Tour of Duty ... Part Four (the best bit)

The morning after the cave adventure, I was wide awake and raring to go. We visited the mausoleum of the Tu Duc emperor and bizarrely, after sacking Tom, getting a refund and quitting the tour, the ‘mericans were sitting on the bus along with everyone else. The son was still behaving in a way that if he were mine (god forbid) I’d have drowned him at birth! The mother still looking embarrassed, and the fiance looking smug. Tom sat with me and led me around the site - it was great but there was that cloud hanging over him. He’d been bollocked by his boss because of their false complaint and at one point he admitted to me, quite blatantly “I don’t like Americans coming here’.

I daresay I have one or two American readers, and I have some brilliant American friends who would never act the way this pair did, but just as English people acting like twats abroad fuck it up for us, so is the way for citizens of the US. Added to that, the horrific history the country has with them.

After lunch I was off to the airport for my flight to Hanoi. I’d heard lots of great stuff about this city - the capital city - and was looking forward to my all too brief stay here.

At the airport I was collected by a driver from the local tour company, and driven into town. Hanoi seems a lot older than Saigon, and there’s endless winding roads and twisty back alleys in the Old Town where I was staying.

The hotel room reminded me of Sasha’s in Manchester as the room had no windows, granted there wasn’t a whole lot to see, but if I was gonna be staying more than one night I’d have been downstairs asking for a different room.
I dumped my bags and went off exploring. The location was brilliant as the enormous night market was just up the road. That meant a chance to stock up on a few toiletries and another bowl of delicious Pho Bo - this Vietnamese soup is vying with their coffee for my new addiction!

At 8am the next morning I was on my way to Ha Long city. I was the first person to be collected for the three hour mini-bus trip and so had my choice of seats. I wisely selected a single seat with tons of leg-room. Just as well, because the bus filled to capacity with people and then everybody’s luggage was crammed in too. I managed a sleep, but woke in time for the toilet/coffee break halfway there.

Once we got to Ha Long dockside it was sheer mayhem! There were hundreds of people milling about looking lost and the noise of the hawkers was pretty intense. Looking out to sea was worth it though, hundreds of boats waiting to take us on our tour of the Bay and the thousands of limestone Karsts. It looked like a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean!

We boarded the pilot ship that took us out to our boat - cos we were staying overnight it was a bigger boat, too big to come right into the dock - and I got a chance to survey my fellow cruisers. Suffice to say it was a mixed bunch, both in nationalities and ages and sexes.

The final group to get on were three guys that I immediately decided were gay - they were so immaculately turned out, no way could they be straight! One of them spoke and not only were they English, they were Northern - northern queens are my favourite kind, so I figured I was in for a bit of a laugh.

We boarded the main boat - it was gorgeous! Beautiful old wood, gorgeous deck, just wonderful. We were shown to our cabins, and while they were compact, it was perfect. We were invited to the restaurant for a ‘welcome drink’ and I got to chat to my fellow ship-mates.

Turns out my Gaydar needs to be adjusted for the rise of the metrosexual man - my three fellow northerners were straight! I was right about them being a laugh though. Within a few minutes we were nattering like we’d known each other for ages.

We began to sail out into the bay and after quickly unpacking the bare minimum and getting my cossie on, I was up on the top deck taking in one of the most (if not THE most) beautiful sights I have ever seen. The water a gorgeous green/blue, the Karsts rising from the depths everywhere you look, just breathtaking. With all of this to gaze at I decided not to disembark to go exploring yet another dark, dingy, scary cave. As everybody else went off to do just that, I had the boat to myself. I stretched out on a lounger and soaked up the sunshine for three solid hours - bliss.

This part of the tour has got to be the highlight of the entire trip. I just loved being on here. Even when everyone else returned from the cave and I had to share the boat again, it was still amazing.

The crew cooked delicious meals for us all, the conversation between all of us, not just the lads, was lively and fun and all of us were saying how we could quite easily spend more than just the one night on here.

After dinner we were given a choice of activities - fishing or karaoke. Hmmmm the phrase ‘rock and a hard place’ sprung to mind but once everyone realised that the fishing consisted of just dragging a bit of string attached to a bamboo pole over the side of the boat, the karaoke began to look good!

The crew were especially thrilled as they love a good sing song in this part of the world. All over Vietnam I’ve seen huge venues with enormous neon signs proclaiming KARAOKE. We got the tour guide to sing a couple of Vietnamese love songs and boy did he throw himself into it! It was great to watch. Then the funboy 3 got on the mic and that was a great laugh too. I resisted getting on the mic but I did sing along to Champagne Supernova with everyone else. A cracking night.

I got back to my room to find one of the two beds soaking wet. The people above me had let their shower run too long apparently and it was leaking down into my room. It’s a testament to how relaxed I was that this didn’t become on of my huge big dramas. The water was mopped up, and I got on with sleeping in the other bed.

The next morning we were all awake early. There was a promise about seeing the sunrise, sadly it was misty and so we didn’t, but it didn’t really matter. One of the things that we did see were the legions of elderly Vietnamese women who spend the entire day rowing around the bay going up to each boat selling everything from fags and beer to deodorant. They’re like a floating Spar shop!

Anchor up, we sailed some more around the bay checking out some of the Karsts that looked like other stuff - including ‘fighting cock’ island. As you can imaging this drew the suitable amount of sniggers from us all!


At midday we were back on dry land, all of us reluctant to leave the boat. I really could have stayed on there at least two more nights, if not more. Another three hour journey on the packed minibus and we were back in Hanoi, and I was dropped off at “Sasha’s”.

What a cracking 24 hours!