Halong Bay - Yet another dissappointing day.

Nam Hai 1 Hotel, Hanoi

We went back to the good old Nam Hai 1 hotel in the old quarters after the overnight train. When it was time for me to pick up the luggages left behind in the hotel, I insisted to take them up myself. I was so fed up with the place and its people that I did not want to give them the obligatory tip, which was exactly the reason why they wanted to carry them for me.

Halong Bay was 3 hour ride from Hanoi. It was supposed to be so beautiful that it would soon be made into a natural wonder of the world, according to our unmotivated, bored tour guide. The cruise was about 3-4 hours around the bay, and we boarded our boat realizing that there were only the two of us, the tour guide, a cook, the captain and his helper.

It would not take too many words to describe what we saw in the 3 hour ride, for we did not see much worth describing. The legend had it that at one of point in the past the Vietnamese were fighting against the chinese invadors over this bay, and a dragon came along and coughed up a bunch of pearls, which settled into the bay in the form of large rocks. The Chinese boats crashed into the rocks and lost the battle. That was how the Vietnamese regained its indepedence.

Maybe it was the way the place had been presented to us, but we certainly did not understand the raves about it, or why it should be considered as a world wonder. There were a lot of rocks, and I heard about beautiful views of the bay from the rocks. But our tour only included a visit in a cave, and did not include a climb up to a rock. Our boat was very slow, and it took short cuts compared to other boats beside us. The rocks all looked very similar and they looked as bored as we were. It was difficult to feel any charm.

We had lunch on the boat, seafood made by mediocre cooking skills. Maybe the crew felt the boredom of the bay too. Soon after lunch, with the exception of the captain, the crew and our tour guide decided to take an afternoon nap on the benches.

The lack of professionalism of this tour had been apparent everywhere. A tour guide who did not explain, and took a nap in his tour was unacceptable behaviour. We felt that there was no point to complain anymore. It was our last day in Vietnam, and probably our last time ever.

We took another 3 hour car ride back to Hanoi from Halong bay. We felt that we had wasted yet another day in Vietnam, and the least we could do was venture out into the dirty old old quarters and find ourselves some local food. Our stomachs had been acting up in this trip, even though we had only been sticking to the food provided by the tour. The truth is, even though we ate at a restaurant, not on the street, the kitchens here were always situated in outdoors, and with all the flies in the Hanoi air, any item left outdoor for longer than half a second would have already been touched by a few flies. We ended up having hotpot on the street along with other locals. It was as clean as to could get, with steam coming out from the boiling pot, no flies dared to come near. And as expected, both of us felt fine the next day.

We spent the rest of the night roaming carefully the old quarters. We tried some local sweets and bakeries and they were mouthwatering. Both of us love food, and often it is the one thing that would make or break our enjoyment in a trip. For that day, if it was not the sweets and the hotpot, we would have left Vietnam with a very sour note.