TRAVELMAN in VIETNAM: Two Day Cruise in Halong Bay (Part 3- Resort and Hike)

It was exciting to walk onto the dock of our own private island, much better than our Own Private Idaho. (That, my Travelman friends, is what’s called an obscure movie reference.)

The resort was great. Here’s us floating up to the dock...

Tattoo! Drinks for our guests! ...Welcome ...to the private island.

The dorm room had good mattresses and bathrooms. The common area had a pool table, foosball, and a nice ping pong table. The restaurant had tables for six to ten people and the dining room overlooked the bay. ... ...And the snozberries tasted like snozberries! (And that, my Travelman friends, is a Willy Wonka reference that you should get!)

A not so great pic of the second floor dining area...

A short time after settling in, they served us a family style dinner. It was decent, pork and cabbage, chicken and vegetables, white rice, more french fries. It was average, not bad, nothing to talk about, the same as what I’ve come to expect from meals on tours organized for backpackers.

I talked with a guy who is teaching English in Ho Chi Minh City. His father, visiting from England, sat next to him. They were from Manchester. The teacher enjoyed his work and felt bad that he was paid exhorbitantly more than the Vietnamese teachers in the school. He wasn’t even trained as a teacher, he took an online course. The German man and woman on the other side of me were quiet, especially the woman. I think they were self conscious because they thought their English wasn’t very good. - I Thought their English was great, but who am I to judge, I speak American.

At the end of the meal the guides- Oh that reminds me! Upon our arrival to the island, we were introduced to a second guide who would be leading the trek in the morning. He was thin and had long straight hair down to his shoulders. A funny thing about him was that he talked with the exact same odd cadence as Flower. He also emphasized random words and smiled at the end of each piece of info he conveyed. I think they’d been taught to smile A LOT to the guests and it threw off the naturalness of their speech. They put on a friendly smile at the end of EVERYTHING they said.

I can imagine them saying, “Ah, Hello. Uh, we have some information- for you. Today.” They smile brightly. “Uh, their is hole in boat.” Big smiles again. They then say, “There are no life jacket- Shark, many in water. Die horrible death.” Big smiles and making eye contact with all of us. “Thank you. We are Ocean Cruises.” Big smiles.

The tourists turn to one another and say, “Aren’t they just so nice! I wonder what the sharks will be like? Should I get my GoPro?”

I forgot the male guide’s name, it was something easy, like Joe, something tourists could remember. So anyway, Joe and Flower handed each of us a Special Drink. They always made sure to point out when their company provided us with something (“Here bottle of water!” Big smiles. “That is Ocean Cruise! We give you bottle of water on bus!” Bigger smile and eye contact with each guest.).

The special drink had the word dragon in its name. It tasted like bad whiskey, but it was fun to drink a group toast. The word dragon reminds me that Halong Bay means “descending dragons.” The myth behind it says that dragons descended into the bay, stuff happened because of the dragons, and then the bay was there, thanks to the dragons. I’m not very good at relaying myths told to me after I’ve had a few beers on a boat. So we can thank the dragons for the bay.

After dinner we went downstairs. Cam and I played a game of pool on what we came to believe was a cursed (or lumpy) table. It was the longest game of pool I’ve ever played. It got to the point that we were rooting for each other to make shots. It came down to the eight ball, and Cam finally put us out of our misery.

We moved onto ping pong, I held my own. More drinks were drank, more games were played, more music was played by the staff at an inappropriately loud volume, the kind of volume that requires you to scream into someone’s ear, have them stare at you like they didn’t get you, then you scream louder into their ear, they pretend to hear you and nod their head, you both take a sip from your drink and look around the bar.

Ping pong turned into beer pong which turned into an organized, modified game of beer pong that involve winning free booze. Cam won this game as well. His prize was to drink from a pitcher of a sugary, blue alcoholic drink poured into his mouth by the staff. Cam did not consider this a prize when he woke up the next day.

We had a beer chugging competition to win a free beer. I dominated. I don’t know if I should be proud. Even the Irish couple came up to me to tell me how impressed they were with my ability to down a beer quickly. Maybe I’ll bring up this skill in my next job interview. I’ll include the Irish couple as a reference on my application.

I put myself to bed when the party was still pumping (most others gave out about an hour later). The next morning, we nursed our hangovers as we ate breakfast, then boarded the boat for Catba Island. We said goodbye to the private resort.

Goodbye private island, Goodbye cursed pool table...!

Catba town is a fisherman’s town, fishing boats are everywhere (as pictured throughout this post.) Outside of town is Catba National Park. It takes up the majority of the Island.

At the entrance to the park you can see Monkeys in cages. Joe said that they are in the cages to get the monkeys a bit more used to humans before they are transported to nearby Monkey Island.

This is a shot of the monkey aggressively jumping on the fence at the moment I snapped the picture. He shook his chest back and forth to show us how threatening he can be. We believed him. ...I think he just needs some more time to adjust to us.

They also had reindeer. It’s Santa’s summer home. I forget the real reason...

TRAVELMAN’S TRAVEL TIP #49: If you ever go to Catba National Park and do the hike to the observation point, do not buy your bottle of water outside the gate for 20,000 Dong. There is a woman inside the gate with a little stand selling the same water for 10,000 Dong. Our guide, Joe, pointed out the water as being the cheapest and that we could by it if we needed it. It would have been nice if Joe would have mentioned this while he was standing next to us when we bought our water outside the gate. Welcome to Vietnam..

A crazy looking jungle tree...

The hike was 1000 meters of switchback stone steps straight up. It was a humid day and a sweaty hike. By the time we reached the top everyone looked like they’d jumped in the ocean fully clothed.

After the hike, they took us for lunch at a restaurant outside of town. We wondered how it stayed in business because there was nothing else around it. After lunch we took the mini-van to the ferry, then the bus back to Hanoi. They gave us another bottle of water on the way back and made sure to point out that Ocean Cruises gives you “bottle of water on bus.”

The guy from Virginia and I joked that they point out everything they provide, no matter what. “Ahh, sit in seat on bus!” Big smiles, “Ocean Cruises has seats on bus, be sure to tell in reviews. Ocean Cruise also provide you air from outside to breathe, yes. Very good air. And rain from sky, Ocean cruises, tell friends.” Bigger smiles.

The cruise was a lot of fun, but not as much as I’d hoped. I thought it would be a special and magical time for me because I’d been looking forward to it for years. It was fun but fell short of special. Maybe because of the weather, I don’t know.

You can never predict when you’ll find magic. The universe is a benevolent jack ass that always feels the need to remind you of who’s in charge. If you ask for ice-cream because you love ice-cream, it’ll say, “We don’t have any ice-cream left. I ate it all because I knew you were going to ask.” Then you get sad and the universe pokes you in the arm and says, “...But I have orange creamsicles.” Then you have an orange creamsicle and discover that you love creamsicles even more than you love ice-cream.

And then you ask if there are any flavors other than orange, and the universe just lets out a heavy sigh.

I’ve found both... at my next destination, Trang An, I found a creamsicle (a metaphorical creamsicle. I did have a literal strange tasting ice-cream bar though.)

!steemitworldmap 20.9760 lat 107.0500 long Halong Bay part three- getting merry and trekking, Vietnam, d3scr