Arriving in Hanoi was quite the experience. The capital of Vietnam is often incorrectly thought to be Ho Chi Minh City, but is actually Hanoi in the North. I had heard many great things about Hanoi, so was quite surprised when we drove into the city and found it to be a smaller, busier replica of HCMC.
Our hotel was bang in the centre of the ancient city, which is retrospect was not the best plan. This is because there is so little space available in this area that the hotels are very small. So we walked into the reception and were totes surprised to find that breakfast was served at one of three tables right next to reception and a little kitchen. But things took a turn for better once our room got upgraded and we found ourselves in a room ginormous enough for me to miss out on most of mum's snoring.
Of course we immediately set out to explore the nearby town - we only had that evening before setting off for a cruise in Halong bay. It turned out we were only a ten minute walk from Hoan Kiem lake, which is this surprisingly peaceful and beautiful lake in the centre of the city. The water isn't the cleanest, but it's fantastic to walk around the lake and look at the shrine its centre, as well as Ngoc Son temple which also lies on the lake and can be accessed by crossing a little bridge.
After doing a lap of the lake we walked back into Hanoi ancient city, and trawled the streets for a while to find somewhere to eat. Street food is a big thing here as well, and the most popular areas were swarming with locals and tourists alike, most of whom were perched on tiny little chairs around even tinier tables, trying to balance beer and hot snacks anywhere they could. Shockingly, we couldn't find an outdoor place to eat, so stopped at this cute little restaurant which I swear is an antique shop during the day. We both ordered chicken stir fries, and mum's was probably the highlight as it was called 5 spice chicken and no, we could not tell you what went into those five spices. But it was super tasty!! So were the pork spring rolls which we just had to order :D
The next morning we had to get up pretty early as our pick-up was at 8am. We had breakfast downstairs, which we had pre-ordered the night before. This was another source of amusement: the breakfast menu had seven different options and I had ordered the hamburger out of curiosity. I figured I would be served some deliciously spiced meat patty with a range of sides BUT I got a hamburger. And fries. Needless to say I ate it.
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| Our 2 day home |
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| Room on the junk boat |
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| Our view at lunch, as we cruised the islands |
As we were eating, the junk boat was sailing amongst the islands of Halong bay towards an area with Surprising cave. After lunch we took the little water taxi over to the caves (a massive tourist area) where our guide gave us an hour long tour of all the caves, which were huge and quite beautiful. We also found out why the cave is called Surprising Cave (check out the pictures!!!)
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| A view of the caves |
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| Surprising Cave |
After viewing the caves we climbed about halfway up the island via the stairs cut into the rock. We got some amazing views and pictures from up there, and a bit of fresh air which we totally needed!
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| View from on top of the caves |
After we returned to the boat, we were given some time to chillax whilst the junk boat sailed over for our next activity, which was a beach trip to Soi Sim island. We got there reasonably quickly, got to the island in our water taxi and were given an hour to enjoy the sun and sea and monkeys. Mum and I did go in for a little swim in the water, but unfortunately it's not the nicest water to go swimming in, as it's fairly dirty and in some places has oil slicks covering the surface. This is actually the one real negative point about this trip. We found out that although Halong Bay is around 1500 square kilometres in size, with approximately 2000 islets, tourists are only taken to a small region within the bay. This has caused a serious amount of pollution, which is exacerbated by the locals who live on floating housed in the area, and add their own waste to the water. Unfortunately, the number of tourists visiting Halong bay is only increasing, partly because of its renown as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I only hope that in the near future some steps are taken to reverse these polluted regions.
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| Monkey time |
Well, that's my appeal. Anyway, in spite of the water pollution, it was totally worth visiting Soi Sim island just to watch the monkeys playing on the rocks. Someone had put down a tray of food for them, so they were all gathered around eating, and didn't pay any mind to us silly tourists who were watching and taking photos. It was interesting to see that some of the monkeys didn't allow the other monkeys to get near the food, especially the little ones. The poor things were hiding behind and under rocks, waiting til their superiors were distracted so that they could jump in and steal some food. Occasionally this would result in a scuffle between them - it was great to watch!
After leaving the beach and heading back to the boat, we sailed to the place where we would be spending the night. We were given some personal time to get a shower in, and then headed to the top of the boat for a drink before dinner. There was a bar on the boat so we ordered a pretty decent bottle of wine to go with dinner, which was even more delicious than lunch time. Unfortunately we were so busy eating at this point that we didn't even think to take pictures. And we were having such a good time with our new friends that we ended up sitting at dinner for a few hours. Afterwards, we spent a little time watching some members of the party at squid fishing (they were getting quite lairy after a few beers) and then, totally exhausted, went to bed.
The next morning we were up bright and early for Tai Chi on the sun deck. However we found ourselves sunbathing instead! Our first port of call for the day was the floating village, where many local fishermen live with their families. We were all set up to explore the village on two people canoes, which was great fun. Mum sat in the back of our canoe with the camera, whilst I got stuck with the majority of the rowing action, and all of the manoeuvring too. We spent a good hour canoeing about, and got to view a couple more of the islands too. Pretty amazing all in all.
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| The floating village |
After we got back from the village we were given a little time to clean up and pack up our rooms, and check out so that they could start to get the rooms ready for the next group coming aboard. We set sail back for the mainland and, as a bit of entertainment, they gave us a cooking class. In that time we learnt how to make traditional Vietnamese rice paper spring rolls. It was really good fun - I had never thought to use rice paper for spring rolls before, and learning how to actually roll them properly was fantastic.
Sadly, it came to an end all too quickly, and after a final scrumptious lunch, we arrived back at the mainland and had another three hour drive back to our hotel. Needless to say we slept most of that journey back. And had some sweet dreams about how wonderful the last two days were!!
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