Halong Bay - Vietnam
6/26/05
We left to Halong Bay in the morning and, ironically, the bus was late; if it had been late on the previous day we would not have missed it :(
Anyway, around 9 a.m. we were on the way to Halong City where we had lunch and then took a boat to Cat Ba town.
Halong Bay
Halong Bay is a 1,500sq km bay featuring 3,000 mainly limestone islands; fascinating caves have been carved into the limestone by the elements.
Halong means "descending dragon" and a legend tells of how a dragon rushing into the sea, broke up the rocks with its flailing tail gouging out valleys and crevasses; as it plunged into the sea, the areas dug up by the tail became filled with water, leaving only the high land visible, thus creating the islands. What a wonderful story. It is one of the marvels of Vietnam.
The boat trip from Halong City to Cat Ba island was a long 4-hour journey through this wonderful scenery.
The boat didn't go straight to Cat Ba, it made a stop to visit two Caves. The first one we saw was Hang Dau Go (Grotto of Wooden Stakes), known to the French as the Grotte des Merveilles (Cave of Marvels). It is a huge cave consisting of three chambers reached via 90 steps.
This is a very popular cave and it is illuminated with colorful lights, the only downside is the crowd.
Part of the same system, near by, is Hang Thien Cung which we also visited before getting back to the boat and resume the trip. Note the people in the picture to have an idea of its size.
We arrived in Cat Ba town only at the end of the day and we had few minutes to walk around before it got dark.
The town is pretty small but the 'ocean avenue' is quite busy. There are many restaurants and bars and most of the tourists here are Vietnamese.
The Vietnamese Service
We chose one of the many food stalls by the busy street to seat, have a cold drink and watch the local night life. The funny thing was that the girl working at the food stall didn't speak English at all, but her willings to serve us was beyond expected.
Angie asked for a iced tea but she couldn't understand; then Angie tried to say tea in Vietnamese, but that didn't work either. What made this a memorable time was the fact that the attendant really wanted to serve us and she did her best to please us. She called a young girl to try to speak English with us, but the young girl couldn't understand the order either.
When she thought she understood what we wanted, she ran across the street, entered a mini-market and came back with a can of carrot juice, smiling at us and waiting for a confirmation before opening the can.
That was when I suggested Agie to try to use the word Lipton, and that finally worked out. Although she never sells tea, she did all she could to serve us, she ran again across the street, returned the carrot juice and came back with a box of Lipton tea to exclusively serve us, how nice, and if you think she just wanted to make money I'll tell you that the bill was 3,000 Dong (US$ 1 = VD$ 15,000)
6/27/05
The second day in Halong Bay was spent hiking at the Cat Ba National Park.
Cat Ba National Park is made up of the Cat Ba group of 366 islands some 133km from Hanoi and 30km east of Hai Phong.
It was unbearably hot and we walked in the worst window of the day, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The first part, from the pier to the village, was a convenient walk over a paved path in the middle of the forest.
At the village we made a stop before continuing through the trail to the top of one of the hills, 300 meters high.
The second part of the walk was, with no doubt, the day we sweated the most in our lives.
But the climb up the hill was totally worth, the view is 'fabulastic'.
On the way back, we stopped to swim and kayak. We were back to Cat Ba town around 4 p.m.
We went back to the hotel, took a shower and rested from the strenuous walk under a cooking sun.
Crazy Guide - Episode: Cell Phone
When we went downstairs to have dinner, a girl was arguing with her guide because when she had bought her tour to Halong Bay she had paid extra for a room with A/C, but her guide would only give her a room with A/C upon extra-extra payment.
After a long bla bla bla, the guide started to raise his voice at her. He became quite aggressive when he was talking. He kept repeating that it was a problem between her and whatever travel agency she had bought the tour - wow, great service.
The arguing heated up and he escalated the issue to his boss by phone. He passed the phone to the girl to talk to his boss, but his boss only speaks Vietnamese, so it didn't help her.
Then two things happened.
1 - She threw the cell phone across the restaurant that hit the floor and broke in pieces.
2 - Inconceivable in any circumstance, but it happened here, the crazy guide smashed her face.
