The only good thing about having a busted toilet today was that we had planned a day trip to Ha Long Bay and wouldn’t be around to not be able to use the malfunctioning porcelain.
We met up with Hain in the morning, and waited patiently for a tour bus to pick us up and take us to spend the day on Ha Long Bay. It was a popular tourist destination, and most people stay for a couple of days. We wanted to go and come back in one day, so Hain’s mom made arrangements for us with one of the millions of tour companies near our hotel. We were the last three on the little minibus when it arrived, and so we sat in the back and rode out of town.
Although I was the only native speaker of English on the bus, that was the language that seemed the most likely for everyone to understand, so our guide told us a little bit about the area as we left Hanoi. Actually, she told me – she looked straight at me the whole time while she talked – probably because she knew I would understand. I have to admit her accent was a little thick, but I nodded sagely in what I thought were the appropriate times, and once we got out of town there wasn’t much to describe.
Vietnam is not a rich country, and although it is a communist government, pretty much everyone in the country is trying to sell something. There are so many tour companies around trying to compete for tourist business, and some of them were pretty shady looking. This one turned out OK, but it wasn’t completely legit. We paid about $25 each for a ride there and back, a boat ride out on the bay, and lunch on the boat. We got all of that, but it was a little tricky.
The bus ride was pretty long – almost three hours. I can’t speak for the other people but I really enjoyed it. We got the chance to see the countryside and parts of Vietnam that are completely different from downtown Hanoi. It had a very rural feel out here, with lots of rice paddies and towns interspersed by distance. One common sight was ladies selling french bread on the side of the road. They would space themselves out and wave at passing cars trying to get them to stop for bread. I don’t know how the bread tasted after being on the side of the road for so long. The roads still had lots of scooters, and our driver didn’t hesitate to honk them out of the way to keep up his speed. Some scooters had strange cargo – I saw one loaded with chickens, others with large furniture, entire families, and even one had a full size cow strapped across the back.
We passed graves placed in inconvenient locations like right out in the middle of a rice field, and sometimes I saw people building the graves themselves with cement mixers. The towns we passed always had their doors open and display cases full of the same old items. Who buys all this stuff?
Halfway there we stopped at a pitstop that was full of items for sale, and we stood around for about thirty minutes until our driver and guide decided that nobody was going to buy anything or use the bathroom. Then we moved on. The pit stop had lots of other minibuses there full of tourists, so it must pay pretty well to stop there.
Finally we made it to the bay, and driving through the town on the way to the boats was pretty eye-opening. It was like a modernizing town that had stopped midstream. There would be a thirty story building being built, but you could only see two or three workers. Piles of cement blocks would be sitting in the middle of the road, and always there were houses selling stuff and people sitting outside waiting for a customer.
Almost at the harbor the road widened, huge sidewalks opened up on either side and it seemed like we were arriving at Disneyland. A closer inspection of the sidewalks revealed that weeds and grass were growing through in some places. It was probably built as a project twenty years ago. We were out in the middle of nowhere, and nobody was walking these sidewalks.
We got to the harbor, along with all the other tourists in different minibuses, and then we followed our guide like cattle to the gates. Then she told us to wait and we stood around with hundreds of other tourists for a while. Hain and Kuniko and I always spoke Japanese, so we usually had private conversations, but there were some Japanese tourists here as well, so we had to be a little more careful what we said. Eventually our guide returned with a shady looking guy who passed out boat tickets to us. It turned out that this guy was taking over guide duties for the bay trip.
He led us towards the boats. The harbor was crammed with them. It was no problem that they didn’t all fit – they just tied them to other boats and then you climbed from one boat to the next until your guide said stop. And still other tourists would keep on going, using your boat as a bridge. Our boat was pretty non-descript – it didn’t have the ornamental dragon head on the front like many of the others did. Eventually all the boats started to cast off and head across the bay, and so we all sat on comfortable seats inside and enjoyed the ride.
It was a cloudy day but not really cold. It made for some less than dramatic pictures, but I was just happy that it wasn’t raining. I bought a beer from one of the boat people and we headed out among the huge limestone rocks and deeper into the bay.
Around a few corners we came to a fishing village that was made up of boats and platforms, entirely on the water and cut off from everything except the hundreds of boats that came through on tours. Our lunch was late being prepared, so the guide pulled us over and we jumped off to check out one of the houses. The platform had an area where captured fish were kept in underwater cages, and we could look down and check out the different kinds. A lady that (maybe) lived there told us about them, and as soon as we stopped smaller boats approached full of fruit to sell to us. I didn’t buy any but some other tourists did. Eventually the people that lived on the platform went inside their house, and we got bored and got back on the boat to wait for lunch.
I was a little anxious to get out and see the bay. So far we had only traveled a short distance, and I wanted to scout around, maybe get some good pictures, and see some caves that are in the area. When we got info on the tour it said we would go inside, and I was looking forward to checking them out. Eventually lunch was served, and we shared our meal with a Chinese lady and a Japanese guy that were both traveling on their own through Asia. Lunch was OK – lots of fried stuff, but communication was tricky because the Chinese lady spoke English but not Japanese, and the Japanese guy only spoke Japanese. I tried to translate for the Chinese lady and we at least kept the conversation floating. Other tables were silent as they ate their food.
After lunch we set off from the flotilla of homes and saw a rock formation that resembled either kissing rocks or fighting cocks depending on whether I understood the guide or not. Then they turned the boat around and the guide told us that we were heading back.
Kuniko was a little upset – she also wanted to see the caves, and it felt like we were getting ripped off a little here. Nobody else said anything, so I offered to go and complain a little. The guy apologized and said that we didn’t have time to see them, and I showed him the paper that we got from the agency saying that we would be seeing caves. He smiled and said he was sorry, and I went back without a victory.
Strangely, he came through the boat a few minutes later and said that we would indeed be going to see some caves, and Kuniko and I were stoked. I’m not sure what the other passengers thought, but at least our lunch companions seemed interested in seeing something new.
The caves were pretty cool. After an overly long introduction from our guide we were allowed inside – and they were suitably dramatic. They were lit by multi-colored lights that made things a little more beautiful or cheesy depending on your attitude. We spent about 30 minutes walking through some huge caverns, and then passed by the inevitable tourist stops on the way back to the boat. Lots of other boats were there too – it was a popular stop.
It was definitely time to head back, so we said goodbye to our shady tour guide and caught a different minibus back to Hanoi. The ride back was almost completely in the dark, so there wasn’t as much to see, but I thought it was significant how dark it was. Most houses had almost no lighting, and Hain explained that the cost of energy was prohibitive and so people used as little electricity as possible. Only the shops and restaurants had one or two lightbulbs going – almost every house was dark.
Our driver drove like a demon back to Hanoi, and luckily we skipped the tourist pit stop so that we made it back in fairly good time. We thanked Hain for all the help and sent her home in a taxi, and then went to go catch some dinner and beer.
Having walked all over the old quarter the past few days we had determined that one particular street restaurant smelled better than the others, and luckily for us they had an English menu. We pulled up a stool on the street, stepping on used napkins and broken chicken bones, and ordered up some steak, some fried noodles and vegetables, and a couple of cold beers. The workers (mainly high school aged boys) were really friendly, and the food was great. We ate some spare ribs as well, and then after a couple more beers headed back to the hotel and called it a night.
Toilet update: Our toilet was OK when we got back to the hotel, although I had to manually reseat the valve inside the toilet tank after every flush. At this point I was just happy that it was flushing, and we called it a minor victory. However, it was a short-lived victory, as we shall see.
