The flight from Moscow was probably the soberest part of my
trip so far. Lee (the old Vietnamese guy
I sat beside) and I had a glass of very generic red wine on the plane and that
was it. I landed, paid $65 for multiple
re-entry duty and collected my backpack from the extremely chaotic and
confusing arrivals longue and got into the pick up car I’d booked from the
hostel website. This was expensive and
if I were to make the same trip again, I’d probably just take a taxi for half
the price. I’m not too upset about it though;
I got to have a good look at the Vietnamese style of driving; with complete
lack of regard for safety and a lot of respect for the horn. Mopeds and bikes weave in and around the
narrow roads whilst trucks and buses force their way behind them, occasionally
moving into the bike lanes nearly knocking entire family’s clean off their
scooters. Before I got here, I saw the
odd meme or picture posted on Facebook of people carrying 48” televisions on
their scooters – I thought this would be a rare case but in one day of Hanoi I
saw everything from fridges, cupboards, 15 ft ladders to massive pallets of
bricks, see below.
I spoke very little to the driver during the forty five
minute journey. His English was limited
and I was tired, I was powered only by my determination to get to my
destination. I was a little concerned
about his driving as well, utilizing the three lane swerve whilst chatting on
the handheld mobile phone technique was a tad unsettling for someone unused to
the craziness of Vietnamese roads. The
car stopped in the main road before I was greeted by a receptionist who guided
me to the hostel. Hanoi Backpackers is
one of the more expensive hostels one will go to, situated on a narrow street
with a few other options. I booked it
because I was recommended by my ex and was quite glad to find out that my good
friend, Pell Huntsman was staying in the very same place. We had always planned on travelling a little
bit of SE Asia together but as I lacked the money to do so for a long time and
didn’t want to hijack his experience. He
was up at that point, smoking a cigarette at the front of the hostel. He greeted me with open arms and I went to
check in. Unfortunately I was unable to
do so until 1, so I jammed my luggage into the luggage room grabbed a shower
from his dorm’s bathroom and went for a brief walk around Hanoi. What a place – a dirtier city than I’m used
to but I don’t find this off putting.
The city is a whirl of traffic and honking horns that resemble the buzz
of bees, blared at the other vehicles on the road to declare their presence,
not to scold bad driving. It has
beautiful parks with lakes, statues and the important monuments of Ho Chi Minh's days,
which I’ll be honest - I only got to see in passing.
After my first meal in Hanoi – beef with rice and the walk,
we headed back to the hostel so I could check in, then got stuck into two kegs
of free beer provided by the hostel from 3 PM onwards. This is only on Sunday and the beer doesn’t
taste great at first but they certainly improve after the first. We met a whole bunch of people but most
importantly some young Dutch guys who P was sharing his dorm with. Rum was drank, beers were downed, mystery
liquid was sprayed from syringes into mouths and Jenga was played. The fact Ireland lost vs. the Netherlands at
my behest meant we were downing horrendous shots of mixed spirits and
mayonnaise as punishment for my devastatingly poor hand-eye coordination. As the drunkenness continued, we were led on
a pub crawl to the downtown Hanoi backpacker’s hostel where the booze didn’t
stop flowing. I think at some point I
must have been hitting on random girls, dancing schmoozy waltzes to fast paced
pop songs and just generally making an ass of myself all for less than half a
million dong. The bar closed at around 2
and we got another beer at some food store, and then headed back to the
hostel. Before we retired we watched a
couple of Vietnamese guys playing a game somewhere that an involved a feathered
object which seemed to be between hackey sack and a shuttle cock. These guys were juggling it with their feet
in impossible fashions, bouncing it, flipping it and kicking it in such ways it
blew my mind. Then I took my drunken ass
to bed because that should not have been so entertaining.
Monday
I woke up in my double bed at about ten the next day, told Huntsman
that I wanted to stay another night in Hanoi and he agreed. There was no point in rushing anywhere when
we were hung over and disorientated.
Besides that it was the Dutch guys’ last night in Asia and who were we
to let them leave without getting drunk with us one last time.
