Harrow Dong Hoi

18th - 20th May - Farm Life...without the manual labour

We arrived back from our night train in Hanoi at 5am on Friday the 18th May. We were all a bit dazed and confused and found solace on the massive bean bags located on the "chill out" floor of the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel. We launched our tired selves on these beanbags and grabbed a few extra hours sleep until about 9am. When we woke, feeling a little more human we had breakfast and spent the day doing a few housekeeping necessities (you've seen the pictures...so to say our clothes from trekking in Sapa were somewhat in need of the laundry would be quite the understatement).

That afternoon we said goodbye to the last of our Halong Bay friends, Phil the German. He had spent the last month travelling by bike from the south of Vietnam to the north and after selling his motorbike would now be heading back home to Germany to study. Me, Zara and Dai on the otherhand, were FINALLY going to be leaving Hanoi behind us to continue our journey south through Vietnam. Next stop on our (incredibly loose) itinerary was Dong Hoi - 600km south of Hanoi, 11 hours by night bus. That evening we repacked our bags, with our fresh mud-free clothes, and boarded the most bizarre night bus to date! At this point in our journey I had yet to experience a night bus so I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't expect what I now refer to as Discobus 2000. The bus, from the outside looked like a large coach. However on the inside, it was organised into three rows of "sleepers", with two aisles in between. Each row of sleepers had a top and bottom bunk. The sleeper seats themselves reminded me of bumper cars, the way they wrapped around you, it's so hard to explain. And to top it off the whole bus was luminated with bright coloured lighting. Hopefully this pic will give you a better idea:

Zara, Dai and Me up top on Discobus!

Honestly, felt like I was in a bumpercar

As if this wasn't random enough, when the bus started moving they suddenly started playing Clubland music throughout the bus accompanied by videos from what looked like clubs in Ibiza from about 10 years ago. We all just looked at each other like "wtf is going on". After not sleeping in a bed for the past 3 nights I decided there was only one thing to do...valium, sleeping mask and earplugs. Night y'all.

I was woken at 5am by Dai in the "sleeper" in front of me, he'd just been told that we would soon be arriving in Dong Hoi. The bus itself was heading for Hue, so we were the only people who would be leaving the bus in Dong Hoi. Our reasons for stopping in Dong Hoi were to go to the Phong Nha Farmstay. This is a small farmhouse ran by an Australian guy and his Vietnamese wife - Ben and Bich. They have built a small guesthouse located in the real Vietnamese countryside with 10 rooms, surrounded by paddy fields that they harvest. Bich's brother also built a large dorm in his house next door which offers more affordable accommodation for backpackers like us just looking for somewhere to crash.

The place looked absolutely idyllic. After hearing from some others that it was quite small and therefore quite popular, we had booked our beds here before leaving for Sapa a few days previously.

We emerged from the bus bleary-eyed and tired at the crack of dawn, on the side of the road in a very empty and quiet Dong Hoi. Upon booking, Ben the owner had given us a phone number to ring to let them know where we had been dropped off and they arranged a pick up for us. I called the number, getting the address of where we were from a nearby hotel sign. After a few rings, a disorientated "hello?" greeted me from the other end of the line. I gently explained who I was and that we were instructed to call to arrange a pick-up from our bus. "That booking was for yesterday" I was informed. "Eh" I replied, "I'm sorry if there's been a mistake but we definitely meant to book it for today, is it eh still possible to stay?" I was told to give them a few minutes to wake up and call back.

"Balls." I turned to Zara and Dai and explained what I'd just been told. We looked at each other and almost began to laugh. Here we were, sitting on our rucksacks at 5am on the side of the road in this one-horse town in the arsehole of nowhere in Vietnam, possibly having nowhere to go and nowhere to stay that night. Frankly it was all we could do at that stage! I'd love to tell you some longwinded tale of how we hitch-hiked with some interesting Vietnamese farmer on his tractor -esque story but well, the situation was resolved with a quick phonecall - the farm were able to organise a pickup and our booking could still stand, we just had to wait 15mins. Phew.

