Halong Bay boat trip

Okay, let me summarise the first part of the trip for the sake of brevity : Left Halong City, bit cloudy, decent enough lunch, had a snooze on deck, visited a couple of caves, one was big, the other quite small, moored up for the night, had dinner, sat on the upper deck drinking beer and watching lightning arc across the sky from distant thunder storms. All very pleasant and nobody had to die. Yet.
The only notable event was returning to the boat from the big cave, we had to walk across a timber walkway that, due to the tide being in, was submerged under a few inches of water. Being the dopey idiot that I am, I was looking everywhere except where I was going and didn't notice the missing plank in the walkway. It was a curious sensation watching the ground rush up to meet me, and I didn't immediately understand why. Fortunately for me, my fall was slowed when my shin bone connected with the edge of the plank and I finally figured out what was going on. Witnesses claim I made some sort gutteral meeowing noise, but I don't believe a word of it. I continued on into the water until my leg had completely disappeared, giving my shiny new camera a good dunking in the process (it survived). Everybody was very helpful and pulled me out and asked sympathetic questions. I had one of those big cheesy grins plastered across my face that only people in excruciating pain can do. It hurt like hell and for a second I thought I could see bone, but the only real damage was to my pride so obviously I pretended I was okay and when nobody was looking I limped off into a corner to lick my wounds and feel sorry for myself. A good start I think.
The next morning we were dropped off at a little jetty at the edge of Cat Ba Island, the largest island in the collection of 2000 or so in the bay. A quiet, easy little trek they said. A walk up a hill to see the view they said. Dear reader, preapare yourself for a tale of endurance and suffering like no other you have ever heard. Maybe. For today, at least. Maybe.

We set off along the coastal road and into the jungle, which was all very pleasant and we saw some amazing things, such as spiders the size of your hand hanging over the path on huge webs, and stick insects hanging from tree branches. Actually, we didn't see these at all until our guide plucked a few twigs from a tree and they started wriggling in her hand. How cool is that ? It all went downhill from here. Metaphorically speaking of course, because it actually all went uphill from there. The walk to the small village was actually 5km and by the time we got there I was drenched in sweat. It was probably about 38 degrees, getting hotter by the minute, and very, very humid. We had a bit of a rest and a chance to buy some more water, then we were off again. After trekking up a narrow jungle path liberally sprinkled with mountain goats and big spiders, we started up the MOUNTAIN, bcause a mountain it certainly was. It was basically a narrow path going straight up the side of a very steep, scary mountain covered in shard jagged outcrops of rock. And when it wasn't rock, it was jungle. Or both. By this time it was noon and staggeringly hot. The path was very slippery from rains the previous night and you had to pull yourself up by tree roots and rocks. Mosquitoes were everywhere and the only thing that stopped me getting bitten was tepid, stinking sweat spurting from every pore ( a couple of mozzies with armbands had a go and died trying). We passed a few folk coming back down the mountain and they were not very happy at all. The view was 'nice', but we were nowhere near the top yet. While standing still having this conversation, Cara managed to get 17 mosquito bites, a record even by our standards. There was dissent in the ranks and talk turned to mutiny. We scrambled on some more. We slipped, stumbled and sweated. We met some more people coming back down with tales of woe and misery. That was it. Enough. Cara and the other English girl were going to tolerate this torture no longer and turned back to head back to the village. The rest of us stoically marched on.

By this time I had elevated my new hobby of sweating to new, unimaginable levels. It was pouring off my head, my fingertips and elbows. With every step I took it squeezed sweat out of my shorts to run down my leg and into my boots. Now even my feet were soggy. Every single square centimeter of clothing was utterly drenched. And the whole time I was thinking : 'I'm actually paying to do this!'. Fantastic. We finally reached the top, and the view was breathtaking. You could see for miles in every direction and see hundreds of islands. We were all enormously relieved to be at the top. And was it worth it : Was it bollocks !

The journey back down was slightly more nervewracking and only slightly quicker. I got lost on the way back to the village and walked straight into a huge spiders web, face first. I did one of those attractive 'Aarggh, get it off me!' dances that only arachnaphobes know about, but I was on my own so nobody else had to witness it. Back at the village we found Cara and Michelle sat with their feet up drinking the local beer and chatting with the locals. Gits. To a man, we all looked like we were about to drop. In the picture below our guide, Nguon, had justed started to pour the water over my head. My shorts are just sweaty. I can safely say without fear of contradiction that I have never sweated so much, or been so hot, in my life as I was that day.

After lunch in the village, where everybody ate half their own bodyweight in rice, we started off on the 5km walk back to the boat. Our guide took a lift on the back of a moped. Smart lady.

From there we went sea kayaking, because we felt like taking some exercise. Followed by swimming from the side of a floating fish farm. Nice !

Rest of thge trip : Sailed round to Cat Bat town, checked into hotel, went to dinner in town, got boozed up in a bar run by a Kiwi guy who looks like the shopkeeper out of Mr Ben, slept, sailed back to Halong City in scorching sunshine and bus back to Hanoi. An altogether wonderful trip. This was followed by a night in a hotel room with broken airconditioning, I contracted pneumonia (although I'm sure Cara will try and convince you it was just a cold), a flight back to Saigon and another night in a hotel room with a) broken airconditioning and b) directly above a nightclub. By this point we were starting to feel a little bit tired. Needless to say we haven't achieved a huge amount whilst in Saigon.