Halong Bay Trip

Day 14 & 15 July 28th & 29th Friday
Written July 30th and submitted July 28th

This weekend we decided to leave the hotel and venture out to a place called Halong Bay.

We were a little concerned about the trip because Logan developed a slight fever and his sinuses were a little plugged. We gave him some Motrin and that seemed to bring his fever down. Becky and I thought he could have a fever and sit in the hotel or have a fever and sit on the boat in Halong Bay so we decided to go.

The bus was going to pick us at the hotel lobby at 7:30am so we had to get up early and downstairs to breakfast early. Logan and I went to breakfast ahead of Becky while she finished up on a few things and when we returned I started getting Gracie ready while Becky took her turn at breakfast. We made it to the lobby right on time. Christy and her daughter Grace were already waiting for us. I was surprised to see them already in the lobby since Christy is by herself because her husband David had to go back to the States a couple days ago.

We sat in the lobby for about 15 minutes before the van arrived. During this time, Tracy, Amy, and Max entered the lobby door from the Melia hotel to meet their transportation from our hotel. While we sat there some of the local people were looking across the street with concerned looks on their faces and they were speaking in their native tongue. Apparently an old woman got her foot ran over by a truck in front of our hotel. So far I have seen quite a few accidents while we have been here.

The van pulled in front of the hotel and the tour director (Phuong) entered the hotel to get our tickets and check our names on the list. She was a young woman who spoke good enough English to understand things normally on the first try. We grabbed our bags and threw them in the back of the van then took our seats up front. Phuong announced that there would be 14 people traveling with us today. We all looked in back of the van and tried to imagine how we were all going to fit. We made our rounds to other hotels in the Old Quarter to collect the other riders. Every square in the van was occupied. There was a couple from Holland. The young woman was originally from Vietnam but her parents moved to Thailand after the war then eventually moved to Holland. Her boyfriend had studied in America so he was very familiar with our country. One family with two boys about the same age as Logan was from the Philippines and the last group was from Korea. The Koreans were only traveling to Halong with us because they were staying at a hotel on land.

The ride to Halong Bay was about three and a half hours. They do give you a break about half way at a tourist trap. The prices here are jacked up pretty high for even US levels so we didn’t get much. We got the babies out of the van to get them a change of scenery. After buying Logan a couple of cans of Pringles and Becky an ice cream cone, we loaded back into the van to finish the journey. During the trip, the babies did great. Becky and I passed Gracie back and forth so she could see some different faces and this seemed to appease her. She seems like she is going to be a good traveler just like her brother was when he was her age. As we left the busy streets of Hanoi, the landscape started to turn more rural. When we crossed the Red River, the director was standing at the front of the van and started asking us Vietnamese trivia to see if anyone has learned anything from our stay here. We were able to get a few of the questions correct. Some of the people were starting to drift from the trivia test and you could get a sense that the director (Phuong) was starting to get annoyed at this. Especially when Becky and Christy were joking and laughing directly seating in front of her. Phuong eventually sat back down so we could watch the landscape in peace and quiet. The highway took us pass many manufacturing plants, long stretches of rice fields, and through several small towns with many small buildings with shopping and eateries that all looked the same from the road. We could see some large steep mountains in the far off distance but the highway was relatively flat. As we started to get closer to Halong Bay, we started driving past large rocks. These were the size of small mountains and were sitting in areas by themselves. It looked as though something has just placed them randomly in their positions. These landmasses were anywhere from 1/8 to a 1/4 kilometer in diameter to 1/8 to a 1/4 kilometer in height. They were really fascinating to look at and their numbers began to increase as we got closer to our destination.

Halong Bay

We passed over a large modern suspension bridge as we entered the bay area. The city of Halong Bay has a population of 9,000 residents but it’s a typical tourist town filled with many hotels and restaurants. We stopped at the docks that were located in the heart of the city. There were many other tourists eagerly waiting to get to the boats. We unloaded the van and followed Phuong towards the main building that was the entrance to the docks. We could see many junkets tied to the docks. The junkets were all basically the same style of boat. They were made of what look like mahogany wood and had two levels. The bottom level is the cabins and the second level is the dinner room with a sundeck on top. All the boats had slight variations to them. Ours had a shorter dining room but had an area on the front of the boat with a table under a roof. This was excellent because we sat outside in the shade while cruising the bay. After a short wait at the entrance we followed our guide to the end of the pier. There had to be 50 or 60 boats all along the pier parked side to side. Our boat was on the other side of another boat so we had to step on to one boat then walk across it and step on to our boat on the other side with our luggage and Gracie in our arms. There weren’t any handrails so you had to be very careful not to drop anything into the water.