Within a few seconds of all that action, a Scottish guy arrived and found the crazy agitated guide walking around in the restaurant.
Without understanding exactly what had happened the Scottish guy found the girl left on the floor behind the counter.
I thought that the Scottish guy would jump on the guide's throat, but, luckily, he just gave him a hard time and helped the girl who was hurt.
That was the contrast of the Vietnamese kindness of the food stall attendant from the previous night.
6/28/05
The third day was all about travelling, we left Cat Ba town in the morning and did the same sailing back to Halong City, where we took a bus to Hanoi and then another bus heading to China.
Crazy Guide - Episode: Bus
But we didn't leave Cat Ba without watching another fight of the crazy guide.
He confused the English girl from the night before with a Danish girl that had nothing to do with the cell phone episode (both girls had red hair). He yelled at her asking for money. When he realized it was the wrong girl, he even didn't apologize. When he then saw the English girl, he simply decided that she wouldn't get on the bus; apparently he was claiming that she was on a 3-day tour and could not leave before.
She ignored him, of course, and walked in the direction of the bus along with everybody else, that was when things started to get physical again. He blocked her way, grabbing her bag while she tried to strive and move forward. In the middle of this push and grab, shouting and arguing she managed to get to the door of the bus, but then the bus driver closed the door on her face, unbelievable.
Then the same Scottish guy started to get involved again, he ordered the bus driver to open the door of the bus while his friend had to, by means of force, move the crazy guide away.
The bus driver opened the door and she finally got on the bus that took us to the pier in Cat Ba town.
We arrived in Hanoi around 5 p.m. and then took another bus to Lang Son, next to the Chinese border, where we spent the night.
I have to say that we had a wonderful time in Vietnam, specially in Hoi An and in Sapa. We were very well catered, specially considering that we are budget travellers; only Halong Bay produced a bad story, and even though it didn't happen to us it could have been.
I'm just reporting it here so you know that those things happen.
In general Vietnam is a wonderful place with friendly and welcoming people.
We left to Halong Bay in the morning and, ironically, the bus was late; if it had been late on the previous day we would not have missed it :(
Anyway, around 9 a.m. we were on the way to Halong City where we had lunch and then took a boat to Cat Ba town.
Halong Bay
Halong Bay is a 1,500sq km bay featuring 3,000 mainly limestone islands; fascinating caves have been carved into the limestone by the elements.
Halong means "descending dragon" and a legend tells of how a dragon rushing into the sea, broke up the rocks with its flailing tail gouging out valleys and crevasses; as it plunged into the sea, the areas dug up by the tail became filled with water, leaving only the high land visible, thus creating the islands. What a wonderful story. It is one of the marvels of Vietnam.
The boat trip from Halong City to Cat Ba island was a long 4-hour journey through this wonderful scenery.
The boat didn't go straight to Cat Ba, it made a stop to visit two Caves. The first one we saw was Hang Dau Go (Grotto of Wooden Stakes), known to the French as the Grotte des Merveilles (Cave of Marvels). It is a huge cave consisting of three chambers reached via 90 steps.
This is a very popular cave and it is illuminated with colorful lights, the only downside is the crowd.
Part of the same system, near by, is Hang Thien Cung which we also visited before getting back to the boat and resume the trip. Note the people in the picture to have an idea of its size.
We arrived in Cat Ba town only at the end of the day and we had few minutes to walk around before it got dark.
The town is pretty small but the 'ocean avenue' is quite busy. There are many restaurants and bars and most of the tourists here are Vietnamese.
The Vietnamese Service
We chose one of the many food stalls by the busy street to seat, have a cold drink and watch the local night life. The funny thing was that the girl working at the food stall didn't speak English at all, but her willings to serve us was beyond expected.
Angie asked for a iced tea but she couldn't understand; then Angie tried to say tea in Vietnamese, but that didn't work either. What made this a memorable time was the fact that the attendant really wanted to serve us and she did her best to please us. She called a young girl to try to speak English with us, but the young girl couldn't understand the order either.
When she thought she understood what we wanted, she ran across the street, entered a mini-market and came back with a can of carrot juice, smiling at us and waiting for a confirmation before opening the can.
