How easy it is to fall behind on blogging when traveling:/
We left off as we were about to board the night train from Sapa to return to Hanoi. The next 12 hours were...interesting.
Our shuttle bus was to pick us up from the hotel at 6pm; by 6:30pm we were stressing a bit as we really needed to catch that train or it would have thrown everything for a loop. Our hotel was able to get us a private car for $20 so we went with plan B and thankfully arrived at the station with plenty of time. We entered our 4 person cabin and met a really nice lady from Canada who was traveling alone - perfect, we thought, we lucked out and had a "normal" person and we even had a spare bed. We should have figured we wouldn't be so lucky! About 30 minutes after the train departed, someone knocked at the door - we opened and an older man made some gestures, showed us his ticket, and hopped onto the top bunk. Still, no big deal...until he proceeded to snore. Loudly. The entire 9 hours of the train ride.
Needless to say, we were exhausted when the train finally arrived in Hanoi at 4:30am. We wanted a taxi with a meter so we wouldn't get ripped off, not so lucky. The driver took us the long way, around the lake which we didn't do the first time, and we arrived at the hotel pretty pissed off. The fare was double what it was when we went from the hotel to the train station a few days before! In reality, we were only out a few dollars, but it's the principle.
Funny, once the taxi pulled up to the hotel around 5am, the door was locked and lights turned off. We thought we'd have to wait outside until 6am or so when employees would start arriving for work. In the meantime, a few other tourists who were on the same overnight train also arrived; we peered into the windows to see about 20 employees sleeping anywhere and everywhere in the hotel lobby and restaurant - along with parked motorbikes also in the lobby. They were nice enough to unlock the doors and let us come inside. Within an hour, motorbikes were back on the street, floors were mopped, and no one would have ever known. Apparently, it's pretty common for employees to sleep in the lobby (or wherever) since other tourists we met had similar stories.
We had a few other mishaps that made us feel a little scammed, or maybe it was because they all happened within a few hours of each other. Whatever the case, it's over with and we've moved on. Nothing will go perfectly when traveling and we have been really lucky so far (knock on wood) that nothing major has happened.
After breakfast, we waited for our shuttle to take us to Halong City where we would catch our boat for our two day excursion around Halong Bay. Halong Bay is a group of over 3,000 limestone isles off of the east coast of Vietnam. Listed as a World Heritage Site, it's currently in the running as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Hopefully this will give the bay some recognition and something will be done about the massive amounts of trash we saw. :/
Our junk boat, the Lagoon II:
We learned from our guide on the boat that all the boats in the bay are called "junk boats" because that is the literal translation in Chinese. Whatever.
Our boat was considered to be one of the best and we weren't disappointed - we figured if we could handle 3 nights in the small cell sailing around the Whitsunday Islands, we could handle almost anything. Our room was huge in comparison! Sorry, we forgot to take pictures. And there were only 8 people on the boat - a German couple, a Spanish couple on their honeymoon, and two older Australian ladies. Everyone was really friendly and we had great conversation.
We had lunch on the boat and then took off for our first destination, a floating village. It was a complete eye-opener to see how a few hundred people are able to survive in such small spaces basically in the middle of nowhere.
The villages are a few hours by row boat from the mainland, so the government sends a large boat out every morning with fresh water, food, and picks up trash and brings it back to shore. The government boat also brings back seafood the fisherman catch to sell on the mainland.
We visited a school in one of the villages, there is a primary school on-site, but anything above needs to be taught on the mainland. Volunteer student teachers live in the village a few months at a time to teach the kids. We would have had pictures if our camera hadn't freaked out and fogged up - the camera is not a fan of the humidity. :/
We sailed around for a bit and soaked up the peacefulness of the surroundings - we were told we could go swimming, but seeing this made it pretty unappealling:
And there were HUGE jellyfish! Swimming was definitely not happening.
A few other pictures:
It was cloudy/foggy both days, which was somewhat of a bummer, but it would have been unbearably hot if the sun was out in full force. And the clouds added a mysterious element to the islands.
We had a great dinner, way too much food as usual, and were just sitting around chatting when the German couple gave each other a funny look and whispered something. Turns out, they saw a rat on the boat just run past the table. Ack!! [We've seen a few rats in various places since, i.e. restaurants, so we guess it's just the way it goes?]. Needless to say, it freaked us all out a bit.
We left off as we were about to board the night train from Sapa to return to Hanoi. The next 12 hours were...interesting.
