We had to pay the balance of our trip to Halong Bay in cash, US dollars, as soon as we arrived in Vietnam, so we had drawn some cash in Singapore. A young lady arrived to collect it and give us our tickets, and we were to be picked up at our hotel at 7.45 next morning, so not much time to do anything else. It turned out there was an ATM in the hall foyer, so I drew out a little local currency to see us through the trip. I calculated that the Vietnamese Dong (yes no jokes please) came in at 2000 to the US dollar so I drew out 200,000 - that should do. On the way to Halong City we stopped at a rest stop and bought two coffees and a small bottle of water. They charged us 60,000 dong, or nearly a third of our money! Next followed a panicky recalculation. In fact there are about 20,000 dong to the US dollar - I had lost a zero. The good news was we had only spent about $3 or slightly over two pounds. The bad news? I had only drawn out $10 worth of local currency to last us three days, and we never saw another ATM. Luckily we still had about $85 in dollar notes which enabled us to pay our bar bill and a few tips at the end of the trip. Back in Hanoi we became instant multi-millionaires by drawing out two million dong - enough for a couple of days.
Back to the trip and it was quite a hair-raising ride to Halong Bay. Our driver headed down the highway, weaving in and out of traffic along with thousands of Vietnamese on motor cycles, more tour buses and all the other traffic, many making their way home for the Tet holiday and carrying gifts for the family on the back of the motor cycle, a traditional tree, a flat screen TV, or a mountain of vegetables. Three on a bike was not uncommon, often a small child sandwiched between the parents, mostly with face masks to keep out the traffic fumes, and sometimes with two children on board. Some of the adults wore helmets (though we believe it is the law to wear them) but never the children. We are still trying to figure out the rules of the road though we came to the conclusion that they must be very good drivers since no one seemed to hit anyone else. According to one of our guide books the first rule of the road for visitors to Vietnam is never to hire a car and drive it yourself, and we are inclined to agree.
Once we arrived in Halong Bay, in rather cold and wet weather, we transferred to our boat and met up with the other passengers. We were the only kayakers out of the ten in the group and not all were on the boat for two nights. Our fellow passengers on both nights were good fun, interesting people, Australians (via Germany and the Philippines), Californians, an Italian, New Yorkers, Hungarians and Norwegians (who had lived in South Africa and Hong Kong).
The weather improved as the trip went on. Our first afternoon was spent climbing to a couple of viewpoints, hard going but well worth it. It was all we expected and our kayaking trip was very special. We even had the chance to observe monkeys at very close quarters. The food was excellent as long as you liked seafood and gave us a chance to try things which we would not normally have ordered.
The pictures show the view from one of the big (and very popular) caves, our first night group having dinner, and one of the monkeys. Vietnamese (and co-incidentally Chinese) New Year arrived at midnight on Wednesday to much sounding of horns in the Bay. Next morning we found a small "lucky bag" with a piece of chocolate on our door handle, while meals were served to the sound of Abba singing "Happy New Year" continuously. Now we are back in Hanoi and enjoying a really foreign but surprisingly friendly city.
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