Hanoi and Halong Bay, Vietnam

Halong Bay

We arrived in Hanoi without a guide book. Big mistake. We were like sitting ducks, wandering cluelessly around the Old Quarter with our big backpacks on. Everyone seemed to want to sell us something or another, and they simply didn't take "no" for an answer. They'd follow us up and down the road, then back up and down the road again. When you try to ignore them they'll keep saying "Hello! Hello! Hello!" or start grabbing at your arms. Walking in the heat, with your 15kg backpack, attempting to cross the roads that are swarming with scooters, trying to figure out where your hotel is, is an ordeal in itself. When you add in the hounding locals, it really is an unpleasant experience. From the moment we touched town in Vietnam we were hassled, pestered, shouted at, sworn at, scammed and ripped off. It was such a horrible start to our stay here.

I'll come back to that...

Once we were finally settled, we managed to stroll around a few of the sights.

The style of houses here is really peculiar. They keep the building really narrow (apparently to avoid extra taxes) and then just build straight up. They only paint the front of the building too.. the sides are just left bare and grey. Really funny looking.

Temple of Literature
Basicaly an old school. It was too hot to get overly interested in it!

Hao Lo Prison
Death row. This prison was also known as the 'Hanoi Hilton' by the American fighter pilots who crashed during the war and were detained here.

From Hanoi we wanted to spend a couple of days in Halong Bay (used in the James Bond movie 'Tomorrow never dies'). We decided to book the two day tour with our hotel. The tour included visits to two caves, kayaking, swimming, hiking, and an overnight stay on a boat. To cut a long story short, we saw one grotto, were held on the boat for one hour before our tour guide would pay the boat owner money owed, then were dumped at a hotel and informed that there would be no swimming, no kayaking, no hiking, and no overnight stay on a boat. Reena and I kicked up a fuss in the street with the locals watching on. A French group heard what was going on, then decided to start laying into him too! But there really wasn't anything we could do. The tour guide said that it was our hotel's fault. On the journey back to Hanoi, we felt even more upset because we heard all of the stories of other tourist who had a great time in Halong Bay.

In the grotto. This was the only section of the grotto that still looked natural. Elsewhere there were lots of fake lighting in all the colours of the rainbow making it all look really tacky.

When we got back to Hanoi we had it out with our hotel manager. Again there was a lot of raised voices. His excuse was "there isn't enough time on a two day tour to do all of these things", but his advertisment which was still on the wall didn't say that. He also argued that "well the quality of what you got was still good though", which we couldn't deny. Reena and I had our own bed for the first time in about a month! It wasn't so much the money that we were concerned about. As we said to him, we would have paid the extra bit since we only had a short time in Vietnam to see and do as much as we could. What we really couldn't cope with was all the cheating, lying and deception, just to gain a few extra dollars. They dont really have any idea about the concept of false advertising.

After storming out of the hotel we stopped into an internet cafe. I had to check my email. After 10 minutes of trying to load up yahoo.com, nothing happening. I got up and refused to pay the cafe anything since I wasn't getting what I was supposed to be paying for. Again, shouting in the street! I was ready to just break down there and then. Reena saw the tears welling up in my eyes, shoved the 1000 dong (only 3p) into his hand and dragged me out of there! I cant believe I got so stressed about 3p, but it was the principle of it all. It felt like everyone was trying to take advantage of us in one way or another. I was near breaking point. Fortunately we bumped into the Finnish boys we met in Laos and all complained to each other over dinner. They had their own bad experiences in Vietnam. Even on the bus journey south, we heard so many other stories from other tourists of their troubles in the North. The people of North Vietnam have made a corner of the world which is really beautiful into something really ugly in my eyes. It is a shame for Vietnam.

We were not alone as tourists feeling bad about that place. We met an older Vietnamese couple on our Halong Bay tour. They had escaped Vietnam in 1980, and made a new life in Sydney. They felt that the tour was really badly organised, and confirmed that the people in the North are really not that friendly. Apparently the southerners are much more pleasant. They blamed it on experiences of the northern people under communist rule. They said that they now grab at anything including money, without considering other people. Ironically, thats what critics of capitalism say.

After five days in the north I was elated to be leaving, heading south.