Not much was achieved that day. I drank an overpriced banana and mango
smoothie to try and get some vitamin C back into my body and the four of us
went to the end of the street to get an incredible sandwich from one of the
street sellers. Bare this in mind if you
ever do stay in Hanoi Backpackers: for 20K dong (60p) you can chow down on a
small baguette stuffed with fried egg, meat, salad and parsley that will rock
your fucking socks off. This was to
become a staple of my diet in Hanoi. For
the better part of the morning and early afternoon I sat in the hostel or
around it, using Facebook and chatting to fellow travellers. At some point the Dutch guy Mick played me at
chess and scraped a victory after I stupidly sacrificed my queen for a pawn,
walking blindly into the path of his own female sovereign. For lunch I had Pho – Vietnamese noodle soup
with meat and veg. Pretty tasty stuff
for 30k and served as a healthy alternative to the calorific French breaded
sandwich.
Mick reminded me that at some point in Sunday’s drink
induced haze we ended up going to a propaganda poster store where they sold the
old Vietcong prints on rice paper. He
told me to check my pockets for a business card that guaranteed me a
poster. I’d purchased one and asked the
shop owner to look after it until the next day, feeling completely incapable of
looking after it in such a state. We
walked through the streets to the shop, bumping into Huntsman, Bart and two of
the Dai Lat rats – three guys who had been travelling as a mini motorcycle gang
through Vietnam, two on bikes one and one on scooter. This is not an uncommon way for tourists to
get through Asia, but I don’t particularly fancy the idea considering around 20
people die a day on the roads of Vietnam.
Mad props to anyone with the balls to do it. Bart joined Mick and I to get the poster from
the shop. When we got there I was unable
to remember exactly which poster I had bought.
As I looked around I slowly regained some memory of being in the place,
the childlike drunken state I was in and the decision making process that was
going on in my head at that time. I also
remembered the poster I bought, a drawing of a fat Vietnamese child waving a
Vietnam flag riding a giant chicken and being surrounded by chickens. I immediately entered into a fit of
hysterical laughter; my stomach was almost in pain from the ridiculous of the
situation. We left soon after and
chilled out once again in the hostel.
The boys were for enjoying the happy hour again but before
they got started Huntsman and I threw about the idea of going to Halong Bay the
next day. I left him to toss the idea
around as I took a taxi to Vietfighter, an MMA gym about half an hour
away. I had arranged for a drop in Muay
Thai session, which was pretty expensive at 330k, not including the taxis there
and back which came to 160k in total.
Having said that, it was well worth the price – after so many nights of
drinking, I was in dire need of some serious exercise and this was my chance to
have it. This was the first time
training in the heat and humidity of Asia and I warmed up on a punch bag before
class began. I was almost destroyed by
this ten minute session alone. The
fairly intense
hour and a half long class, coached by a former Thai
champion had me sweat more than I’ve ever sweated before. My vest, still sitting in the front pocket of
my backpack absolutely reeks of the stale perspiration in which it’s absolutely
coated in. Almost enough to make my eyes
sting. After class I had a quick roll
with one of the club’s white belts, got my ass handed to me in quick success,
tapping to a kimura. As I’ve always
said, why be shit at one martial art, when you can be shit at two.
When I got back to the hostel, Huntsman had done some research
into the Halong Bay affair. Rather than
pay the overpriced hostel price of $220, he’d gone across the road where they
offered a similar deal for $95. For this
we’d get the bus journey to and from the hostel, three day boat trip, two
nights sleeping: one on a boat and one in a bungalow, meals, entry into a cave,
kayaking and a guided hike. It was hard
to say no.