The dock was very busy and we had to wait about an hour on the boat before the captain finished his paperwork. Our group boarded the boat and climbed the flight of steps to the dining area were we grabbed a table for our small group (Becky, Logan, Gracie, myself, Christy, and Grace). Everyone had to show their passports in order to spend the night on the boat; compliments of a communist country. These boats can produce of lot of black smoke from their diesel engines so every time a boat went to leave a portion of it would drift into our boat. The dining area had many large windows which were open and every table had a fan mounted on the bulkhead (wall) so it was quite pleasant even though the sun was very hot. The benches were make of wicker and had plenty of padding and there was plenty of space for three people. The paperwork was finalized and the passports were given back to us so we were ready to set sail. It was fun to watch the other boats pull into the dock because they didn’t worry about docking these boats without bumping into one another. It was kind of like watching bumper cars but not quite so bad. We left the dock and cruised for only about twenty minutes. The guide told us we were going to have lunch out in the bay. There was a nice breeze coming through the windows and Gracie was asleep on the bench between Logan and I. The crew started to bring the food to the table plate by plate. Eventually we have about 7 different plates of food to share among us. There was chicken, fish, tofu, rice, sprouts (grass), and a few other things we tried but we had no idea what is was, but it appeared safe. Becky and I shared a bottle of white wine with our meal. Logan wasn’t crazy about much of the lunch but he was able to find a few items he liked with one of them being squid.

Cave Tour

Our guide went through the itinerary when we boarded the boat and she seemed very determined for us all to acknowledge that we understood it. She repeated herself many times so I got confused and it seemed like we were cramming four days of activities into two short days. Anyway I think we were supposed to eat lunch in the bay, cruise to the cave for a walking tour and then cruise some place to go kayaking in another cave before finally anchoring in the cove for dinner.

We finished our meal then the boat headed for the cave. We left the area by the city and headed out in the bay. In the bay, several kilometers away from the dock are all the tiny islands that stretch all the way to China. These rock formations are just beautiful. The guide, who by this time has been nicknamed the “tour guide nazi” after the “soup nazi” from the Sienfield show, said that there were two thousand of these islands. The name Halong means deep dragon because the rocks look like humps on dragon coming out of the water. This place is just spectacular with its natural beauty. I can see why it’s on the list for voting of the new natural wonders of the world. It truly has my vote. We cruised for about an hour before we got to the cave located in one of these tiny islands. The small dock had about ten junkets tied up to each other side by side so our boat just bumped right up into the boat at end and dock. We grabbed the babies and followed our guide to the entrance of the cave. Our guide said to stay close to her because there would be many people in the cave. The steps to the cave were many and steep. We probably climbed about 80 feet to the opening of the cave and by this time we all had a pretty good sweat going. I figured the cave would cool us down since it is under ground. Not in Vietnam. Even the underground caves are hot and humid. The cavern inside was plenty spacious. The height from floor to ceiling was about 40 feet in some areas. It was easy getting around in the cave because they had cut tiled steps into the rock floor. This is where the guide got her nickname. She pointed out many rock formations and told us to use our imaginations to see if we could guess what they were suppose to be. If we didn’t agree with her, then she seemed to get upset. If people started to not pay attention to her, then she again got very annoyed with this. This of course made Becky and Christy crack more jokes. On about the sixth rock formation our guide pointed to, I finally got tired of agreeing with her and I said it looked like a triple scoop ice cream cone and Christy agreed with me. The rest of our group then smiled and agreed so I think you could chalk one up for our team. We finally get to the exit and we were all ready to get back to the boat. As we descended the steps from the cave, we passed by little areas with refreshments and souvenirs for sale. Becky and Christy stopped to look while Logan and I continued to the boat. We all eventually made it back to the boat where we continued our cruise. The boat cruised through the tiny islands on our way to the place to get kayaks. During this part of the cruise Logan was sitting at one of the diner tables playing his gameboy while we were sitting at the table on the front of the boat talking to the couple from Holland. Logan went to leave the table and he accidentally pulled the tablecloth with him and broke a small vase sitting on the table. He then placed it back on the table and went about his business. We then approached this little manmade floating island. It was a cluster of short walkways with little huts on it. Our boat docked and we mustered onto the front of the boat to get off to get our kayak to go to another cave they kept talking about. The guide said if we looked closely at the island, we might be able to see monkeys on the sides. At this time one of the shipmates came to the front with the broken vase and talked to the guide and was pointing at Logan. She looked at me with a concerned look on her face and said he would like to be paid for the vase. I quickly asked how much and he said 50,000 Dong (about 3 dollars). I said no problem and that I would pay him when I get back from the kayak trip. We then all proceeded to the kayaks while Becky and Christy stayed back with the babies. As Logan and I walked to the kayaks on the side of the floating island, we passed some holding areas with different types of fish in them. You must be able to purchase seafood here because you sure could smell it. The walkways were made of bamboo and loose boards for it was pretty flimsy. We made our way to the launching area for the kayaks and there was a big pile of lifejackets. All the lifejackets were the same and they were for a 300 lbs man. Some were missing zippers and other the latches were broken but we were able to find a couple that would stay on us in case we flipped. The Coast Guard would definitely shut this place down for sure. Logan and I took the next available kayak and headed for the cave. We had about a half a mile to get to the cave. It was a nice peaceful and quiet and Logan and I seemed to get a handle on the kayaking part. The water was very warm (go figure) and seemed very deep. We went past a couple of junkets anchored with people swimming from them. We eventually made it to the cave in about 20 minutes. The cave was a lot smaller than we thought it would be but it was neat to kayak through. It gets dark here at 6:30pm and it was about 6:00pm when we reached the cave so I told Logan we needed to start heading back because we didn’t want to get caught out there in the dark with the larger boats cruising around. We made our way back to the boat where we boarded our junket and waited for the others to join us. When the others were back on the boat, we headed for a calm cove to set anchor for the night.