That was when I suggested Agie to try to use the word Lipton, and that finally worked out. Although she never sells tea, she did all she could to serve us, she ran again across the street, returned the carrot juice and came back with a box of Lipton tea to exclusively serve us, how nice, and if you think she just wanted to make money I'll tell you that the bill was 3,000 Dong (US$ 1 = VD$ 15,000)
6/27/05
The second day in Halong Bay was spent hiking at the Cat Ba National Park.
Cat Ba National Park is made up of the Cat Ba group of 366 islands some 133km from Hanoi and 30km east of Hai Phong.
It was unbearably hot and we walked in the worst window of the day, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The first part, from the pier to the village, was a convenient walk over a paved path in the middle of the forest.
At the village we made a stop before continuing through the trail to the top of one of the hills, 300 meters high.
The second part of the walk was, with no doubt, the day we sweated the most in our lives.
But the climb up the hill was totally worth, the view is 'fabulastic'.
On the way back, we stopped to swim and kayak. We were back to Cat Ba town around 4 p.m.
We went back to the hotel, took a shower and rested from the strenuous walk under a cooking sun.
Crazy Guide - Episode: Cell Phone
When we went downstairs to have dinner, a girl was arguing with her guide because when she had bought her tour to Halong Bay she had paid extra for a room with A/C, but her guide would only give her a room with A/C upon extra-extra payment.
After a long bla bla bla, the guide started to raise his voice at her. He became quite aggressive when he was talking. He kept repeating that it was a problem between her and whatever travel agency she had bought the tour - wow, great service.
The arguing heated up and he escalated the issue to his boss by phone. He passed the phone to the girl to talk to his boss, but his boss only speaks Vietnamese, so it didn't help her.
Then two things happened.
1 - She threw the cell phone across the restaurant that hit the floor and broke in pieces.
2 - Inconceivable in any circumstance, but it happened here, the crazy guide smashed her face.
Within a few seconds of all that action, a Scottish guy arrived and found the crazy agitated guide walking around in the restaurant.
Without understanding exactly what had happened the Scottish guy found the girl left on the floor behind the counter.
I thought that the Scottish guy would jump on the guide's throat, but, luckily, he just gave him a hard time and helped the girl who was hurt.
That was the contrast of the Vietnamese kindness of the food stall attendant from the previous night.
6/28/05
The third day was all about travelling, we left Cat Ba town in the morning and did the same sailing back to Halong City, where we took a bus to Hanoi and then another bus heading to China.
Crazy Guide - Episode: Bus
But we didn't leave Cat Ba without watching another fight of the crazy guide.
He confused the English girl from the night before with a Danish girl that had nothing to do with the cell phone episode (both girls had red hair). He yelled at her asking for money. When he realized it was the wrong girl, he even didn't apologize. When he then saw the English girl, he simply decided that she wouldn't get on the bus; apparently he was claiming that she was on a 3-day tour and could not leave before.
She ignored him, of course, and walked in the direction of the bus along with everybody else, that was when things started to get physical again. He blocked her way, grabbing her bag while she tried to strive and move forward. In the middle of this push and grab, shouting and arguing she managed to get to the door of the bus, but then the bus driver closed the door on her face, unbelievable.
Then the same Scottish guy started to get involved again, he ordered the bus driver to open the door of the bus while his friend had to, by means of force, move the crazy guide away.
The bus driver opened the door and she finally got on the bus that took us to the pier in Cat Ba town.
We arrived in Hanoi around 5 p.m. and then took another bus to Lang Son, next to the Chinese border, where we spent the night.
I have to say that we had a wonderful time in Vietnam, specially in Hoi An and in Sapa. We were very well catered, specially considering that we are budget travellers; only Halong Bay produced a bad story, and even though it didn't happen to us it could have been.
I'm just reporting it here so you know that those things happen.
In general Vietnam is a wonderful place with friendly and welcoming people.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 9:47 PM
1 Comments:
WOW! Vietnam is so different from what I've immaged to be. Very beautiful picutes! But I've heard that most of the men are veru ride and they have not respects for women in Vietnam. not respect for women, such as the crazy guide, which I've very dislike. I just glad that it didn't happend to you guys. It is very unpleasant.
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