Our shuttle bus was to pick us up from the hotel at 6pm; by 6:30pm we were stressing a bit as we really needed to catch that train or it would have thrown everything for a loop. Our hotel was able to get us a private car for $20 so we went with plan B and thankfully arrived at the station with plenty of time. We entered our 4 person cabin and met a really nice lady from Canada who was traveling alone - perfect, we thought, we lucked out and had a "normal" person and we even had a spare bed. We should have figured we wouldn't be so lucky! About 30 minutes after the train departed, someone knocked at the door - we opened and an older man made some gestures, showed us his ticket, and hopped onto the top bunk. Still, no big deal...until he proceeded to snore. Loudly. The entire 9 hours of the train ride.
Needless to say, we were exhausted when the train finally arrived in Hanoi at 4:30am. We wanted a taxi with a meter so we wouldn't get ripped off, not so lucky. The driver took us the long way, around the lake which we didn't do the first time, and we arrived at the hotel pretty pissed off. The fare was double what it was when we went from the hotel to the train station a few days before! In reality, we were only out a few dollars, but it's the principle.
Funny, once the taxi pulled up to the hotel around 5am, the door was locked and lights turned off. We thought we'd have to wait outside until 6am or so when employees would start arriving for work. In the meantime, a few other tourists who were on the same overnight train also arrived; we peered into the windows to see about 20 employees sleeping anywhere and everywhere in the hotel lobby and restaurant - along with parked motorbikes also in the lobby. They were nice enough to unlock the doors and let us come inside. Within an hour, motorbikes were back on the street, floors were mopped, and no one would have ever known. Apparently, it's pretty common for employees to sleep in the lobby (or wherever) since other tourists we met had similar stories.
We had a few other mishaps that made us feel a little scammed, or maybe it was because they all happened within a few hours of each other. Whatever the case, it's over with and we've moved on. Nothing will go perfectly when traveling and we have been really lucky so far (knock on wood) that nothing major has happened.
After breakfast, we waited for our shuttle to take us to Halong City where we would catch our boat for our two day excursion around Halong Bay. Halong Bay is a group of over 3,000 limestone isles off of the east coast of Vietnam. Listed as a World Heritage Site, it's currently in the running as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Hopefully this will give the bay some recognition and something will be done about the massive amounts of trash we saw. :/
Our junk boat, the Lagoon II:
We learned from our guide on the boat that all the boats in the bay are called "junk boats" because that is the literal translation in Chinese. Whatever.
Our boat was considered to be one of the best and we weren't disappointed - we figured if we could handle 3 nights in the small cell sailing around the Whitsunday Islands, we could handle almost anything. Our room was huge in comparison! Sorry, we forgot to take pictures. And there were only 8 people on the boat - a German couple, a Spanish couple on their honeymoon, and two older Australian ladies. Everyone was really friendly and we had great conversation.
We had lunch on the boat and then took off for our first destination, a floating village. It was a complete eye-opener to see how a few hundred people are able to survive in such small spaces basically in the middle of nowhere.
The villages are a few hours by row boat from the mainland, so the government sends a large boat out every morning with fresh water, food, and picks up trash and brings it back to shore. The government boat also brings back seafood the fisherman catch to sell on the mainland.
We visited a school in one of the villages, there is a primary school on-site, but anything above needs to be taught on the mainland. Volunteer student teachers live in the village a few months at a time to teach the kids. We would have had pictures if our camera hadn't freaked out and fogged up - the camera is not a fan of the humidity. :/
We sailed around for a bit and soaked up the peacefulness of the surroundings - we were told we could go swimming, but seeing this made it pretty unappealling:
And there were HUGE jellyfish! Swimming was definitely not happening.
A few other pictures:
It was cloudy/foggy both days, which was somewhat of a bummer, but it would have been unbearably hot if the sun was out in full force. And the clouds added a mysterious element to the islands.
We had a great dinner, way too much food as usual, and were just sitting around chatting when the German couple gave each other a funny look and whispered something. Turns out, they saw a rat on the boat just run past the table. Ack!! [We've seen a few rats in various places since, i.e. restaurants, so we guess it's just the way it goes?]. Needless to say, it freaked us all out a bit.
The next morning, we headed towards Hang Sut Song, aka the Amazing Caves. As usual, our pictures didn't turn out so great, so click here if you want to see some that we found on the web from a person with a much better camera.
We cruised back to port, boarded our shuttle bus again, and headed back to Hanoi.
4 comments:
just say no to rats and jellyfish :/
the caves look pretty amazing though.
You went spelunking!
well, if you'd have been stung by a jellyfish, at least you had each other to pee on it.
Ya, you could go swimming. If you want to die! Geez, thanks locals. :/ Anyway, the caves look cool and so do your spooky island pics. :)
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