We arrived at the Farmstay itself, and all the good stories we'd been told were confirmed within seconds. This was the view from the front porch of the farm:

The farm itself was also really pretty. It had a large pool out the back, and there were plenty of hammocks for lounging in, in the common bar/lounge area, and a menu with lots of tasty food for an affordable price.

Apart from the peace and quiet of staying out in the country after a hectic week in and out of Hanoi, our main reason for visiting this region of Vietnam was to go to Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, which is home to the world's largest cave - Paradise Cave. Every second day, Ben and Bich organised trips to the cave which included visiting other areas of the National Park itself also. When we arrived at the farm we realised that today was the day they would be doing a trip there so we wiped the sleep from our eyes, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed off in a minivan. The views of the Vietnamese countryside along the way were simply stunning:

Our first stop was at Paradise Cave itself. At this point we did not know much about the cave apart from the little blurb we read in the lonely planet so we weren't quite sure what to expect. Little did we know what we were in for! After the short trip to the cave, we emerged from our mini-van, we followed the other tourists and began a short, but steep hike up to the cave in question. When we walked through the entrance, what greeted our eyes was staggering:

I know it is the world's largest cave so y'know it should be pretty big, but the vastness of it was crazy. And to guide you through it were these crazy staircases that reminded me of the moving staircases in Gryffindor in Harry Potter!!

The cave was so large, it took us a good 40 minutes to walk as deep into it as we were permitted. Within the cave itself the various stone formations were so impressive - if my primary school geography serves me right the stalactites and stalacmites were all over the place!

After we emerged from the cave, we had lunch with the group from our farm, then we travelled into the park itself and took a quick dip in one of the lakes within the park:

After that we went to another area of the park which wasn't too interesting, but on our journey back, all of a sudden the van driver stopped whilst we were travelling down the road, jumped out of the van and started pointing towards the tree covered wall across the roadfrom us. We all got out of the van to find out what the hell was going on when we realised he was pointing to monkeys jumping in the trees - I managed to rummage my camera out in time to grab a quick shot:

He's the black blob amongst the greenery!

It was really cool! This was the first time I'd seen monkeys in the wild (I think...) so it was exciting to see them just out and about and not in some cage!

That evening, when we we arrived back at the farmstay we were thoroughly shattered! It had been a long long day between nightbuses, caves and monkeys so we had a nice dinner at the farmstay and just hit the hay.

We had only booked to stay two nights at the farmstay, so the following day myself and Zara decided to take advantage of the pool and chilled surroundings of the farm and have a thorougly lazy day! It had been a hectic week or so in Vietnam, and we had blogs to write, and a pool to lounge in! Dai, not being quite as lazy as me and Zara rented a bike and headed out exploring with some of the other travellers staying in the farmstay. We had a lovely day, just chilling around the pool and got some writing done on the blog.

We had a really enjoyable time in Dong Hoi - it was nice to escape the hustle and bustle and really get a feel for what rural Vietnamese life and countryside is like. Next stop on our journey would be Hoi An, and well that was a WHOLE different kettle of fish...

Harrow Sapa!

13th - 15th May - Hanoi

Well it won't surprise you to know that upon returning to Hanoi we were all rather shattered, battered, bruised and well in need of some serious recovery! Unfortunately, coming back from our escape to Halong also meant we would have to say goodbye to some of the mega friends we had made on the trip. First to go were Chets, Jabba, Rick and Lewis who were leaving the following day.

The following day, after the first decent night's sleep in a bed we'd had in a few days we were all feeling a little fresher. Wanting to do something fun with our day myself, Dai, Zara, Phil, Gary, Jim, Bel and Glenn decided to hit the Waterpark to wake us up and have a laugh in the Sunday sun. Apart from another harrowing taxi ride (driving wherever, WHENEVER...regardless of what's coming alongside you, or more often directly towards you), the waterpark was surprisingly impressive and we had a right laugh. There were about 7 or 8 decent slides, some of which you had to do in pairs, some which required tubes etc. Here's a pic of a few of them and who I think is me coming down one of the slides:

Les Slides

Weeeeeee!