Nighttime on the Boat

It was approximately about a 30 minute cruise to our night destination. There were already about 30 other boats in the cove surround by the rock formations. It was like being in the party cove on Shelbyville but only better.

The power to the cabins didn’t get turned on until 6:00pm so I went below to get the air conditioners started so the rooms would be cooled for bedtime. Logan had been feeling pretty good for most of the day, but we had also given him Motrin earlier in the day. The guide announced that it was time to eat dinner so we all took our seats. We chose a table that didn’t have a vase on it this time. Again they brought out about seven or eight plates of food. It was getting dark so you could see the lights from the other boats in the large cove. It was quite scenic. The food was good and I was very surprised to see Logan eating the squid again. He thought the tentacles were pretty cool. I also thought it was cool that nobody at our table was eating it except him. Shortly after we ate the babies were getting cranky and Logan’s temperature went up a little and he looked very tired so we called it a night and went below to our cabins.

The cabins were clean and spacious for a boat. They all had their own bathrooms and the air conditioners were new and worked great. Logan and I shared a double bed in one cabin and Becky and Christy shared another cabin and each had a single bed that was up against the wall so the babies would not roll off. The walls and floors of the restroom were all white tile because the room was the shower itself. The restroom contained a toilet, a sink, and a shower nozzle overhead so you just showered standing in the middle of the room (very efficient). Like Becky commented you can actually shit, shower, and shave at the same time. Becky and I gave Gracie a sponge bath in the sink and then put her to bed. Both babies were very tired and quickly went to sleep. Logan and I said good night to the girls and headed to our cabin for the night. Logan played with his gameboy for a while then we went to sleep.

Day 2 of the Boat Trip

We had to get up early to transfer boats. I don’t understand why they did this but we had to be up and ready to move to another boat by 7:00am the next morning. This is not a problem because they turned off the power and water to your room at 6:30am. Thank goodness we took our showers that night before going to bed. You have to shower at night here just to get the layer of sweat off of you. Becky already had things ready to go. We grabbed our bags and headed for the second deck. A boat pulled along side of us and tied up. The guide said it was time to board the other boat. Instead of climbing down to the bottom level and loading on to the boat we stepped onto the roof of our boat and then stepped onto the roof of the new boat. It was very strange. There is a three foot overhang that runs around the second deck that matched up with overhang on the new boat. This is what we used to board the new boat. It just didn’t seem that safe but we made it. After I crossed to the new boat, I grabbed my camera because I had to get a picture of Christy making this crossing with Grace in hers arms. She said her husband David will crap when he sees this.

