*WARNING - SHOULD NOT BE READ BY YOU MAM...it's for your own good ;)
10th May - Here We Go...
Miraculously, I dragged myself outa bed in time to make the
7.30 departure time for our Halong Bay Boat Tour (this makes it sound a lot
less debauched…but the rest of this blog might change that idea). Before we got to the bay
itself we had to endure a 4.5 hour bus journey. Luckily a lot of people I had
met over the previous couple of days were going on this tour and I could see
that I wasn’t the only one a little “delicate”, as we boarded the 2 x 25-seater buses, Halong
bound.
When we arrived at the pier from which we would
get our boat ,we were told that we would be split into two groups for two
separate boats since there were so many of us. I hoped I wouldn’t be separated
from most of my mates but luckily when they divided us I was in the same group
as Mat, Claudio – 2 Canadian guys I hung out with after the walking tour the
day previous, Ollie and Hannah – the Londoners
I was out with the night previous. Then when we actually got onto the
boat, I realised there were three Irish girls on their way back from Australia
(sure where else!) and two Irish lads – Jim and Gary. Now if you’re anything
like me, reading this at home, you’re probably thinking oh sure there’s Irish
everywhere, as everyone is constantly saying how they can go nowhere without
meeting an Irish person, or even an Irish person that you know. But honestly,
up until this point I had met NO IRISH. Seriously, not a soul. Gen and Kelly and shitloads of other Canadians, seriously…I feel like I know more about the various
cities in Canada than I do about England at this stage. Canadians are
everywhere! So when I got on the boat and saw a few fellow pasty-skinned
(soon to be red-skinned wha Jim!) Irish,
I was delighted!
Once
we boarded the boat the madness began. We should have known it was gonna be
crazy when we found out our guide was gonna be Luke. This is the same Mohawk-ed
Canadian (see what I mean) that I met on my first night in the hostel. This guy
is fucking mental, literally. As soon as we boarded the boat – which was a
deadly boat by the way (one of their normal boats was broken down so we got
this fancier boat that usually wouldn’t be used for our type of “cruise”, and
was a three-tiered beauty), and Luke demanded everyone get straight to the bar
because we had to initiate ourselves onto the boat by shot-gunning a beer. So
while we assembled ourselves into two teams to compete against each other as
speed-drinking, Luke ran around the boat just roaring “WE ARE GONNA TAKE THIS
BOAT VIRGINITY”. Yeah, there was no hope for this being your average tour.
After the initiation was over, we all reclined into some seats to soak up the
sun, beer, and THIS view:
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| Yes our boat even had foliage |
We
all chilled for a couple of hours while we cruised out into the bay, trying to
take in the scenery. We noticed after a while that we didn’t seem to be moving.
Next thing we heard an almighty *SPLASH*.
We ran to look over the deck – yes our “guide” Luke had just taken a run and
threw himself off the THIRD deck of our boat into the sea! Seriously, mentaller.
He told us to join him and throw ourselves into the water…but not off the top
deck, unsurprisingly the fact that you could hit the second deck and not the
water was too great, so we would jump off the second deck. Ha ha! So one by
one, we peeled ourselves over the ledge and jumped from the boat into the sea,
in the middle of Halong Bay. Now I ain’t your normal “I get my thrills by
jumping off high things” kinda gal, so I’m not gonna lie, when I climbed over
the edge I did have a moment of hesitation…then I heard “G’WAN CAROL” in a
strong Cork accent from the deck above me, and before I had time to think I
just jumped. Yeah…our boat was higher than any of us thought! We had a decent
few seconds of a drop before we hit the water! So as everyone took their first
jump, we all let out a similar “oh fuuuuuuuuuuck” about half way down when we
realised we still hadn’t hit the water! But it was deadly, what a rush! After
we had all jumped – some people a few times. We got back on the boat, and
sailed a little further before our next activity!
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| Not bad, eh?! |
Kayaking. Now I don’t think I’ve ever kayaked before, but
when your “guide” tells you before getting in “firstly, I usually bring about 3
beers with me in the kayak and then wish I had another one, so bring 4”
followed by “oh yeah these kayaks are old as shit maan *insert your own
Canadian accent here*, they don’t turn back over if you topple over, so don’t
fucking turn the kayak over or you’re gonna sink” that it’s not gonna be your
average kayaking excursion. We had to pair up, boy and girl so myself and Jim
(who is from Ballyheane in Mayo – I know – typical!) decided to represent the
West together and off we set – us, our beers in a kayak determined to take us
in the opposite direction to where we wanted to go!
We would be kayaking to a cave, where we would meet up with
the other boat’s passengers and go and have a look in this cave before kayaking
back. The view was out of this world on our trip – and it may surprise you to
know that it’s quite easy to kayak and have a drink, as we managed quite
expertly. On the return journey, the sun was setting so it really was a
postcard setting. I’d love to offer you a photo but seeing as enough sea water
made its way into the kayak to keep our beer chilled, it wasn’t the best
environment for a non-waterproof camera. We finally made it back to our boat
just before sunset, where we all retired to our cabins to shower and freshen up
before dinner and the madness afterwards took hold.
