Ha Long Bay (Vietnam)
It’s sitting by the overcoat, the second shelf, the notes I wrote, that I can’t bring myself to throw away,well, that’s not 100% of the truth, although there were certainly diary notes on the dresser that I was looking at around 6:00am on this morning as the sun snuck through the small space between the blind and the window sill like a little skillful bandit. The night unfortunately wasn’t so kind to me and I had had a fairly fitful sleep, although with the said, each time I peered out the window and saw the lights of the surrounding boats and the silhouettes of the limestone karsts I was still amazed and also more than a little grateful to have the good fortune to have made my way here.
It seemed both of us had an ordinary nights sleep, not sure if that was due to the fact that the debilitating mental construct that we’d conjured out of our homo-uncomfort, or whether it was simply Jets’ reflux coupled with my flu like symptoms but in the end we got out of bed at 9:00am and wondered upstairs in anticipation of a buffet breakfast, Bhaya style , but freakin’ hell, no! The Bhaya boys had gipped us on this day! The swindling, cheating fraudsters had set up an early morning visit to the ‘Surprise Cave’, which in my head converted to ‘Surprise you shonksters, we beat you to the breakfast punch and now we’re going to mess with you!’. Ahhh, the dread of not having any sort of coffee to start my day was almost too much to bare!
We willed ourselves onto the awaiting launch with all the other bright and chirpy representatives from the UN, ‘screw them and their Portuguese happiness, give me my caffeine!’. In any case we were shuttled to the entrance of the ‘Surprise Cave’ where basically you are required to walk up the side of one of one of these huge limestone karsts via a stoned path to the entrance of what they called a grotto/cave. The vantage point and the views back over this section of Ha Long Bay however, to what was to be a pleasant find, were definitely worth missing breakfast for. Admittedly it’s not that high above water level, only about 25mtrs, but it certainly gave a totally different perspective of the surrounding area.
Ha Long Bay - taken from the 'Surprise Cave'
Frichot, not looking at all surprised!?
Surprise!? Your breakfast has been withdrawn!
Ha Long Bay - Vietnam
Inside the grotto there were literally thousands of stalactites and stalagmites which inhabited the space along side the 500mtr+ walkway inside the cave. It’s a fairly impressive sight, although if you’ve been inside the caves at Jenolan then you have a fairly good idea of what this place looked like. Truthfully, the view from the entrance of the cave caught my attention far more than the limestone creations on the inside but a morning stroll ended up being worth it.
The rest of our morning and early afternoon was spent cruising back to Ha Long city. Very tranquil and peaceful, just appreciating the surroundings and off course occasionally dosing off, only to be woken up by your “mate” with a camera in your face telling you that 'Henry Elisher should HTFU'…lol, fair call! ....Speaking of which, you can see Jet giving me a major dose of HTFU right HERE (link on!)
The Bhaya crew showered us with rose petals as we left
Back in the port of Ha Long we jumped back in with our minivan driver from the previous day who gunned it back to Hanoi in true Nascar fashion, which means taking no prisoners but also never allowing yourself to charge a bus or lorry in full flight otherwise ‘you be pancake man!’
Typical Hanoi street view
Another typical shot of downtown Hanoi
A few hours later we were back at the Hanoi Elegance 3, the staff had kindly moved us into our new room which was meant to be the ‘Junior Suite’ but on closer inspection of their site and the rooms available it appear that we had received the ‘Family Suite’. No matter, it was a great room, had a decent internet connection and a set of French doors that opened out onto a small balcony that overlooked Hang Bong St. Even before you stepped out onto the balcony you could hear it but once outside it was unmistakable, the relentless sound of Hanoi traffic, the motors from the thousands of scooters, those inimitable horns that the riders use just to say ‘hello’, this is the sound that you always end up associating with Hanoi. Monsieur Frichot and I spent a few hours listening to the $10 worth of tunes that we purchased in downtown Hanoi a several days earlier, you’d be surprised as to how many CD’s that actually equates to, drinking a bottle of wine or so and then getting ready for what would inevitably be another evening of liver terror.