I grabbed the money, paid the man and we got to our
favourite activity in Hanoi – drinking. Bart and I grabbed a quick meal of
chicken fried rice and a beer for a total of 60k each. Our drinking destination was right beside
Hanoi Backpacker’s Downtown - a street corner bar, owned by the fabulous Mrs
Li. At 15k for a big bottle of Tiger, we
couldn’t go wrong. There was a large
crowd of us gathered there and things got rather interesting. At some point across the street there was a
slap fight between two larger middle aged women which presumably was about
money based on their seemingly shared business affair. Bazz, one of the Da Lat rats also managed to
upset a Vietnamese/Japanese girl who had decided she was going to be his
girlfriend for a few days. Truth be told
the girl seemed a little crazy and slapped him for supposedly breaking his
bracelet, which had actually been destroyed by her “sister/cousin”, or really
just her friend. It was all settled in
the end, not helped by my drunken attempts to play Jesus. Huntsman and I said
our goodbyes to the Dutch blokes
and I left very drunkenly on scooter taxi back to our
hostel. We were to have an early start
after all.
Tuesday
Tuesday was a fantastic day.
We got up, grabbed our free hostel breakfasts, threw our excess stuff
into the travel agency store room and hopped on the bus. I couldn’t believe it when I did as my friend
Walrus and his wife Nat who I both knew from living in Barcelona were on the
exact same bus. They moved to SE Asia a
month before I left Barca and I had meant to e-mail him to let him know I was
in the area. I’d like a mathmetician to
calculate the precise probability of meeting someone you know on the same bus
in a country the other side of the world is, almost a year to the last time you
saw them. Serendipity is an incredible
thing. They and their friend Kayleigh
May had bought a similar package but rather than get the bungalow for a night
had a hotel stay, for a lower price of $55.
In hindsight if we had known about this offer, we probably would have
taken it and for a large part of the day I felt slightly screwed over. If anything this should be a lesson to haggle
for a better deal in all circumstances even when you think you have a good
deal. Also, if you have the time, shop
around to find the best option. Shopping
around too much can have its downside as I’ll explain later.
The bus journey took to the harbour about three hours during
which time we chatted to those around us, a Chilean couple, some Israeli guys
and some Thai and Lao folk. Our
Vietnamese tour guide, Du was a pretty funny guy and to be fair to him had a
difficult job organizing tourists, ships, crew and bus drivers especially
considering he’d have to do a lot of the communicating in English at a
pre-intermediate level with other tourists whose English might not have been so
good either. We spent much of the day
hopping off and on boats because despite the good job Du was doing, the
organization of the trip seemed far from perfect. Crew members just didn’t seem to know their
arse from their elbow at times, leading to us being told to leave a boat, only
later to be told to get back on it. This
was but a minor frustration as the rest of the day was great. The boat took us to a set of caves,
discovered hundreds of years ago by a fisherman who found the entrance when he
was chasing a monkey.
That wasn’t the only strange story I heard that day
though. Just like the Giant’s Causeway
has its own folklore, the myth behind Halong Bay comes from a time when the
Vietnamese were at war with China. Supposedly
a dragon came from heaven to help Vietnam, blew fire out of his mouth at the
enemy ships and when the fire hit water, the giant rocks formed. The Vietnamese won the war and the dragon
returned to heaven, leaving only the islands in its place.
When we got back onto the boat after the caves, we did a
considerable amount of pirating. We clambered around the ship drinking rum,
vodka, beer and bourbon, jumped off of the side of the ship, swam and regaled
in our cutthroat escapades. Walrus even
got a go at steering the ship, taking the wheel for the low-low price of a
cigarette. Only two downsides came about
from all of this – one, I got a sore arse after an overshot jump meant I landed
with an almighty crash on my back and bum, two we managed to upset the crew by
refusing to pay a ridiculous corkage charge for our own alcohol This meant that they tried confiscating every
receptacle we were using – dinner table glasses, the plastic cups found in
bathrooms for rinsing mouths out. By the
end of it we were left mixing spirits and coke in the same plastic bottles and
drinking out of those. Was akin go my
student days of using saucepans and milk bottles to chug out of. I thought it was a little bit pathetic of the
crew to try and do this but I regret reacting so poorly that I tried to lift
the glass so far above my head they couldn’t reach it. This was pretty childish of me after
all. However, I don’t regret bringing
our own booze though and would recommend doing so to anybody who was intending
on going on the trip, just bring your own plastic cups. You can buy beer on board but at 30K a can,
it’s viciously overpriced, considering even in Ho Chi Minh’s palace it’s only
10K.
