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Hanoi to Halong Bay
July 18 | Comments (1)
We arrived early in the morning at the Hanoi train station (roughly 5 am)and made our way to the Van Mihn hotel for a quick shower before getting on the bus for Halong bay. We were picked up shortly after 8 by our tour guide, taken to our chariot and whisked away to anticipated bliss. Boy were we wrong.
Tours in Vietnam operate in a very interesting way. The price you pay for the tour doesn't dictate the service level, or standard. Therefore someone can pay $37 for the same tour as someone who paid $100. It also seems as if It doesn't really matter which tour company you book with as they all pool together in the end. It's all a bit of a lucky dip, some people get lucky and some people don't. We booked with Sihn Cafe on Hang Bac Street (May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their genitals). I feel lucky that we were on the low side of the price range as our Halong experience was by far the worst travel experience we've ever had. If you're thinking of taking in the scenery of Halong bay, book a day trip or 1 night on the boat.
Arriving in Halong city we were shuttled on to our boat. We were supposed to have booked a small tour with 15 people, but it turns out that it just means that 15 people will sleep on the boat in the evening, not how many they can ferry accross to Cat Ba island. We spent most of the afternoon anticipating the cool water, only to find out that we would be spending the first night in a hotel. Once on Cat Ba we unloaded the 15 suckers (including ourselves) who were driven to the centre of town. The driver (opium teeth included) was a nutcase, only after breaking the wing mirror in a near collision with another, much bigger, bus did he decide to slow down.
We arrived, a little shaken at the Chiang Son hotel. What a shit hole! Even those people on a very tiny budget weren't happy. Obviously someone was trying to cut corners and make some more margin on the tour.
Note to single travellers: Make sure you get your tour operator to write down "single room, no sharing on pain of death" on their forms. Make sure you get the "single" extra cost included in your fare. If you don't, the hotels and boat operators will assume that you will share with anyone, male or female, sometimes in a double bed.
Our new friend Niamh was unfortunately one of those that paid for a single room but failed to get them to write it down in the tour book. So she was forced to share, or pay for a more expensive room. As we had a 3 bed room, the tour guide expected her to share with us...even though we were clearly a couple. In the end we had the hotel owner pay us to share the room, but it left a very sour taste. It was so late by the time we settled the hotel debacle, that we couldn't go swimming. We had a quick supper and went upstairs to bed as we had a very early start the next morning. The food wasn't great, either on the boat or in the hotel...if you're doing one of these tours you'd be better off finding your own food. If we take other tours in the south, we'll learn our lesson.
Our guide (if he called me friend one more time I was ready drop him off the boat) was waiting for us at breakfast and notified us that we would start our Cat Ba trek at 8am. The trek itself was beautiful, 2 hours of very rocky terrain in the national park. We saw big spiders and snakes, and were soaked with sweat when we returned. If you ever go, bring lots of water, a hat and good shoes...although the guide did it in flip flops (not sure how). The view from the top of the mountain was amazing.
Finally after spending most of our time away from the boat, we were ready to get back on and hopefully do some swimming. At about 3pm we were taken back to the boat, thankfully with a much safer driver. Crossing paths with the other 15 we warned them of the hotel and our experience (turns out they had a very similar one.) They warned us to bring lots of water to the boat as they ran out and it was a struggle to get the captain to go and get more.
On the boat Niamh was again told that she would have to share a room with a stranger (a guy), this time with a double bed. In the end she had to sleep in the dining area as the lock on her room was broken and the boat crew said that the only way to use the room was to climb through the window.
The swimming in the evening was nothing short of wonderful, after almost 2 days of waiting to get in the water we had 1 hour of free swimming time. Bliss. After supper we sat on the upper deck, watched the stars and ate Oreo's. Our room was muggy and hot, as the fan kept stopping...but my mood improved after the swim so it wasn't too bad.
Breakfast just about tipped everyone over the edge. We were served bread (with ants for extra protein), 1 deep fried egg, and 1 small glass of tea. They didn't have any water left, and they wouldn't let us have any more food. By that time we couldn't wait to get off the boat and back to Hanoi to relax...who would have thought.
Given the number of people who go to Halong Bay, all experiences can't be like ours. Just make sure you get all promises in writing before you go so that you can force them to give you a refund when you don't get what you expected.
Back in Hanoi, we returned to the Van Mihn, and had a great nights sleep. Today we wandered about the old quarter and had a fantastic lunch at the Green Tangerine (48 Hang Be, Hanoi, Old Quarter). The service was fantastic and the set lunch was devine. We took the recipe for the Tamarind chicken with vermicelli noodles!
Tommorow we fly to Hue, the start of another adventure.
Comments
Hi Jared, sorry to hear you had a bad time in Halong Bay. It sounds completely at odds to the experience we had. We booked a 3 day tour at the vegi restaurant near the busy intersection at the top of the lake in Hanoi. They gave us a choice of luxury or economy and we went for the economy one (I think it cost about $70 each). They were really professional and the whole trip went with out a hitch. The food was out of this world and they even took us to a deserted island for a bbq of just caught shell fish. I hope they took you to the massive caves. The hotel on Katba was brand new and way above our expectations, in fact we stayed an extra night and went back on a different boat the next morning. The extra day on Katba gave us the opportunity to hire a couple of guys on mopeds to take us on a tour of the island, which was probably my highlight of my time in Vietnam.
Hanoi on the other hand sounds like a different place to the Hanoi we experienced. We couldn't find a decent hotel for love nor money, it was really loud and incredibly busy. We couldn't relax at all.
Anyway, I love reading about your trip. Makes me very jealous! Keep us updated so I can travel by proxy!
Pete
Posted by: Pete | July 20, 2007 5:34 PM