Family Suite - Hanoi Elegance 3 - Hang Bong St., Hanoi
Wacky races out on Hang Bong St - View from the balcony
Chasing somewhat of an authentic culinary experience on this night, I put it to Jet that we should undertake the challenge and make a play for one of the many street vendors that were plying their trade on the Hanoi curbs. A few blocks up from the hotel we encountered a vibrant little establishment that by day was a shirt and tie shop but by night masqueraded as a drive in Hanoi BBQ for the well heeled locals. The food was set up on a very basic table held within tupperware containers and looked like a kaleidoscope of who knows what. It was awesome! Kebabs, snails, frogs legs, some type of worm like creatures, it was all on the table and all set for us to delve into if our spirits and adventurous nature held firm. Basically the way it worked was that you required to make your way up to the table, select what you wanted and then ‘hey presto’, they BBQ’ed the living daylights out of it for you. It’s at times like these where you just say to yourself, ‘Well, I’m prepared for whatever gastro misfortune I’ll have coming my way 3am…but for right now, I’m taking it down!!’. After dealing with the Super bug from hell out of the heart of the Lao jungles I thought that there would be nothing that a little city slicker bug could throw at me that I wouldn’t be able to handle. Frichot and I went for it with reckless abandon and in all truth, the food turned out being damn good. Mid feast we were joined by a couple of Danish girls whom Frichot was also trying to tune in with kind of mixed results, there was interest from one girl but the more stoic Hanoi resident was having none of this Aussie mix.
Hanoi food fest - get into it!
Frichot, willing his stomach to be 'cool with it'
Post dinner we walked around for a little while with that unsettling feeling that an eruption via our oesophagus was only a short phone call away. Indeed my stomach was giving me the rumbles and what I didn’t consider was that perhaps Mr City Slicker Hanoi bug might hook up with his cousin ‘Lao superbug’ to try and breed some bastardised type of child that would take me out for months. This thought played on my mind as we cruised down to Fanny’s for a while and then walked off our street side fare by strolling around Hoan Kiem lake for an hour or so. I have to admit, by the time we’d completed the circuit of the lake and made our way back up into the Old Quarter I think we were both feeling more at ease and were now contemplating taking Hanoi on for another evening/morning. Like there was ever really going to be a question of that happening!?...really!!
Hoan Kiem Lake - Hanoi
Frichot - Knowing it was all going wrong in his bowels
As always we were back into bar area of Hanoi which is about a 10minute walk north of Hoan Kiem lake. We dropped into the Red Lounge to check out the scene but it was crazily packed and not worth the effort. A couple of stops up the road was off course the Funky Buddha. Mr Rockstar was brought back out to play as Frichot undertook a metamorphosis into his now Funky Buddha persona, and I chatted with Vanessa and cashed in on the three free drinks that she had promised me from a few nights earlier. The Rockstar and I continued drinking for a few hours until the police came in early and shut the place down, from memory this was a little before midnight. Apparently its quite common for them to walk in and demand/request money from the owners (for whatever reason) and this type of event takes place a couple of times a month. The owner at this point needs to make a decision as to whether it’s worth their while to keep the place running for the evening, depending on the number of patrons they have in that night or just advise the police that there won’t be any money coming their way, which in turn involves a shutdown. In any case it seemed that the owners had remained firm to the corrupt demands of Hanoi’s finest and with midnight upon us we were out on the streets looking for another place to get loaded!
Frichot and I set up base a couple of bars up that made convenient use of their shutters every time the police rolled by. It was a smaller intimate place, great for drinking and produced some half decent cocktails. A little later on Vanessa joined us from the Red Lounge and a few of here friends either came along with here, or perhaps were already in the bar when Frichot and I turned up. In any case the moment she sat along side me I knew it was going to be ‘game on’, flirt dial turned up to 10 and away we went! As the hours drew on Mr Rockstar headed across the alley to another bar and I was lip locking and all things else with Vanessa in our current residence. I have to say, it was half on my mind to go back to her place but the commitment just wasn’t there, you know the situation, the type of thing when you’re out in the midst of a protest march and aren’t fully committed to the cause? Yeah well, it was kind of like that, lol. In any case the place Vanessa and I were in closed down somewhere about 3:30am and we headed across the alley to where Frichot was talking to the owner and also some random Slovenian guy that had somehow made his way there. Slovenians are odd people, they seem to turn up in the most unexpected places and there’s only about 3 million of them on this planet!? Sectioning off some space at the bar our PG-13 movie started to turn to M rate and then a little R rated within a very short time frame, Frichot was doing his best, as a good mate always does, to convince me to get my ‘Hanoi style’ on and get her home. I was pretty tanked by that point and yeah, it was a close run thing but in the end I wasn’t into her really and so decided to tell her that we’d ‘hook up’ when I made my return to Hanoi on the 29th of Dec.
We all stumbled outside of our location somewhere around 5:30am and Vanessa was kind enough to organise a couple of friends to provide us with a ride back to the hotel. I always found it amusing and a little embarrassing that each time we returned we had to wake the staff from their peaceful slumber in order to open the doors for us. On our return this morning we punched the time card at around 5:45am, meaning that the kick-off for breakfast was only 45 mins away. If we had the stamina to make it that far. I think we entertained the idea for 10 seconds before heading up to our room in order to crash out. The last thing I remember Frichot saying as my head hit the pillow was, ‘Do you reckon they’ll deliver?’, 'I don’t know man, try dialling 9481 1111 and tell me if they do'!
