JAG Journeys

Friday, December 5, 2014

Halong Bay

Vietnam Trip ~ Days 11-13

July 23-25, 2012

We got up early in the morning on Monday, had the free breakfast our hostel provided, and then used the computers in the lobby while we waited for our bus to arrive to take us to our tour of Halong Bay. It was supposed to arrive around 8 a.m., but was late. After waiting for about fifteen minutes, one of the men working at the hostel sat down at the computer beside me that Jonathan had just vacated. He looked up something on Google Translate and then told us, "I don't think you can go to Halong Bay today."' We were confused and asked why. He said the tour company had called and said there was a thunderstorm there. I looked at the computer he was using and he had looked up the word 'storm.' So then we had to figure out what to do instead of going on our tour. We looked up the weather for the Halong Bay area and it said it was supposed to be stormy all week until next Sunday. We didn't really want to just stay in Hanoi until our flight back down to Saigon, so we decided to just get a public bus to Halong City and at least see the bay from shore if we couldn't go out sailing on it. We got a refund for our trip and the lady at the front desk was sad we weren't able to go. She said that we could do a 2 day/1 night trip tomorrow if the weather was better, but we didn't really want to sit around for an extra day and then just have the weather not cooperate for us. So we got a taxi ride to the bus station. The taxi driver didn't actually know where the station was since it was quite a ways from the Old Quarter (I guess not too many tourists use the public buses since most get tours out to Halong Bay). He stopped twice to ask other taxi and motorcycle taxi drivers where the station was. Finally we arrived and then had an easy time buying tickets.

The bus trip was about 4.5 or 5 hours and some of it was in rain, especially the nearer we got to the bay. When we got close, the bus stopped and we had to get out and take motorcycle taxis the 5 remaining km to Halong City. We hurriedly dug our raincoats and pack covers out and put them on, then hopped on the bikes. Soon after we got to the hotel, the rain stopped! We got a hotel near the shore and then wandered around looking at the small city. After we ate supper, we walked down the main street in Halong City and came to a tour company. We went in and asked the lady about a tour of the bay and she told us about a couple options we could have if the weather got better. Since we couldn't go on a 3 day/2 night tour anymore we decided a 2 day/1 night would be nice. She said to come by the office by noon the next day to see if the weather would allow us to go.

When we got back to our hotel that evening we looked through the tour book that our hotel had at the front desk. It looked like a good tour, too, and it had a nice itinerary. We didn't know which one to take, so early Tuesday morning Jonathan walked back to the tour company to ask the lady there for the itinerary of that trip. It turned out that the weather wasn't good enough for going on a trip that day either, and we asked the man at our hotel, too, but he said his tour wasn't going either. So we spent the day just relaxing and didn't do too much. We did change hotels, though, to a hotel mentioned in our guidebook. We didn't really appreciate the man at the first hotel since he was quite pushy to try to get us to do what he thought we should do and also seemed a little too interested and snoopy in our plans. We didn't like that very much, so we switched to a hotel a few buildings down the street. It rained really hard in the afternoon and we spent most of it indoors watching some TV. In the evening we went back outdoors and walked around a bit, and then had supper before turning in for the night.

Wednesday morning we got up and ready to head out by 7:45. Jonathan tried calling the tour company on the phone in our room, but it didn't work so we went downstairs to call from the lobby. The lady told us that there was no tour in the morning, but we should come to her office just before noon and we could go on an afternoon tour that was coming from Hanoi. So we were happy we'd at least get to see some of the bay before we had to leave that area and go back to Hanoi. We walked along the shore in the late morning and took some pictures of the cloudy bay from the beach and dock. Then we headed to the tour company. They confirmed that we could, in fact, go on the tour and we were excited to finally explore a bit of the bay. We had a quick lunch at a restaurant across the street, where we could see the tour company from the restaurant windows. After two days of waiting we didn't want to accidentally miss the tour!

After lunch, we waited for a while at the tour company and finally one of the workers got a taxi and brought us out to the ferry dock. He showed us where to join our group and then we were with them for the rest of the afternoon. We just saw a small part of the bay, but it was quite amazing to see such huge limestone karsts jutting steeply out of the water all over the place! We visited a floating village and got rides in small boats around that area. Then we went farther around that group of islands and finally ended up at a cave that we walked through before heading back to the harbour. The trip took us about three and a half hours in total, not what we'd initially planned, but it was certainly better than not being able to go out in the bay at all. In the end, we decided that we'll have to come back here sometime and spend a good amount of time just in this northern area to see more of the bay and the other two bays that are nearby and less popular with tourists.

We were able to get the shuttle bus back to Hanoi with our group so it was much nicer and faster than taking a public bus like we had to get out to Halong City. It took us about three and a half hours with a half an hour stop for bathrooms, and looking at a souvenir shop.

So Mother Nature definitely had her own plans for the last few days of our trip. Hopefully we'll be able to come back and visit northern Vietnam again, though, to spend a little bit more time in this area.

Empty beach

The bay

Tour boats

We rounded a corner...

...and there sat a village!

