Slick’s flat, Harrogate, Monday 5th December, 22:23
Jolly Decemberween everyone! I hope you are all starting to feel the holiday magic. I know I am, if only due to my brother’s perennial Christmas playlist.
Now, where was I… ah yes, Hoi An.
Our plan was to leave Hoi An early in the morning, so as to reach Hue, the ancient capital, in the afternoon and then take a much longer overnight bus to Hanoi. We’d pre-booked a greatly anticipated trip on Heylong Bay (more on that later), so we were working to a deadline- but we had about 4 or 5 hours in hand and the bus company assured us repeatedly that we’d be there on time.
Yeah. Sure.
The first bad omen appeared when a man came to meet everyone for the Hue bus at our hostel, explaining that the bus couldn’t stop directly outside- because the police wouldn’t let them- so we’d have to walk for a few minutes to the bus. With weary groans we hoisted our packs and set off into the light drizzle…
Ten minutes later, as we trudge along after our guide, who is making urgent sounding phone calls to the bus driver, a scooter pulls up. “Get on the scooter” suggests the guide, much to our consternation and bafflement.
“get on the scooter, it will take you to the bus” insists our guide. So, begrudgingly, one brave soul hops on the back of a random Vietnamese scooter, heavy backpack and all. Before long a veritable fleet of scooters arrive to ferry us safely- though not a little perturbed- to our bus. To our surprise, the bus is actually perfectly nice- much more generously proportioned than our last one. We are relieved to hear that, not only will this bus take us to Hue, the same bus will take us on through the night to Hanoi.
Of course, this was a lie. Hue was… dull. We wondered disconsolately around in the steadily increasing rain bemoaning the lack of tourist-directed food outlets and bizarre overabundance of karaoke bars. Hopeful of better things in future, we returned to the hostel which the bus had dropped us at in time to board our bus to Hanoi.
There were several others waiting as well, including a guide. Some taxi’s came to pick up our fellow travellers- not you, says our guide. You wait just 5 more minutes, next taxi will take you to the bus”. This was also a lie. eventually we were taken to the bus depot, just in time to see everyone else form what we thought of as our group filing onto the bus from earlier. The doors closed and a company representative told us that, regrettable, this bus was full, but they had generously arranged for us to get on a different bus. This, at least, was a partial truth.
We did eventually get on a bus. It too however, was full- with only one free seat between the three of us. The travel company guy offered us a compromise- for a partial refund (something like 30 % by my reckoning) we could sleep on the floor, and he would provide us with extra mats, blankets and pillows to make it a tolerable experience. This was also a lie. Eventually we got a straw mat each and were told to suck it up.
I won’t harrow you with further details of our bus experience, such as random Vietnamese people getting on the already full bus in the middle of the night and setting up camp in my designated, hard-won floor space- but ultimately we made it to Hanoi, with about 5 minutes to spare before our bus was set to leave for Heylong bay. In a mad, last-minute dash across the city, frantically consulting a wholly inadequate tourist map we made it, just in time. In a state of blessed relief we were ferried to the coastal city of Heylong, where a boat awaited us to take us on a genuinely breath-taking adventure.
I genuinely cannot convey in words precisely how beautiful an experience it all was. Drifting on the clear, war water, floating between rocky islands looming hugely out of the sea, watching the villagers in their floating towns go about lives utterly different from our own. Truly, it is a place deserving of it;s current bid to be declared a natural wonder of the world. lying on the deck at night, looking up at the stars as the islands rolled past in the pitch darkness is a memory I hope I will always retain. The solo tiny fly in the otherwise glorious ointment was that the tour company clearly felt as though we needed activities to keep us entertained, and were forever stopping at islands or caves and expecting us to shuffle along with all the other tourists, rather than simply enjoying the place for what it was. Some of these diversions were admittedly fun- like sea kayaking- but overall the whole thing could have benefited from much less organisation. It was with a heavy heart that, after a night on the boat, we headed back in to shore- from Heylong city back to Hanoi and, after a customary exploration of the city (not particularly gripping- although this is probably explained by the fact that it was night and we didn’t see a lot), a night’s sleep and the worst taxi driver ever (he stopped the car twice, once for a smoke and once to charge up his mobile, and had the gall to demand a tip at the end. Here’s a tip- people going to the airport do not appreciate you stopping the car.) we flew from Hanoi back to our Asian base of operations, Bangkok. We did not rest on our laurels for long, however, but rather took an overnight bus that very night, through the floods which were starting to cause everyone in Thailand no small degree of concern, to Chang Mai, in the northern jungle.
Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion. Hopefully.
Slick.
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