The food was great, but lets face it you’re not
interested in that, it’s what happened afterwards that’s more entertaining!
After dinner, Luke kicked us out of the dining room on the boat for a short
while, while he set up the room. Basically, the boat would be split into two
teams – one large table vs. the other. On each table there was a deck of cards
– laid out in the shape of a dragon. Each card had a different forfeit so
depending on what card you picked up you could have to force the other team to
do anything, you could have to finish your drink, you could be forced to sit
under the table and be the team’s hobbit, you could have to swap clothes with
someone else on your team – boy or girl, the whole table of people would have
to rush to lie on the floor, last person to fall facing another forfeit…the
list goes on!
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| Preparing for the carnage ahead |
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| Opposite team facing our forfeit and wrapped to a pole...obvs. |
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| Time to swap clothes! |
Some of the forfeits included the whole other team being
wrapped against a pole together with massive cellophane wrap and being
force-fed shots of rum! The bad thing is, the worse the forfeit you give the
other team- the bigger the forfeit they would give your team when their turn
came! For example, at one point I went to the bathroom, when I returned – the
whole table was pretty much naked but for the bare (pardon the pun) essentials!
It was crazy! I think the night ended with people doing set-dancing style
swings with each other – thanks to the 3 Irish girls. Nobody managed to fall
off the boat and everyone made it to day two, somehow.
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| This was defdinitely at the latter stages of the night |
11th May - Castaway Island...but no Wilson.
Well
we were absolutely woken with what you could call a “start” on the morning of
the 11th May. And by a start I mean HAMMERING on each door.
Repeatedly. Shouting “GET UP, BREAKFAST!!”. They refused to stop until you
actually got up and opened the door. To say we were all in bits, well, that
would just be an honest statement! We all managed to eat some kind of
breakfast, then those of us that were doing two nights (of course!) had to move
to the other boat that was on the cruise. Everyone else, would be sailing back,
hungover to fuck to get a 4 hour bus journey. Yeah, putting that off for 24
hours made way more sense. So over we trundled to boat no.2 of the day where we
met some of our new companions for day two. We met Phil - the funnest (oh I know it's not a word) German I
have met to date – I told him that, that night when we were pissed covered in yellow
paint. More on that later, also Luuk – from the Netherlands – we would later be
forced to wear each other’s underwear on our heads…god if we only knew that
when we met! There were loads of cool people – Zara and Dai who I had met at
the quiz and on the bus were doing two days so we were reunited, we also met
Fletch and Ash – two brilliant Aussie girls who were so much fun, Gunnar – the
first Icelandic person I’d met on my travels so far – did you know the
population of Iceland is only 300,000! Yeah didn’t know that either – it was
also the first opportunity I had to ask a native Icelandic person how the hell
to pronounce some Sigur Ros songs. Also, Annabel & Glenn - sweet fun couple from Singapore and loads more Canadians
unsurprisingly, couple of British girls -Kayleigh and Helen, and four Sheffield
guys – Rickesh, Jabba, Chets and Lewis and loads of
other people who’s names fail me but I know won’t mind! Basically there was
about 30 of us in total.
When we arrived on Castaway Island after taking I think 3
different boats, we were greeted by our island guide – Taco. That’s not even a
feckin nickname, the lad’s name is Taco on his passport, poor bollox. Anywhoo,
he lived up to the name coz that guy was another mentaller. Our resident
mentaller Luke also joined us on the island. It was probably safer for mankind
to keep those two deserted on an island to be honest. After arriving, they fed
us and sent us off to recover and take a nap. We were staying in these huts
that had about 5 or 6 mattresses on the ground with a mosquito net open, and
they faced the ocean. To say the setting was idyllic doesn’t even come close to
describing how beautiful the place was. I was sharing with Jim and Gary – the
two Irish guys from day one on the boat, and Gunnar , my Sigur Ros translator!
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| Castaway Island |
It
was still really early, seeing as we’d gotten up so early so by the time we’d
taken our naps, like good little children, all did some watersports. Gary and
Jim decided to try their hands at wake-boarding, but seeing as I have the
co-ordination of a toddler, I decided to go tubing instead. It was great fun,
but man the sea beat my ass! We had to go in pairs, so me and Gunnar shared.
When we first left the coast and were going straight, it was
brilliant fun, but then so to purposefully turf us off the boat at high speed,
the boat that was dragging us started doing big corners and we were sent flying
off the tube! This was all good fun, until you try and drag yourself back up
onto the bloody thing. I don’t know what I was doing all those days in the gym
but it wasn’t improving my upper body strength as I almost told the boat to
just leave me floating in the ocean rather than struggle to drag myself up onto
the thing! Luckily, Gunnar was stronger than me, and very kindly yanked me up
on to it when we we were turfed off! In total we were thrown into the sea 3
times, and by the third time we were wrecked! It seems clutching onto a
floating device for dear life, whilst bouncing across the sea at high speed is
quite knackering! So any miniscule amount of upper-body strength that I did have,
was certainly depleted at this stage. So the third time we dragged ourselves
(ok I’m not gonna lie – by the time GUNNAR dragged me up), I was so wrecked I
didn’t fully put my whole body onto the float, so I only was really half up on
it – then off we went, at fucking high speed again…except this time my body
took the hit!
