Sometimes, especially when you travel for a long time, things don’t always go quite how you wanted them to, and sometimes, things even turn into a disaster. Well, our not-quite-according-to-plan-trip was our trip to Ha Long Bay. You’ve most likely seen or heard of this famous Northern Vietnamese sight: dramatic karst mountains covered with lush vegetation poking up from the blue waters towards the even bluer sky. Well, at least that’s what it looks like in pictures. In real life, the mountains are still as pretty as they look  but because of it’s location, Ha Long Bay is more often than not overcast with a palette of gray shades covering both sky and sea. Don’t get my wrong, it’s still very beautiful, but just don’t trust most of the pictures you see on Instagram!:)

I had heard from some course-mates that they had really enjoyed being there on a cruise boat and kayaking on the water, zigzagging between the towering mountains. Also, at our hotel in Hanoi (which we will never ever stay at again) we were presented with a beautiful, glossy brochure picturing the various cruise boats. A couple who had just returned from one of the hotel’s boat trips mentioned to us that we should just choose the cheapest option, because there was virtually no difference between the cheapest (about 50 dollars) and the one we were considering (around 70 dollars). We thought to ourselves that surely the more expensive one would be a lot nicer, and because we would stay the night on the boat, we wanted it to be as new and safe as possible, ie. more pricey. Well, as it turned out, they were right.

We opted for the more pricey version, but ended up getting a whooping discount of 3 dollars(!), which we were asked to keep as a secret from the other passengers, in case they would get jealous. We were told that we would be picked up by a minibus at our hotel, but what this meant was that a very stressed man(our tour guide) would say our names so quietly that the chances of us hearing him were very slim, and then he would scurry off, speed walking for maybe 150 meters through the (very) busy streets of Hanoi with us behind him, struggling to keep up because of our heavy bags.

After finally making it to the bus, we could look forward to a nice 5-hour journey, before reaching Ha Long Bay. Mid way we, along with about a dozen other mini-vans, made a very bizarre pit-stop: half souvenir-shop, half cafe, everything imaginable was there – sun hat with furry ears? Check. Ancient looking 2 meter tall Ming vases or ridiculously expensive pearl necklaces? Check. Absolutely tasteless noodle soup? You got it. What’s not to like?

About 10 minutes before we arrived at Ha Long Bay, after having conveniently just made us pay for the trip, our dear tour guide suddenly announced that he had some bad news. He had “just” (mysteriously)received a phone call from the government (even though his phone had been tucked away for the last hour or so), saying that we wouldn’t be able to stay overnight on the boat because of a storm that would arrive later that day. This threw us all off, especially because Luke and I had been told the day before when we booked the trip that we were “very lucky” due to the weather being so great the day of our boat cruise. I guess they don’t do weather forecasts? Our guide then gave us approximately 3 minutes before demanding that we chose between during a day trip (meaning that we would only have a few hours on the boat before having to make our 5 hour bus ride back) or stay somewhere in Ha Long city, at our own expense, and then try again the next day. Luke and I, along with several others on the bus, didn’t have the time to wait around in Ha Long city and reluctantly decided to just do a day trip.

Later on we found out that we had actually been some of the “lucky” ones: several other groups had not been told the news until either right before boarding the boat or even on the boat itself!

I shall spare you for most of the details, but the next couple hours went ahead like this:

• Waiting for the boat to arrive. Realizing that the boat we saw in the brochure looks nothing like the one we got
• Because we were now only on a day trip we weren’t allowed to be anywhere else on the boat than the deck, and everything else that we had originally paid for (the rooms, drinking water, a party with everything included etc.) were now off-limits
• Entered obligatory neon-lit cave. Were joined by about a thousand other tourists, but not by our guide. He decided to sit down the entire time and not follow us around like the other guides did
• Because we were all pretty angry with the tour operator, a lot of time was spent using the guide’s phone to call his boss, who kept hanging up on us. At one point our guide’s phone “unfortunately died”, but magically resurrected moments later, when we saw him on the phone with someone else
• After our brief boat trip, and refusing to sign the home made contract our guide had made for us, saying that we were happy to pay the cost for the day trip, we arrived again at the pier
• Our guide then told us that we would be home around 7pm. So we waited. Then 8pm. Waited some more. Then we saw the boat come in that we had actually paid for. And then we waited some more. Finally our bus arrived and our group was picked up as the very last one
• The bus was packed to its brim and after a long trip home, we arrived on the outskirts of Hanoi.
  At 10.30 pm. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, we were kicked out of the bus quite a ways from each of our hotels because the van that had picked us up was “too big to enter the main city” (?!)

• None of us ever got our money back, or even a partial refund

Sigh!:)

There were two highlights of our trip, though. First, our group was fairly small and we met some really awesome people that we made great conversation with on the boat. Secondly, sitting on the back of the boat as we headed for the pier: because of the grey palette and the partial fog,  the sky and the sea floated together as if they were one, making for quite a beautiful spectacle, accompanied by huge eagles circling the heavens and the mountains.

So, to round this lengthy post off, the purpose of what I’ve written is not to scare any future potential visitors off, but just to prepare you for what can happen if the weather is bad, which happens to be the case most of the time. Do check the weather forecast before you decide to go or you could just book a day trip from the beginning, then you will be sure not to be disappointed and you will get a lot more for your money! Oh and also, never trust the glossy brochures, haha.

Another place that has beautiful karst mountains, is Laos. Next blog post will be about how we (very dramatically) entered Laos and the highlights of our trip to this often underestimated country!