After spending the afternoon going down all the slides, some multiple times, we headed back to the hostel. Fletch and Ash from Oz and Jim and Gary were the next few to leave the Halong bay crew so to see them off, myself, Bel, Glenn, Dai, Zara and Gunnar decided to join them on beer corner. Now I'm not just making this up, there is actually a place marked on the maps of Hanoi called "Beer Corner". Now it ain't nothing plush - it's basically an intersection of a few streets, where little restaurants put these tiny plastic chairs outside their establishments around make-shift tables. "Why would you choose to drink there?" I hear you express. Because the beers are 5,000 dong my friends. 5,000 dong is €0.19. Question answered? Okay. lets move on :)

We are not giants. They are midget stools!

We had a few drinks in beer corner, they ran out of beer (what do ya expect!) so we adjourned to a nearby bar to continue the farewell drinks. Yes, we were drinking purely to say goodbye to our friends ;) In this bar we made a discovery, which personally I believe rivals even CERN's recent Higgs particle revelation! That is the drink, which will be furthermore known as the Gunnar. Let me explain. We were all ordering our drinks, most of us naturally going for the cheapest drink on the menu when Gunnar orders a Gin and Redbull. The waiter looked at him with the same confusion as the rest of us. "Do you mean a gin and a separate can of red bull?" he asked. "No" Gunnar replied, "in the same glass". Appalled, and with reason we all thought, the waiter skulled away, no doubt questioning what kind of heathen would order such a concoction. We were all like "WTF Gunnar, who the hell drinks Gin and Redbull together?! "Oh just wait and see" he assured us. When it arrived, naturally we all had to sample this madness. What can I say - delicious. No lie - go out and order it next time you're feeling flush (this would probably cost near a tenner at home wha!)! We christened it "the Gunnar" because hell, only he would come up with this!

Gunnar, with "The Gunnar"

After a couple of drinks, we retired back to ole Hanoi Backpackers and crashed for the evening.

The following day I arranged to meet up with Bel and Glenn, the next two friends to head back home, for them, to Singapore. But before that we had planned a day of fun in Hanoi! I wanted to try out some good Hanoi street food, and the night before at beer corner, Bel mentioned that they had had some really good sticky gluttinous rice with pork in a place not too far fom our hotel. Well those of you who know me, a food that actually has "gluttinous" in its description had me hooked from the start! Zara and Dai also joined us for some food. To try and describe the meal - it came in a bowl, it was this special type of sticky rice that I hadn't had before - even in China, over which they put shredded maize, then sprinkled spring onions and your choice of meat - we went for pork - all topped with a fried egg! It was actually amazing!

Street food on the way!

Mightn't look much...but amazing!

After lunch, I headed off with Glenn and Bel for a little walking tour of our own of Hanoi. We wandered all over the city taking in different sights of the city. Some of my favouites were, this pic I took:

This guy is actually reading the daily paper! I thought this was brilliant. Basically that's just outside the local newspaper office, and they put up the daily newspaper on that board so that each day the people who I'm assuming may not be able to afford the newspaper can come and have a read of it!

Next up just a cool picture of this street that just sold lots of birds:

Next up, an amazing fruit stall - at this point I had sweet F.A. clue what most of these fruits were. Bel explained a good lot of them that she knew. There was everything from dragon fruit to rambutans, and loads others (now that I'm a further along in my travels I've tasted most of them - we really are deprived in Ireland / UK with our limited amount of interesting fruit!)

Whilst I'm on the food discoveries, this one's for my fellow caffeine fiends:

We walked all over Hanoi, and had a great time. I have to give kudos to Glenn for putting up with mine and Bel's magpie-esque attraction to any shops of interest! Especially when after visiting one bookshop in particular, we all spontaneously started humming this same cheesey Vietnamese song that had been on in the shop as we walked down the street! The one took a couple of days to remove from our brains! Here's the three of us taking a sitting break:

Yes I'm looking a little "special" in this one...

