December 8 – Hanoi & Halong Bay, Vietnam

Home, sweet home.  Sometimes it’s not until you are amongst the things you take for granted that you realize just how much you have missed them.  A couch for example, or a long harvest table surrounded with friends and a large pot of coffee - or bottle of wine.  Perhaps a fridge to open and dig around in and the family pet to scratch behind the ears.  We arrived in Hanoi feeling very travel weary and landed on the doorstep of our friend Robin Benitz who threw the doors open and welcomed us with open arms.  Her whole family (minus Hendra who was away expanding his horizons at a 4 mo. course in New York) including Alison, Julia and Tiko (the yellow lab) were around providing us with the best sense of home and family we’d had since July.

Robin & Hendra live just outside of downtown and old Hanoi in an area called Ho Tay (or was it Tay Ho?) popular with the expat community.  We were a short taxi ride to downtown and right in the midst of a lovely leafy green neighbourhood good for walks and bicycle rides.  I joined Robin for her yoga class and local grocery shopping by bicycle giving me a quick peek into their life living in Hanoi.  The yoga class hurt for days and I felt like my limbs were wooden planks, but it was great to go.  We had originally planned to stay with Robin for 2 days then travel to Halong Bay for 3 days and back to Robin’s for a final 2 days.  But Robin was so welcoming and encouraged us to enjoy “home”.  We considered our options for about a second and decided to hang out there with only a 1 night trip to Halong Bay. 

Halong Bay     

   

Halong Bay is famous for its 1,000 plus islands, sheer limestone cliffs jutting out of the ocean and phenomenal scenery.  Given good weather, it is some of the most spectacular scenery around.  The best way to see it is from one the traditional Vietnamese “Junks” either on a one day or multi-day cruise debarking from Halong Bay City.  Choosing which boat and tour guide is a bun fight though as there are literally hundreds of tour operators and booking agents all clambering for your business.  From what we heard, you definitely get what you pay for and the cheapest cruises can sometimes come with rats, grime and bad food.  Our niece Charlotte has just been and recommended their agent and boat; The Wild Kangaroo (there are many agents using the name Kangaroo in Hanoi) and Asia Cruise Lines.  The goal is to find a small boat with 16 people or less and pay enough to avoid the rats and grime.  You can pay hundreds of dollars per day on some boats.  We paid about $50 per day.  Our boat was pretty good, Anna thought it was the Sheraton of the sea.  It was relatively clean, although Janet did battle a little mouse in the wee hours of the morning.

The drive to Halong Bay City is not very scenic or interesting and Halong Bay City itself is well, pretty ugly.  Seems they have in the past 5 years decided “if you build it, they will come.”  The City is packed with high rise hotels that look like they were built in a flash.  Most people who arrive in Halong Bay though head right out on boats and don’t want to stay in the City so most of these hotels and restaurants are empty.  We understand there is a busy time in the summer when Vietnamese tourists flock to the City for beach time.

Sadly we did not have the clear weather required to make the scenery as beautiful as it can be.  But it was much better on day 2.  I think we were somewhat jaded by the pull back towards Robin’s home and the fact we were so travel weary.  The whole trip felt just too contrived and crowded.  We felt a bit like sheep being herded from one thing to the next amongst so many tourists and boats.  There were literally trains of junk boats heading along the same route in the bay.  There were a couple of off boat adventures; an old cave called “Surprise Cave” which was pretty amazing (once you looked past the other 100 people in the cave) and kayaking from a floating fishing village.  The local floating villagers used to live in the caves but have since been moved onto the floating villages in order to preserve the caves and offer them as a tourist attraction.  They do still fish but many of the women earn their living paddling from boat to boat in their “basket” boats selling Oreos, chips and beer…whatever the tourists may want.  It was really interesting to see how the villagers have set up on these floating docks, there were even pet dogs jumping around from pod to pod.  The bay itself is really quite dirty.  Given we did not venture away from the train of boats, none of us felt the urge to swim (I am pretty sure they don’t have the pump and dump rules like Canada in Vietnam) so our on board activities were mainly gazing at the scenery, playing cards and eating.  We were very happy to have only one night and 24 hours aboard.  Our fellow passengers were diverse; a group of Cambodian University Professors and about 7 other backpackers.  If we had stayed for a second night, we would have got off on Cat Ba Island for a hike/bike then been taken to Monkey Island for a night with a BBQ, bonfire and sleep in a beach hut.  Had we stayed, this probably would have been the better part of the trip.  Oh well, next time!  We were still glad to get back to Hanoi.

