Halong Bay | Travelling in style

I haven’t fallen off the edge of the world, merely slipped into the Southern Hemisphere. But before that happened I had a great time in Hanoi, Halong Bay, and Singapore.

At Hanoi Airport you are told how much the taxi will be, in dollars. The taxi seemed to go on for miles, so you start wondering if all is as it should be and also know it’s gong to be a roller coaster ride when the driver puts on his seat belt. The Old Quarter is tiny streets and alleys, so the hotel took a bit of finding, luckily the taxi driver took my luggage in, as it was the wrong hotel despite its name, “we have another Hotel round the corner”. I had read about scams like this!! Anyway they did, and though the taxi driver tried to extort twice the agreed rate out of me, I stuck to my guns, but he more or less threw me out this time!!

This was just an overnight stop, as I was off first thing next morning to Halong Bay. A “must see” when in the North, Vietnam’s umpteenth World Heritage site, and I had treated myself to a 3 day Cruise on a Luxury “Junk”. We paddled, (well, I didn’t, as the guide I was sharing the kayak with asked me to stop paddling, because we were going in a very wiggly line) through little tunnels almost having to lie down in the kayak, into lagoons, saw floating villages, how pearls are created and had a trip to an enormous cave. Those and of course eat a lot of delicious food and drink at huge expense (a bottle of Champagne was $50.00), made a great holiday.

The drive to Halong Bay was interesting as it showed how industrial the north is. Still rice fields and vegetables being grown but huge factories, cement works, dirty, dusty and driech. Obviously no building regs, houses all over the place with no order, or worse still deserted half built developments. Very depressing.

Back to Hanoi, and time to get my head round the streets, also time to eat real street food as I only had three days left. I took parsimony to a new level. A guided walk at 6.00 a.m. with breakfast. Then street lunch and a haircut, at the end of the day street supper including a beer, all for $12.00. The reason I really liked the Old Quarter, is that it is not a tourist ghetto, but still a working part of the City. As in a Medieval city the streets each have one sort of shop. The local people are also there in the evenings drinking and eating. It took me the three days to realise that Bia Hoi (the local draught beer, not too strong or fizzy) costs between 5000 and 12000 dongs, and I had been paying 20,000 ($1.00) for fizzy Bottled Tiger beer. Silly me.

Having thought I had got to know my way around, realisation dawned when going back to the Airport, all I had done was the London equivalent of knowing a bit of Covent Garden and perhaps discovering where Soho is.

Hoi An is a beautiful 17th/18th century Vietnamese/ Chinese city with French Colonial thrown in, not destroyed by the American War as most places have been. It’s rather like going to Broadway, something slightly museumish about it, and full of tailors , dressmakers and shoe shops that will make you new shoes by next morning. Some of the silk is decidedly dodgy, the attendant in the silk museum showed me how you can test its purity, but as it involves setting fire to it, you might be hounded out of the market. The best way for you to find out more about the town is to look it up on the web, as I can’t do it justice.

Then on to Hue, a pretty big city and I thought I would need a couple of days there. Actually one day would have been plenty, as the Old Citidal, Palace etc, was largely destroyed in 1945 when the French were having a war here, then finished off by the USA. I could spend one hour at the Fine Arts Museum, and then there’s the Culture Museum, two hours? No…… a thorough examination of the former took fifteen minutes and the latter was closed for lunch. Never mind, a massage and a good book took up the rest of the day.

My passion for road travel has waned, as has your interest in it by now. Originally I wanted to take the next leg of my journey, the top half of Vietnam, by train, but decided that I didn’t want to sit on a train for 18 hours. So against my Eco-instincts I flew north to Hanoi. I have to say it was great to cover about 350 miles in 55 minutes, even though I feel I have cheated.

Arriving in Hanoi quite late in the evening is quite scary, especially as the taxi driver didn’t know where the hotel was, and there are two with the same name, hotel proper, and backpackers’ hostel, which I discovered I was booked into!! If I hadn’t been so hungry I would have stayed in my room, but had to find an ATM and food. The Old Quarter is like a medieval town, a mass of tiny streets and alleys. But the great difference between Hanoi and anywhere else I have been, is that this was not just a tourist Ghetto, but full of bars of locals too. I’m longing to have a proper explore in daylight.

I was a bit worried that the fortune I had paid to a travel agent in Nga Trang, might have been a scam and that the next part of the holiday wasn’t going to happen, but I should know by now, not to worry and that things turn out alright.

So now I am having a luxurious cruise in Halong Bay, 2 nights on a “junk” and like all cruises too much yummy food and tai Chi on the sun deck at sparrow’s fart!! Swedish, Swiss, Spanish, French, Oz, Korean, New Zealanders, Austrian living in Hawaii, USA, One Brit. 30 disparate nationalities !!!!

P.S. ( I’m not yet so wanton that I’ll pay $100.00 for a bottle of Champagne though)

Travelling in style

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