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| About to be thrown off...again. |
My legs and feet bashed off the water, it was pretty feckin
painful. So when we got to shore, I could already see the bruises forming! By
the time I walked the few meters back to our beach hut, the left hand side of
my right leg was already going black! To say it was the biggest bruise I’ve
ever had would not be an understatement by any means! My right foot was also
starting to swell and was pretty sore! Oops. All in all, it was TOTALLY WORTH
IT. So much fun, and he a few bruises and swelling wasn’t gonna stop me! It did
start to explain however why the hostel in Hanoi is like A&E in a hospital
with people walking round with major cuts and bruises all over them! It also
knocked any hangover that was lingering right on the head! So afterwards I was
feeling fresh as a daisy and ready to go with whatever was waiting for us that
night.
After dinner and a shower, well it all kicked off again.
Jesus H. Christ.
It started with a demon pack of cards again.
This time we were all dealt 4 cards and depending on what card you turned
over…well you guessed it there was a forfeit. All the time, we were still
playing Buffalo, and Antelope. If you’ve travelled backpacker-style, you’ll
probably have come across the buffalo rule. Basically, you have to drink with
your left hand only. If anybody on the island at all sees you drink with your
right hand, they shout “BUFFALO” at you and you’re forced to finish your drink
there and then. At 6pm they brought in the Antelope rule, meaning you had to
drink with your left hand between the hour and half past the hour, and between
half past and the hour you had to drink with your right hand. Confusing, yes.
But bloody hilarious also! When you looked around the table you could just see
everyone glance at the clock before taking a drink. Everyone was ruthless –
just waiting for the opportunity to shout buffalo at someone! There was also a
rule that you couldn’t say the word “TEN” or “MINE”, you had to spell out the
word if you needed to say it – the forfeit being ten press-ups. This one was
great because people would be doing their ten press-ups and counting them out,
and everyone was just waiting for them to say “ten” when they got to their
tenth one so they’d have to do another ten. It was a very strange place as you
can imagine! So back to my point, trust me, there was a point. So earlier in
the day, Taco, when explaining the rule, said that if anyone catches him out
he’ll buy ten drinks for the whole island. He’d been on the island for months
at this stage and was so used to drinking with his left hand that he was
positive he’d never be caught out. Well, isn’t karma a bitch! I was about 8
o’clock and Luke had introduced the Antelope rule, with the hands changing
every half hour and Fletch all of a sudden rises to her feet, points at taco
and shouts “TACO, BUFFALOOOOOOOOOOOOO” well everyone turned around! Nobody
could believe it! His face dropped! He was like “oooooh shitttt”! But a man of
his word, he slowly started making his way to the bar, and ordered up a few
bottles of vodka – on his own money for everyone. So suffice to say when that
night’s card game started, there was plenty of drink going round! Like the
previous night, the forfeits were suitably debauched.
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| Taco and Luke deal the cards... |
One
of the more hilarious ones, was when Luke announced that whoever had a certain
card had to chase this local Vietnamese man who worked behind the bar and kiss
him – you should have seen this guys face when 6 people started chasing him
around (me included!). The best forfeit though definitely fell on the guys –
now this one should definitely come with a warning to “not try this at home”.
Basically, a few of the guys had to strip, and attach a long string of toilet
paper between their ass-cheeks which was set on fire – and their challenge was
to shot-gun a beer before the fire reached their ass! And lets just say toilet
roll burns FAST! I have some hilarious photos of this, but well, I fear the
lawsuits that could ensue if I was to put them on the net! Ha ha ha! It was
soon after this that I came upon, don’t ask me where it magic’d itself from,
but this bright yellow body paint into my possession, and nobody was safe. I
decided to “paint” and I use this term very loosely everyone’s face, back, arms
– basically any skin that I could see! It was hilarious at the time, and great
entertainment however right now it’s a month later and I’m still seeing traces
of this yellow stuff on my camera!
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| Me and Luuk forced to sport some "interesting" headwear |
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| One of my face-painting masterpieces |
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| Me, Fletch (Oz), Phil (Gernany) and Dai, all "super excited" as the Canadians say! |
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| Me and Jim make a mark for Mayo |
Still it did make everyone look ridiculous – as if we needed
any help at that stage. The party
continued on into the night, all I can say is it was definitely bright when I
went to bed!
The following day, well you can imagine when we got our
“wake up call” at 7am we all sprightly made our way off the island, spring in
our step. Yeah. Right. It was like a scene from 28 Days Later where the living
dead dragged themselves onto another boat (sidebar – for someone who lives in
WESTPORT, and lives on the island of Ireland – only after being
away for two months, have I realised how few boats I had been on before now,
crazy when you think about it), where we just all passed out on the top deck,
and sailed back to shore. When we got back to the port, we boarded our bus for
a bumpy 4 hour bus journey back to Hanoi.
Shook. But by far the most fun I have crammed into two days
– made great by an amazing group of fun people. Add this tour to the bucket
list guys J