Yes, sitting break. No joke this particular day was definitely the most humid day I have experienced whilst travelling so far. It was mental. Hanoi in itself was horrendously humid causing you to sweat just by existing. In Hanoi, you'd have a shower and before you've even dried yourself you're already sweating, hard to really feel clean! It was crazy, but this day was by far the worst. Hence the big shiny head on me above. Glenn and Bel seem to be pulling it off a 'lil better than me!

After our walk I returned to the hostel to live in the cold shower for about an hour. That night we returned to beer corner, but this time we left before the beer did. Knowing that the following day we would be heading to Sapa to begin our trek, we all had an early night after saying farewell to Bel and Glenn, and crashed for our last night in Hanoi Backpackers Hostel.

The following day, after catching up on some writing (this thing doesn't write itself unfortunately), and Zara and Dai decided to check out the Army Museum. There were lots of aircraft and remnants from Vietnam's wartorn history but to be honest the place wasn't very well laid out and it was hard to fathom which wars the various items on show were from. The most exciting part of the trip there would actually have to be the transport. Now if I haven't mentioned it already, Vietnam and particularly Hanoi is swarmed with motorbikes. It's not cars you have to look out for on the roads, its the bikes. You see whole families riding on one little moto. So when we decided to go to the Army Museum, we decided screw it, we'll take a moto taxi. Now Zara and Dai had already ridden a moto in Thailand but for me this was venturing into the unknown. I was bricking it! Nevermind the fact that I hadn't been on the back of a moto before but in Hanoi the motos rule the road, and it's a constant game of cat and mouse between the drivers for whose right of way it is! So this journey was a bit daunting. However, it had to be done, so on I hopped with my driver, and off we went. Well. Much like jumping in the sea it turned out to be a hoot! I loved zipping around, weaving in and around the traffic, a total thrill! This experience totally outshone the army itself, which should say a lot!

That evening we would depart Hanoi to head to an area in north Vietnam known as Sapa where we would be going on a two day trek. After the hectic week we'd just had between Hanoi itself and Halong bay we thought a good trek out in the fresh mountain air would do us the world of  good and give us a chance to see some of the beautiful Vietnam scenery. To get to Sapa we took an overnight train to Lao Cai.

Back on the night trains!

16th - 17th May - Sapa, Northern Vietnam

We arrived into Lao Cai at 5.30am. From there we were met by our tour who brought us on the bus journey to Sapa town from where we would begin our trek. We stopped off at a local hotel, where we had time to to have a cold shower out the back of the hotel! Oh this is the luxurious life I'm living folks, don't you worry! After our rustic shower, the group got together and we met our guide - Hien. He was a nice Vietnamese guy around 30ish. He explained the route we would be going. The first day we would trek for 12 kilometres. That night we would stay with a local family where we would have dinner that evening also. Then the next day we would trek for 6km. Our group for the two day trek consisted of 11 people - there was me, Zara and Dai, 2 Canadian girls - Jill and Silvi, 3 Canadian guys - Yonni, Zach and Jason (remember whaat I said about the Canadian infiltration of SE Asia!), a German guy called Sylvain and 2 Danish girls - Tenna and Anna.

Sapa is a popular location for people to go trekking because, apart from the amazing scenery it is also home to 4 different ethnic minorities of Vietnam - Hmong, Dao, Tay, Giay and a small number of Xa Pho people. These minorities still live traditional lives in this area of Vietnam. As we setted off from the hotel, and walked through Sapa town to make our way into the hillsides where we would be trekking we were approached by a group of ladies in traditional dress from what I *THINK* was the Dao ethnicity. They started talking to us - they had limited English, and just asked us a few standard questions about where we're from, and what age we are etc. We soon realised these ladies were going to walk with us for the whole trek. At first we were a bit dubious, as no doubt they would want something for this - but my god, did we need these ladies help as the day went on...

The lady, or girl I should say, who walked with me was called Tone (well that's what it sounded like - that's definitely not the correct spelling) and she carried a baby tied around her back! She was only 28 I think, and this was her second child. She told me that we would reach her village by lunchtime. She said that each day she walks the 8ish kilometres to Sapa town from her village, then does the trek route back - all to make a little bit of money each day from tourists like us. She told me that they make all their own clothes - here's a pic of some of the ladies who joined us on the trek:

They're not big smilers...

