When all else fails, Climb

Ha Long Bay. How does one go forth describing one of Vietnam's top tourist attractions? Most people have an image in their heads of the karst formations towering out of the sea. With guidebooks highlighting these gravity-defying stone pillars, of course we had expectations as we departed from Hanoi on Friday morning. We would, as always, learn that things are never as expected.

Our destination this morning was Cat Ba Island. Situated just outside the bay, it is free of the majority of tourists (being day-trippers), and a great place to start your exploration of the surrounding area. We booked a shuttle from our friendly guest house in Hanoi to take us to Cat Ba town, expecting, from the promises of our host, to arrive there early and still see the island the same day. In retrospect, we can now advise future travelers of never booking a trip to Cat Ba through a Hanoian travel agency. They will put you as luggage on one of their day trip boats and you will be at the tour guides' mercy of when they choose to let you of at Cat Ba. We waited for two hours docked to a couple of houses built on floating rafts, no doubt mainly for the attraction of tourists, before being put on another day trip boat heading in the direction of Cat Ba.

Admiring  (and photographing) the majestic landscape.

All the splendor on the boat, helped nothing to soothe our impatience - can we go to Cat Ba now, please?

The positive side of this of course, was that we had plenty of time to see the famous bay. The surroundings were not at all disappointing and we spent plenty of time on top of the boat taking pictures and soaking in the scenery. It's off season for tourists here in the north and we had the same overcast and thin mist that has followed us since we crossed the border. Far from being a nuisance (after all we are used to this from home) it only added to the atmosphere and gave the place a mysterious vibe. Just like the Pirates of the Caribbean as Ann Louise has so aptly described it. I myself can't help but see the similarities of Ha Long and our own fjords. The weather is one thing, but you also have the same mountains just shooting out of the ocean and rendering you minuscule in comparison. It's almost as if Norway and Ha Long are made of the same building blocks, only put together in two distinctively different ways. Oh, and our fjords aren't sprinkled with exotic, untouched, jungle.

Quiztime: Cat Ba island or a Norwegian fjord?

Even making the best of our unforeseen delay, we couldn't help but feeling deceived by the tour bookers and with so many people literally being left in the same boat as us, a mutiny was bound to emerge sooner rather than later. Three British fellows (it's always the British isn't it), having booked a three day cruise based on beautiful pictures, found themselves having to double up in a single bed, one of them with a stranger. They flatly refused this and told the tour operators they would be leaving the dodgy cruise and make their own fortune on Cat Ba. This, apparently, wasn't as straight forward as it would seem. With none of the Thai or Laotian composure, the Vietnamese made a huge scene and seemed to take offence on the entire tourist group. Luckily two unsuspecting, middle aged, Russian women disarmed the situation by being told to take the dissidents' rooms. I would definitely say the Vietnamese seem to have more of an "attitude" than the complacent Thais and Laotians, for better and for worse.

A "traditional" floating village - our two hour stop on the way to Cat Ba.

Having bonded with our fellow inmates on the boat, we found ourselves in Cat Ba hostel with three Canadian girls and a British couple. It may come as no surprise to the reader that one of our main goals on the island was to visit Butterfly Valley for some phenomenal rock climbing! Despite the overcast, we ended up spending two days on the crag, and we also got Dan the Brit and Paige the Canadian to join us, one day each, together with Josh, an experienced climber we met at the gear rental place. After these two days we really feel progress has been made, and we've had some great climbs in great company. Good times were had by all! Worth noting were also the bike rides we had the 20 minutes back and forth from the Butterfly Valley. Driving past the beautiful karsts and valleys on motorbikes was a great way to get a feel of the place and the preternatural landscape.

What are you doing up there, Thomas? It's a vertical wall for Christ's sake.

Well, if you can do it, so can I.

After two days of strenuous exercise though, it was time for a well deserved resting day. So today, apart from Thomas' heroic jogging trip, we have done nothing but sleeping, watching HBO and drinking tea under our blankets. As the weather turned sour, we prepared our return back to Hanoi. No surprise, it was a replay of our first journey, but this time we came prepared. Having already bought the tickets, there was nothing we could do and with mp3 players filled with podcasts and music, a book in one hand, and a chessboard in the other, we were ready to endure the unnecessary long journey. Did I mention a 30 minute ferry to the mainland leaves a couple of times a day? From there you can easily catch buses to Hanoi and other destinations. So I repeat: If you're ever going to Cat Ba island, do it yourself.