Whilst our boat was travelling in a fleet of three, there
were only two deck parties at first. By
the end of it everyone had flocked to our boat, where spliffs were passed
around, potions were quaffed, guitars were played and songs were sung. I did a duet with the Israeli guy, doing a
fair job of Tenacious D’s Fuck Her Gently for a man with such a massive amount
of booze in him. I tried going to bed
after that but failed to sleep, the noise of the air con and the fact Huntsman
had fallen asleep to deafeningly loud Pantera made it impossible to sleep. After twenty minutes trying I went to the top
of the boat again and drank another beer with a couple of posh Dublin
lads. They were about twenty one and
doing the same motorbiking trip as the Dai Lat Rats, give or take a few
towns. I felt slightly jealous that they
were so well travelled at a young age and annoyed about the amount of time I’ve
wasted not seeing much of the world.
After the beer and an extensive chat about politics I was ready to
sleep.
Wednesday
Not much can be said about the cold egg plus bread combo
that was offered for breakfast on the boat, other than I should have gone for a
swim prior to it. The boat then took us
to Cat Ba, a large island within Halong Bay.
If we were given the opportunity to explore the island, we’d probably
have had an easy going wander of the island with no real direction. Thankfully instead we had an elderly female
guide bust our ass up a mountain where we had the best views possible. Huntsman and I were wearing our Boojum t-shirts,
hoping to get a snap of us that would net the coveted free burritos for a month
prize. I can honestly say that even if
we don’t win the competition, the trek was worth it to see those views. The sense of satisfaction I got from dragging
my hung over ass up a hill that steep was tremendous, even if I did slip in mud
on the way down, embarrassing myself in front of a hot Argentinian girl who was
digging my rudimentary grasp of Spanish.
I still might have had a shot but Huntsman and I got separated from the
rest of the group after lunch. They were
staying in a very basic hotel and we’d paid for bungalows, which we got to by
scooter taxi followed by fishing boat.
The ride to Monkey Island on the boats was amazing, if I had
more battery in my phone I would have taken a few more shots but I’ll show you
what I have here. We went to throw our
stuff into our cabin but were alarmed to find that we were given a double bed,
rather than a single. Seeing as neither
of us are that way inclined, we asked reception for a cabin with two singles
and were slightly disappointed to find out that there’d be a $10 supplementary
charge. Seeing as we’re trying to travel
on the cheap, we’d rather be two men sharing a double bed with a little bit
more money in our pockets than two men sleeping in single beds without. The receptionist also made light of this
asking
“You’re both real men aren’t you?”
To which I jokily responded
“Yes, can you order us some hookers”
In hindsight he was maybe the matching t-shirts gave off the
wrong signals but it was a point of hilarity for some time to come.
When we did get settled into the bungalow we were both in
dire need of naps. The kind of hangovers
I was facing was not your normal one-too-many-beer ones but an energy draining succubus bitch of one. I had a Resaca grande as the Spanish might
say. One might also say in Spanish, Me
caga en la puta que te pario. I’ll let
you google that one. After that nap,
which is about all the sleep I was going to get in that bed, we went
kayaking. Kayaking around Monkey Island
was the absolute tits, aside from the fact the boat seemed to constantly veer
right, something that was later confirmed by what some guys from Singapore told
us later. That and the sky was overcast,
as it usually was during my time in Vietnam.
Again, these are but small gripes to an almost perfect experience. Dinner at the bungalow resort was also perfect
– a grilled buffet offering oysters and various other meats, salads and spring
rolls. I made the most of the quality
and quantity of food on offer, attempting to fill the bottomless pit that my
stomach seems to be.
It was good to take it easy that night though – a few beers
was enough. This was partly due to the
price of them and the fact my liver could have done with a rest. We chatted away to the guys from Singapore, a
Belgian guy and a Finnish/Spanish couple.
Everyone seemed to turn in at about midnight – breakfast was at 7, check
out and departure from the island at 8. It’s just a shame the humidity and
ineffective mosquito net in such a low altitude location gave us a terrible
night of sleep.
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