situation to her and she was very diplomatic and wrote all the pros and cons down – then we came to an agreement to pay USD 55. A saving of USD 10 – better than nothing, hey. Once that was all sorted it was off to the hotel for a well earned rest!

And that brings me up to the end of this entry! So more travelling tales from me in my next instalment. Tally ho – Rachael.