C&J's Travels: Halong Bay Day 15,16 & 17

We decided to do the 2 nights 3 days ha long bay tour. Most people that do the South East Asia route and go through Vietnam will tell you to stay at Hanoi Backpackers. It also comes with great recommendations so we decided to stay there for our time in Hanoi. We stayed at the original hostel. Sadly they were doing reservations so the rooftop bar was not open so we missed out on that front. They did have happy hour at 5 in the street. The nice thing about the backpackers is the English guides who work there who can tell you about the good places to eat and places to go out. We also found out later that the new Hanoi backpackers 15 minutes walk from the old one was fully operational so we went to check it out. It's really cool built over a couple floors and has a great vibe.

Anyways back to Ha Long Bay. We were picked up at 7:30am. Our guide Steve an Irishman was an absolute legend.
I got chatting to him quite a bit. A qualified Actuary he worked in Australia for 11 months before going backpacking through asia. He decided that he liked Vietnam and Hanoi so got a job through the hostel.
He does the tours 6 days a week but then also gets a chance to stay on castaway island which i will talk more about later. He is not the only guide I met about I met 3 others and their stories are all pretty similar. They were backpacking through Asia went to Hanoi and the Hanoi backpackers did a trip to Ha Long Bay and enjoyed it do decided to stay. None of the are employed legally they are simply on tourist visas.

The trip from Hanoi to Ha long bay takes about 4 hours. The road is really bad and busy which makes for an interesting bus ride. I've mentioned it before but the rules of the road are non existent in Vietnam and we had a few near misses. It was raining when we arrived which was a break from the overwhelming heat. We got on a small long tail type boat which takes you out to a bigger boat waiting in the bay. We got onto the big boat were given our rooms. After that we were served lunch on the boat which was really good. Most meal times inI Vietnam involve rice. We had crispy pork some veg, potato chips. After that we were summoned to the deck of the boat to begin playing drinking games. The Hanoi Bacpacker tours have a reputation of having a party atmosphere and we were not to be disappointed. Steve said he had 4 drinking games he would teach us. The first one was really simply it involved heads and tails with a coin toss and depending on if you get the call correct or not you drink. Suffice to say you end of consuming quite a bit of beer fast. After a bit of drinking we all went for a swim in the bay which was good. It was then time for kayaking. We hopped into our kayaks and paddle through the bay and ended up on a hong with a cave. Quite interesting paddling in a kayak a bit tipsy. One guy had to much to drink and had to be taken back to the boat. Another game that applied right throughout was Buffalo. For those that don't know you aren't allowed to drink with your right hand. If you drink with your right hand and some catches you and says buffalo you have to down your drink. Whilst we were paddling some people were caught buffalo by Steve which was quite funny. Steve was very strong about this rule and would hassle you till your drink was done. From the cave we went to a small fishing village. By this time it was getting Dark so we left our kayaks at the village and got a boat back to our big boat in the bay. After a shower and a nice dinner it was time for drinking games again. The boat had happy hour on the cocktails with by two get one free. We played a game with a couple packs of cards where each card had a certain rule with people having to do different things. After all the stiff drinks it got pretty wild. We were broken up into two teams so when you picked a certain card it meant that you could challenge the other team. Steve obviously had played this game a couple times so made suggestions to each team about what we should dare the other team to do. Some of the dares involved thinks like drink fish sauce out the other teams belly buttons, Sadly I was captain I the team so ended up doing this. Not a pleasant experience but being spurred on by 15 other drink people I couldn't exactly say no. One dare was ludicrous which was to sniff salt out someone's else's bum which some guy ended up doing. Another one of the cards I think 8 meant the whole game stoppe d. You had to stand on your chair and tell one of your most embarrassing moments to everyone. Their we're a couple Americans aboard the boat and needless to say some of the stories were quite interesting. One guy told how he was caught having sex in a park by a granny. I had a good chuckle at a Spanish girl who in her broken English said " I like sex on beach. Once I get caught having sex on beach". What was remarkable about this was that on the Saturday night she ended up with a Dutch guy in full view of everyone having sex in the water. Clearly she was not lying.
Anyways after the drinking games the music was turned up a big party erupted on the boat. We all ended up at about 1 in the morning on there deck of the boat.

We were woken up early on the second day at 7:30am. Needless to say everyone had a massive hangover. Breakfast on the boat was not great eggs which looked like rubber and bacon which was so crunchy it had been so deep fried. There were some bananas so I opte for those. Time to change boats onto another boat which would take us to castaway island. Castaway island from my understanding is owned by Hanoi Backpackers. Its really just a beach with some huts, a bar and eating area, toilets and showers literally in the middle of nowhere in Ha log bay. The great thing about the day is that there are loads of activities organised. You can choose between wake boarding or tubing, do rock climbing, play volleyball, kayaking or just generally relax. It was really a good day on the island and everyone had a good time. lunch and dinner were served again which with both were 10 times better than the breakfast. Candice and I did the tubing which good fun although we were flung from the tube quite a few times an had some nasty wipeouts. Candice has a massive bruise on her leg and I ended up with a couple myself. All the time whilst you are on the boats in Ha long bay you spot the Jelly fish which are massive. Literally bigger than anything I have seen. My only worry after coming off the tube is that one would get hold of me but fortunately I was lucky enough not to.

During dinner in the evening I was not feeling great quite queasy and nauseas so went and had a lie down from 6:30 till about 9pm. After waking up I went back to the main area an drinking games were in full swing. The good thing is that our group had joined up with another group so some people were playing the games and others had opted out and were just having a quiet drink. I personally was still a bit worse for wear from the previous night so just took it easy. The next morning we were woken early again to make the long trip back through Ha long Bay and then another 4 hour bus journey back. We were essentially away for 3 days two nights and it was really good and we met a lot of people during our stay. I added a couple of them on Facebook an hope to stay in touch when we are back in London.

The party boat aside Ha long bay is also dubbed the 8th Natural wonder of the world. To be honest it's an extremely scenic place. I had seen lots of pictures online but actually being on the boats in the bay was a brilliant experience the place has a surreal kind of feel to it. I would highly recommend the rock hard rock long tour through Hanoi backpackers but if you dont do it do go to ha long bay as it worth seeing.