Anywhoo, once we moved off the road into the dirt-tracks of the hillsides, we soon realised that we would definitely benefit from the company of these little, yet mightily strong ladies. They held our hand as we slid along mud tracks going deeper and deeper into the Vietnamese countryside. And I mean it was SLIPPY! As it had recently rained the dirt tracks were really muddy, so especially on the downhill parts, it was messy to say the least! I, naturally fell on my arse numerous times - much to my lady Tone's delight! ha ha ha!

Apart from the slipping and mud, the views were amazing. Most of the countryside is covered in paddyfields for harvesting rice - although these looked a lot different to those I'd seen around Yangshuo in China. Here's just a few shots of the scenery we soaked up during our trek:

Man plowing his rice with a water buffalo

We stopped in Lao Chai to have lunch. This was where we would say goodbye to all of the lovely ladies, without whose help we would have undoubtedly ended up on our asses a lot more frequently. They didn't ask for money but instead opened up the big baskets they'd been carrying on their backs and tried to sell us some of their crafts. We all bought little wristbands, and I also bought some earings they had made. Others bought little purses and bags. It was a good experience walking with them and getting to speak and spend time with their minority up close.

After lunch, we continued our trek for another 6km. This was a lot easier than the morning's trek as the path was more gravelly and less slippy - still the sun was hot! As Sapa is located in a mountainous region, it's a lot cooler than in Hanoi, so when we set off on our trek it was quite cool and cloudy. However when we all sat down for lunch, we realised the sun had come and bitten us on the ass - lots of sunburn on display.

By the afternoon it was no longer hiding and was beaming down on us! By the time we reached our homestay, where we would be spending the night we were delighted to find out there was a lake just down from the house and all 11 of us descended upon it to cool down for an hour!

We were staying with a local family. They had a separate wooden building beside their main home - which was a simple building, which had two floors. On the top floor, where we would all be sleeping in one large room, they had lots of thin matresses with mosquito nets over them - there was one for each of us. Simple lodgings, but perfectly adequate. After we returned from literally "chilling" in the lake, we sat down for dinner.

The food was really really good! Much like China - the food is simple - either a vegetable or meat stirfried with a few flavours but it's so good! We had noodle dishes, rice dishes, tofu dishes, chicken, pork - we had lots!

Lady of the house preparing dinner

After dinner we thought, in our naiivty, that we would have a couple of beers and hit the hay. Well, it seems the man of the house had different ideas! We were all just sitting around after dinner when all of a sudden out he pops with what look like two water bottles "Rice Wine - DRINK" he demands! Well we couldn't be rude, so as he lined up a shot for each of us, we just all looked at each other, and just took the shot! Trust me it wasn't nice - but hey at least we haven't been rude, and we all obliged! Oh well, as if that was it! Sure the second we drank it the bottles appeared again! Long story short - about 3 shots later we'd finally drank all his rice wine and he was delighted!! As for the rest of us - well it kicked us up a gear or two I'll say that!

Trekkin group - post rice wine

It was around this time that we started playing games! It was all fairly tame until Dai remembered this game he had played before - now I'm a bit hazy on the rules, but all I know is the forfeits were to get your face painted - with SOOT! It all went downhill from here... here's some photographic evidence...

Zara, Jill and Me

Yoni, Hien, Jason and Jill

Nobody escaped unscathed!

The night turned out to be such a laugh and the whole group got on like a house on fire! Still, we had more a-trekkin to do the following day, so I was...wait for it... THE FIRST PERSON TO GO TO BED...at 11pm! Well there's a first time for everything right...

The following morning, we woke up albeit tired, feeling good and looking forward to the day ahead. For breakfast, we were given pancakes with banana, lime and condensed milk! Oh yes that's one thing I should mention. In Cambodia, and throughout a lot of Asia - they don't use UHT or regular milk (never mind me and my skimmed wha!), they use condensed milk - in everything! So if you order a white coffee it will come with a blob of condensed milk sitting in the bottom of the cup and when you stir the coffee it turns it milky - and incredibly sweet! So although this seemed like an odd concoction of ingredients to have with pancakes we were plesantly surprised and used them to fuel the trek ahead!