We made it onto the other boat successfully and the boat we spent the first day on sped away. This boat was very similar without the seating area in front of the dining area so I’m glad we spent most of our time on the first boat. We made our way to an island that had a swimming beach. We had a hour of free time on this island were you could do more kayaking, swim on the beach, or climb to the top for the view. Christy, with her daughter Grace strapped to her, and Becky climbed the stairs to the top while Logan, Gracie, and I went to the beach were Logan swam. The water was clear and you could see small schools of small fish swimming by. The stairs to the top of the island looked very steep and to reach the top was about a couple of hundred feet. It actually took Becky and Christy ten minutes to climb all the steps to the tops. When the girls returned, Logan and I took our turn climbing to the top of the stairs. This was very exhausting. Thank goodness they scheduled this part of the tour at 8:00am because it was already hot. Logan started to poop out on me so I kept telling him just around the corner but after the fifth or sixth time, he stopped believing me. I could eventually see the top so this motivated him. At the top was just breathtaking. You could see for miles and in all direction were these little islands. It was worth the climb to the top. I can’t believe Christy climbed it with her daughter strapped to the front of her. Logan hit the water again as soon as we descended to the bottom where he cooled off before loading back on the boat. It was time to cruise back to the dock at HaLong city. We cruised another two hours back to the dock where we grabbed our bags and followed our guide through the mob of tourist and to the restaurant for our last meal. The restaurant was located within a short walk of the dock. We entered and quickly realized we were in trouble because it was noon and this place was not air conditioned. We took our table in the back and under the slowest ceiling fan in the entire place when the servers started bringing all the plates of food. They eventually filled the entire table with all different types of dishes. It’s hard to eat when its 90 plus with tons of humidity in the air, but we managed to eat a little because we knew we had a three and a half hour drive ahead of us. The guide said we had an hour a half for lunch. We looked at ourselves in horror at the fact that we were going to be there for that long. We ran into Amy in front of the restaurant and she said the hotel across the street had air conditioning in the lobby so after we ate we headed for this place to wait out the rest of our time there.

The Van Ride back to Hanoi

With just ten minutes before the van was scheduled to leave, we made our way back to the front of the restaurant to meet the others for our ride back. We couldn’t wait to get in the air conditioned van. The signal was finally given by the guide to go to the van. Everyone loaded into the van and off we went back to Hanoi. The only problem was I kept waiting for the air conditioner to get cold and it never did. Logan and I were in the front seat and the sun was beating through the front window. I fanned myself the whole time back to Hanoi; it was just miserable. Becky and Christy were seated just behind us and Becky said she could just feel very little cool air. Poor Christy had the guide fall asleep next to her and had her head resting on her along with her daughter Grace on her. We finally made our way to a resting place that was just like the tourist trap we stopped at on the way to HaLong Bay. We grabbed some ice cream and stretched our legs for about 15 minutes before loading back into the oven for the remainder of the trip. We finally made it back to Hanoi where they dropped us off first. It may have helped that the babies were crying and everyone wanted us out. We quickly went to our room and cranked up the air conditioning.

The Intestinal Attack

A couple of hours later I started to get hungry and asked if Becky and Logan wanted to go get something to eat. Becky hadn’t felt to good since we got back from the trip so she said she wasn’t interested. When Logan and I finally got ready to go, Becky wasn’t doing well at all so Logan, Gracie, and I went to get something to eat and let her lie down and rest. We were gone about 45 minutes and when we returned, Becky looked terrible. She had the chills but no fever so that was good but she knew things were stirring inside her. After I gave Gracie her bath, I laid her next to Becky on the bed to put get her dressed for bed. Becky quickly got up and headed for the bathroom. I think it was this time that she was about to explode. I could hear her moan and call my name but I had to tell her I was busy with Gracie. Luckily Logan was feeling much better. We could tell this because he was pestering his sister. When Becky yelled for a cold towel to put on her face, I told Logan if he ever wanted to breathe again he would follow his mother’s instructions to the T. I couldn’t believe it but he did what he was supposed to do. He must have felt his mother’s urgency in her voice. Gracie took her bottle and quickly went to sleep. Becky eventually made it out of the restroom and took a couple of pills to firm things up a bit and went to bed. Logan and I watched the movie Narnia then went to bed.

It was good to get away for the weekend to get our minds off the adoption process. Sometimes sitting around the hotel we have time to speculate what is going or not going to happen so this was a great break. I’m also glad to go to HaLong Bay to see a different side to Vietnam. Hanoi has been a good experience but it’s great to see it’s natural beauty as well.