On the way home from school

We took a ride in a small boat, going through the tunnel

Fruit seller

School building

Leaving

So close yet so far

Stairs

Skittles lights

Strange formation

Underground beauty

Our dunnage

Last look

Next up: Back in Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City

Friday, November 28, 2014

Water Puppet Theater

Vietnam Trip ~ Day 10

July 22, 2012, Part 2

Since arriving in Vietnam we had heard about the traditional Vietnamese water puppet theater. We knew we definitely wanted to see a show while in Hanoi, and were so happy to be able to get tickets on our first evening there. Right after entering the building we saw posters explaining that if you wanted to take pictures or videos during the performance you could pay a little bit extra for a photo or video pass. The amount really wasn't much (an extra 20,000 dong ($1 US) for a photo pass and an extra 60,000 dong ($3 US) for a video pass), and we thought that was a great alternative to just saying "No Pictures or Videos" like many places do. I guess they know that tourists usually want to share interesting performances with their family and friends. We got bought a pass, and then found our seats, only a few rows up from the front.

The orchestra was small, and made up of very different Asian instruments. The musicians were dressed in traditional Vietnamese clothing and looked very professional. They played two introductory pieces before the puppet show started. During the performance, people behind a screen controlled the puppets, which were half submerged in water most of the time. For some of the short scenes, a woman playing with the orchestra up front also sang along, and a man backstage sang sometimes as well. They had really lovely voices and sang in a very Asian style. The performance was so neat to watch and very different from other traditional art forms. We were really glad we spent the $5 each to watch it. It was definitely a highlight of our trip!

Next up: Ha Long Bay

Hanoi

Vietnam Trip ~ Day 10

July 22, 2012

We arrived at the train station in Dong Hoi around 7 p.m. and it was already quite dark by that time. Our train was supposed to leave just after 8 p.m., but it was around an hour late. We were fortunate enough to have soft seats on this train ride, so our car looked more like a normal train we were used to. The seats all faced one direction until the middle of the car and then they switched and faced the other way, so the very middle seats faced toward each other. We sat backwards, but sometimes it felt like we were sitting forwards since we couldn't see anything out the windows. We were sitting behind the other couple we had ridden with from the farmstay. We had talked a bit in the car and then more while waiting for the train and it was nice to get to know them better. They were from Antwerp, Belgium and spoke Dutch. They ended up having the seats right in front of us. Although we did have soft seats on this trip, it was still hard to sleep since the seats in front of ours seemed to be broken and leaned extra far back and didn't leave us much room for our legs. Even so, it was much better than the hard seats and having someone sleeping where your feet should go. We slept off and on all night and then just around 6 a.m. some pretty loud Vietnamese music came over the loud-speakers as a wake up and to let people know that we had arrived in Hanoi. We watched the city pass by until we got to the station.

Waking up in the train

Vietnam conveniences

Once off the train, we found a taxi and went to the hostel we had picked out in the guidebook. As it turned out, the Belgium couple we had traveled with had just gotten there, too, so we stayed in the same hostel. It was around 7 a.m. by then, and some businesses were just starting to open, so Jonathan and I left our things in the lobby with the manager and went out to find some breakfast. We found a lady selling small baguettes and some sort of spread, and got two of each, which we ate back at the hostel. We had to wait for about an hour and a half for someone to check out of a room so we could have one, but we just used the computers in the lobby until we could get our room. Then we relaxed in our room for a bit before showering and getting some clothes together to get laundered.

Back in the lobby later, we asked the lady at the desk about tours to Halong Bay and she showed us some books about the tours she knew about. We decided to go on a 3 day/2 night tour leaving the next morning (Monday) and getting back Wednesday. One night we would be sleeping on a boat and the other we would stay at a hotel on an island in the bay called Cat Ba Island. The lady happily booked the tour for us and we were excited and really looking forward to it. Then finally we were ready to head out to see Hanoi! We got a map at the front desk and wandered around the Old Quarter. We spotted a place to eat a real meal at a restaurant on the 2nd floor of a building and watching the people go by on the streets below. Back on the street, we peeked into a Vietnamese music store that was pretty interesting. Jonathan tried out one instrument that was very different sounding.

Surveying the scenery whilst awaiting our meal

Treats

Tasty feast

Sour oranges!

Houses are built quite vertically here

Fruit peddler

Music shop

In the instrument shop

One thing that we knew we really wanted to do while in Hanoi was go to a water puppet theatre. We found that the theatre wasn't far away, and took a quick taxi ride there, buying tickets for later that evening before , and then walked around by a nearby lake. While there, a man accosted Jonathan's shoes with a big sewing needle and some thick thread! Jonathan was quite surprised and tried to tell him no several times, but the man was very insistent that they needed to be fixed and was already on his way to making them better. It was quite frustrating and Jonathan wasn't really able to move around much until the man finally pulled the shoes off his feet to fix them and gave him some paper slippers to put on instead. About 15 minutes later, he was done and then we had to haggle with him about the price. We were not happy about that turn of events, since we had not asked the shoes to be mended. Ugh, how do you get out of something like that??

After that unfortunate event, we wandered up and down the streets going into stores and looking at souvenirs. There were many interesting items, but after a few stores we realized that most of them contained the same sorts of things as other tourist areas we've already been to. It was almost time for the water puppet theatre to start, so we headed back there. We'll talk about that in more detail in the next post. It was really great, though!

When we got out of the theater after the show it was raining slightly as we walked back to our hotel. On the way we encountered a night market on some blocked off streets. It was interesting to see what was for sale, but we didn't buy anything. There were lots of Vietnamese people there buying things, but not too many tourists. When we got back to our hostel the lady at the front desk helped us book flights back to Saigon (Ho Chi Mihn City) for early Thursday morning. Again we were so grateful for the very helpful and accommodating hotel workers who assisted us in booking so many tours and travel arrangements. We headed up to our room and fell asleep pretty quickly, looking forward to our tour of Halong Bay in the morning.