As we set off on day two, the first 30mins were by far the toughest as it was all uphill - and steep! After this intitial climb, we trekked for a few kilometres through a bamboo forrest - which was acually a lot easier, as although what was udnderfoot was tricky at times and still steep, we were able to hold onto the trees for balance! When we emerged from the forrest we reached a waterfall. Because of the time of year there wasn't a lot of water but the views were amazing! Here's a few pics:

After getting to the top of the waterfall, we took a different route back and before you know it we were finished our trek. We had a simple lunch of Pho - Vietnamese dish of noodle soup with vegtables before a van came to pick us up and bring us back to Sapa town. We returned to the hotel where we showered before beginning the trek the day previously and freshened up before getting some food, and returning to Lao Cai where we once again boarded aan overnight train back to Hanoi. It was an amazing couple of days made better by a great group of people. Definitely something I'd recommend people making time for if travelling around Vietnam.

Harrow Halong Bay

*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:

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!

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!

Preparing for the carnage ahead

Opposite team facing our forfeit and wrapped to a pole...obvs.

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.

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 11^th 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!

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!

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.

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!

Me and Luuk forced to sport some "interesting" headwear

One of my face-painting masterpieces

Me, Fletch (Oz), Phil (Gernany) and Dai, all "super excited" as the Canadians say!

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

Harrow Hanoi

8th May – Arrival

Well the stress was in vain…I sailed through immigration at Hanoi, not before a sweaty 30mins in the queue mind! Once through immigration I went out to arrivals and booked an overpriced taxi to take me to my hostel. The drive into Hanoi was crazy. At this stage I was used to the mental driving from China – but in Hanoi it was a totally different ballgame, as here, the bikes rule the road. I had never seen so many feckin motorbikes, scooters, mopeds etc on the road. I mean they were everywhere and all loaded with people, animals, food. Basically no load to small for these bikes! And child safety…well don’t even ask. We finally made our way to my final destination – Hanoi Backpackers Hostel. I had gotten a recommendation from a guy I met in Yangshuo that this was the hostel to go to in Hanoi. My god, how right he was.

What I arrived into was this really big open-plan hostel, full of backpackers. When you enter, on your left you have a big reception desk divided in two – one half where you check in to your room etc. and the other half is dedicated to tours – so you can book bus tickets, tours to Halong Bay, tours to Sapa etc. More on this later! Then the rest of the open planned ground floor is a huge bar, with a massive food and drinks menu. Anywhoo, I checked into my room – a 6 bed mixed dorm. It was a really well thought out dorm. Trust me, I’ve been inter-railing around Europe, and I’ve slept, fearing for my life on the top of some not-so-trustworthy bunk beds in my time! These beds were all new, and under each bunk there were locked lockers, and beside each bed there was a reading light and small locker beside a socket. So you can leave your phone charging, locked in this locker. Good security! There was no en-suite in the room but there was a large shower room and bathrooms just down the hall. When I checked into my room, there was nobody there, but judging from the boxers hanging off one of the beds opposite, I guessed there was at least one boy staying in the room. Mrs. Marple, me.

I headed downstairs to mayhem of the bar and ordered a sandwich, got talking to a couple of guys who worked there. One of them a Canadian guy with a huge Mohawk. Little did I know at this stage how mental this lad was! After eating I was pretty shattered so I decided to just have an early one. Went back to my dorm which was still empty and cracked out my laptop. I was just beginning to think I was quite the dullard being the only one hitting the hay at like 11pm when the door opened and two guys walked in. Hot guys. Two Canadian guys who had just arrived from the airport. 5 mins later, two more guys arrive back to the room – two british guys. Next thing I know they’re all stripping off for bed – and me sitting on my top bunk trying to look like I’m on the net whilst at the same time I’m surrounded by 4 half naked guys.

