I’m now firmly on the backpacker trail, and couldn’t think of a more appropriate way of celebrating than by going on a tour to Halong Bay. The last time I went on a party boat was in Turkey, with my sixty-eight-year-old grandmother, and whilst we both had a great time, I imagined that this would be slightly different. I was promptly picked up by a minibus at 08:00, and after doing a couple of laps of Hanoi to collect other people, we made the four-hour journey to Halong Bay. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t cooperating, and we arrived in a mist of fog and fine drizzle. Disappointed but not disheartened, we took a junk to our three story ‘party boat’. The room was pleasant, and I was sharing with a lovely Korean girl called Yan. Everyone in the group seemed nice, and we quickly bonded over our reluctance to wear the mouldy lifejackets that had been provided for our safety, and by moaning about the grim prospects offered by the weather.
After lunch we took the junk to Thien Cung cave. The stalactites and stalagmites were dramatically lit with purple and green lights, and our guide (self-christened Snake) pointed out some rocks that looked like a mushroom and a tortoise (if you have a gargantuan imagination). We looked out onto the bay from a wooden deck, but the mist stubbornly refused to give us the shining vistas that we’d seen in the Lonely Planet. We then tried our hands at kayaking. Yan and I teamed up, and after a couple of scrapes on the rocks, we started to get the hang of it, exploring caves and coves. Sea hawks circled overhead as we stutteringly made our way back to the pier. Darkness fell, and after a brief drama courtesy of a fishing net caught on the propeller, we weighed anchor for the night, passing the evening with Ring of Fire, Flip Cup, and some terrible techno-rave-trance provided by a group of five German guys who were mercilessly acting DJ. Driven away by the incessant pounding of the bass, Yan and I retired.
The party didn’t stop there. Prised from our beds at 07:30, the group divided in to two. Nine returned to Hanoi (including the Germans), and nine took another boat to an island (including me). By a stroke of improbable chance, all nine of us were female – and we delighted in the fact that we wouldn’t have any snorey boys staying in the dorm. Before we reached the island we were given the opportunity to jump off some rocks into the sea. I was the only one keen enough and stupid enough to accept the challenge. I’m not particularly athletic or strong, so I only managed to climb a little way, but it was still fun to plummet into the warm water, even if I was shivering for the rest of the ride.
After what seemed like an age, we juddered towards Freedom Island. Sandwiched between two private beaches stood a tall structure on stilts, thatched with straw and shielded from the absent sun by bamboo blinds. This was our new home. Welcomed by Tai and Phi, we dumped our bags and settled into our desert bubble, phone signal and the internet happily banished, the only sound that of the waves gently lapping the sand. We spent the afternoon playing volleyball, fudging together some yoga, and attempting to circumnavigate our island, hindered somewhat by our slippery flip-flops and the jagged sharpness of the rocks. We made it back safely, had a delicious dinner (complete with baked oysters) and played The Hat Game and The Stick The Name Of A Celebrity To Your Head And Guess It Game. It might not have been the mad party that we were expecting, but I think it was infinitely more fun.
This morning I was sad to leave. We got back to the main boat, learned how to murder a recipe for Vietnamese Spring Rolls (which were still delicious despite our clumsy folding), and then faced the long journey back to the chaos of Hanoi. Already the city feels more claustrophobic than the limited space of the island, but I can’t escape to a deserted beach forever. Can I?
nativeoyster 