The other major excitement in Hanoi was catching up with Charlotte Gibson.  Charlotte is our niece who is traveling Asia with her boyfriend Cullen.  We finally caught up with them in Hanoi.  Charlotte had been about 3 days ahead of us for about two weeks in Vietnam and giving us all sorts of travel tips along the way.  It was so great to see her.  We spent the afternoon visiting the Prison Museum (a prison built and originally used by the French then later used by the Viet Kong for American prisoners of war), eating, sipping beer and lots of talking.  I have to admit out loud, Ron was right…we didn’t take a photo right when we thought of it and then we forgot so now we don’t have any record of our visit with Charlotte.  It’s not the first time I’ve had to live with an “I told you so”!

And then we met up with Tony Frost, Ron’s long time friend from elementary school.  Tony was on business in Hong Kong and able to take a few extra days to explore Hanoi and Sappa.  As luck would have it, we overlapped with Tony for 2 days.  Tony travels in a much different style than the Gosneys…Sadie & Anna were thrilled to chill in his gorgeous hotel room while Tony, Ron & I walked Old Hanoi and eventually found Le Pub for a beer.  Julia Benitz had recommended a lunch spot called Puku (hard to find but totally worth it) and so we followed her cue for dinner too at Highway 4 famous for its catfish spring rolls.  Yum.  We really liked walking around Old Hanoi, it has a much less frantic feel than Ho Chi Minh and the architecture is much more interesting.  Ron stayed downtown for a one on one visit with Tony and a brief attempt at a big night out…they did have a great chance to catch up but were home before midnight and the most crazy part of the night I think were the 2 big rats that cruised by in the pub where they were drinking beer.  Oh and they were also offered girls about one second after they shut the door on our cab sending us back to Robin’s.  Wild.

Tony joined us again the next day at Robin’s house (thank you again Robin for extending your hospitality even beyond our family) where we visited more and borrowed the bikes to explore the neighbourhood and lake board walk.  Our last night we were treated to an unbelievable feast prepared by Robin’s part time cook.  He spent the whole afternoon preparing an amazing menu of homemade pita bread, succulent beef sauté and bean salad.  We certainly appreciated the kind effort to give us a taste of home, eh?

This was also the time we finally broke the news to the girls, we were going to head home one week early on December 20^th!  The idea came to life earlier in Vietnam when we heard the weather in Bali is stifling hot and humid this time of year.  Then we started watching the Whistler snow report (dumping) and the final push was trying to book our accommodation over Christmas in Bali.  After the 18^th, accommodation on the Gili Islands (our planned destination) is either booked up far in advance or incredibly expensive.  Our place in Whistler is ours to use this winter and empty…we decided to head home, get our jet lag over with and enjoy the last week of our trip skiing.  We kept it quiet until we confirmed we could change our flights then because the girls wanted to surprise their friends.  Needless to say, Sadie & Anna were thrilled.  I think our idea of spending Christmas away and minimal was much more attractive to us adults!

So we left Vietnam on the 8^th feeling well rested and revived thanks to the Benitz/Hendra household.  We do feel however, we did not put the effort into Vietnam that we put into the other countries we have visited.  The words “you get what you give” keep ringing in our ears.  We were tired and could have put a lot more effort towards our experience perhaps leaving us with a more significant impression of Vietnam.  But the good times are still there, we will never forget the amazing things we saw and experienced.