Ha Long Bay
Sooo day one. Woke up to a very wet and stormy Hanoi. Oh no, monsoon and typhoons! Grabbed some breakfast while waiting for the verdict on whether we could go or not. The verdict: we couldn't follow the planned itinerary but would have an altered one.
So after each getting a lovely, colourful sombrero hat (to get us in the party mood), we got on the bus and drove on these sketchy, not real roads, down to the boat pier. The rain was pretty much blowing sideways, Forrest Gump was right (One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night... ).
Kaite and I in our sombreros.
We arrived at Cat Ba island where we took another bus to our hotel. After eating and getting settled we visited this place called 'The Hospital,' which was used in the Vietnam war. It was this giant, slightly manmade, cave that was used as a hospital and hideout. They had pipes that released the steam from cooking about 5 km away, so the planes would drop the bombs in the wrong place. When leaving the cave out of the secret exit, people would be lead with their eyes clothes. If they opened them they would be shot! Additionally tons of traps and cameras were set up in the woods, making it virtually impossible to find.
At the hospital:
Ok I'm doing bullet poins now I'm so lazy and you don't have to hear about how we got from place to place.
- Visited the National Park on the island and had a brief geography lesson.
- Walked to the beach by the hotel. The waves were enormous! No wonder we couldn't get to the private island we were supposed to go to! Katie and I ran back to the hotel before it started raining again.
The crazy stormy sea:
-After dinner everyone went to a bar named The Blue Note- free rice wine shots (which are disgusting just so you know).
Day 2
- woke up (totally without a hangover Mum and Dad...), had some breakfast, then headed to the boat pier to get a water taxi.
- took a boat through the absolutely gorgeous and stunning bays to 'Castaway Island.' The hostel we did the trip with bought this beach and have these cute little huts on it that you sleep in.
Sleeping huts:
View from Castaway Island:
- spent the day swimming in the lovely warm ocean, kayaking to lagoons and around islands, banana boating (and falling off, a lot), reading, and napping - basically perfection.
-at night we had another party which was so much fun. People were from all over - Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, England, Zimbabwe, Israel, Canada, and more - we were the only Americans (and I was the youngest one there, of course). It was so much fun just learning about everyones different slang and cultures, and everyone was just so friendly and fun!
- So we all played many drinking games- learnt some great ones! Then we swam out to the pontoon thing in the middle of the night to see the bio-luminescents (they weren't too strong because of the storm). I didn't go to bed till about 5:00 am, after a failed attempt at sleeping on the beach.
Day 3
- had an early breakfast at 7:30am - felt so hyper still (the red bull in Asia is crazy!). We sadly had to leave beautiful Castaway Island to head to the even more beautiful Ha Long Bay.
- transferred boats to the "Jolly Rodger," the hostel's boat (it's a hostel run by Australian's if that makes more sense). A gorgeous boat, we were supposed to have slept on it the first night but couldn't because of the storm.
- Hung out, ate, and crusied along Ha Long Bay. Once we reached the dock we sadly drove back to the hostel on a 4 hour bus ride. I bought some Wasabi Peas at the rest stop (they are suprisingly my new favourite snack).
-After getting to the hostel we finally showered and brushed our teeth. I have never appreciated floss so much!
- Katie and I then wandered around crazy Hanoi- we did imporve immensly at crossing the streets so we were quite proud of ourselves. However, we did not improve at finding our way around and ended up getting mildly lost on the wayto find a restaurant. We ended up just giving up and eating at a place near the hostel, that we ate at our first night.
- Hogged the computers some.
-Sat upstairs in the bar, not wanting to drink but just wanting to be social. Unfortunately got some free 'slushy' shots because some team missed a shot. Not really sure, but passionfruit slushy is soooo good!
-Hung out some more and then took a taxi with our new Zimbabwe friends, Garth and Nicole, to the train station.
- Boarded the overnight train to DaNang. Unfortunately Nicole and Garth couldn't transfer to our cabin. Instead we had a local Vietnamese man. Katie and I just took someAdvil PM and zonked out.
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