I knew this travelling solo thing would have its benefits. ;)

9th May – Goooooooooooood Morning Vietnam

Well after my early night with the boys, ha ha ha, I got up early and availed of the free breakfast in the hostel. Since Vietnam used to be under French rule, there are still a lot of French influences around the country. One of which is baguettes. They’re feckin everywhere. So most meals either come with a baguette, or served IN a baguette. So it was no surprise that the free breakfast in the hostel was watermelon, bananas, and baguettes with butter and jam. Did the job. I met the two Canadian guys from my room for breakfast and filled them in on my plans to join this free walking tour of Hanoi that the Hostel do every morning. They said they’d join me, as much like I thought, saved us the effort of havin to crack out a map. We set off with about 30 other people and followed this tiny Vietnamese girl who was guiding us around the city. To be honest with ye, most of the time I hadn’t a breeze what she was saying most of the time, but it was good to be led around the place and see the market (which had way too many pungent smells for that time of day!). The best thing about the tour was it introduced us to Vietnamese Road Crossing. Now fuck me, but I may have said, there are A LOT of motorbikes in Vietnam. And Hanoi is a bustling city as it is. Crossing the road is like a sport. You have to just walk into traffic. If you were to stand on the side of the road and wait, well frankly you’d be waiting all day. So here’s the strategy – you walk into the traffic, SLOWLY. It’s crazy, you are literally going “fuck fuck fuck fuck I’m going to die” but the only way you can cross is to be obvious and don’t rush, because it’s a constant case of Mexican stand-off with the people on bikes – they’re gonna go, unless you literally make it clear you are not gonna stop or hesitate. But hell it’s daunting!! So watching this tiny Vietnamese girl walk straight onto a hectic road with oncoming traffic in both directions and manage to make it to the other side was an education in itself!

Yes people do actually wear those hats in 'Nam

Whilst on the walking tour I met a few Canadian people and we went to try out a well-recommended Vietnamese restaurant for lunch called Quan An Ngon. It was really good and had lots of traditional Vietnamese dishes but an English menu. I went for Bun Cha – a really traditional dish in North Vietnam that I had read about – it’s basically a noodle soup with pork in it. Really tasty and refreshing. Afterwards we decided to visit the Hoa Lo Prison, which was ran by the French when they ruled Vietnam, see below. They're bad bastards, them French. ;)

Surprisingly, not the first guillotine I'd see in Vietnam

Afterwards I just had a wander around the rest of the Old Quarter of Hanoi and made my way back to the hostel.

Reason No. 2 why Hanoi Backpackers is such a good hostel – every night they have something on downstairs in the bar to basically help people to meet other people and get people mingling. Apart from the pub crawl that starts in the hostel every night, tonight’s “activity” for want of a better word would be a Pub Quiz. Excited, I was. Although much to my surprise I realised that the “pub quiz” is not as universally known and enjoyed as I would have thought. That morning when I expressed my excitement (I blame those Credit Union Quizzes) at that evening’s quiz, the two Canadian guys from my room just looked at me with blank faces. They had never heard of a pub quiz before! I had to explain the concept and they said they’d probably go too. So I headed down and met a few people downstairs from the walk earlier that day and we gathered ourselves around a table to let the quizzing begin. Well, unsurprisingly we didn’t win. However, we didn’t end the quiz completely empty handed. In between each round, they asked a question and the first person to shout out the answer won a round of shots for their table. The question began…”In what film, does Patrick Swayze, play dancer…” “DIRRRRRTY DANCING!” – I roared! BAM – round of shots for the table. Thank you, Credit Union Quizzes for your early training, me and my table thank you. The quiz was a right laugh and met so many people that night – Martin from Denmark, Ollie and Hannah from London, Zara and Dai from the UK and many more. Aterwards, a load of us went to the hair of the dog bar across from our hostel and indulged in some beverages.

These weren't for building sandcastles.

Little did I know how much more I’d be seeing of these guys ha ha! Hit the hay relatively early, as the following day would be the start of the best 3 days of my travels so far – The Halong Bay Boat *Booze* Cruise.