It was bitterly cold, and I felt like going back into the bar, just like I had gone fifteen minutes earlier. But the ambiance outside was magical. The wind was strong, and lying down on the terrace under the open sky in total darkness gave the best feeling in the world. But due to lack of a warm covering I sat huddled at a corner of the bench.
The bar was brightly lit which spoilt the whole atmosphere. One of our so-called-tour-guides from UK was dancing buck naked in the bar. Almost everyone was soused. They were playing some card game which involved gulping an alcohol shot following by some kind of silly activity as a result of which a couple of other guys were also teetering on verge of nudity. The music was blaring in the background. The playlist was an airheaded collection of cruddy, smutty songs. Majority of tourists inside were students from the west who were in Vietnam to escape the bone-chilling cold of their respective countries on a very small budget. Some of them were evidently not very comfortable with what was going on, but they had conceded to the so called social order and were participating half-heartedly in an activity that very brutally killed the serene atmosphere of the beautiful place.
A little while back, us guys had been divided in small groups and each group was having good fun in their own way until the so-called-tour-guides came, got our attention and one of them dropped his whatever-was-left-of-whatever-had-been-barely-covering-his-patootie. Whatever followed can not be termed fun in any manner that involves sobriety of even the slightest amount. I didn't want to rain on their parade and remained upstage for whatever time I was there in the bar. The girl sitting beside me was also quite nettled by the antics of so-called-tour-guide but was smart enough to blend in discreetly and chatting to her was the only joyful activity I could afford to find in there.
The morning thereafter we were joined by some more tourists who had taken a longer 2D2N tour and had spent their second night on one of the islands. Almost everyone was terribly drunk. Most of them were here on the extended 'trippy' leg of their journey that began from Laos. It was exact opposite of what I had been looking forward to; I couldn't have witnessed a starker contrast between my expectations and what the trip turned out to be like. Well, the evening before had been quite good in fact - we had had a good lunch, we had jumped into the cold water and pedaled to small cave a little far in kayaks (having rotten perforated plastic) without a life jacket. And then it was a climatic flop of the trip as the sequence of events veered on a switchback and lost all touch with anything related to Halong Bay in particular and sobriety in general.
That morning I met a guy from UK who was as sorely disappointed as I was, and seeing me sitting aloof in one corner, came to me and asked me if I too was as pissed off as he was. It was nice to find someone sensible in the chaotic herd of drunk apes.
Late morning we jumped on to a small boat to get to the shore and after a five hour bus ride I was back in the backpackers I had stayed in the day I landed in Hanoi. I immediately got a bus ticket and was on my way to Hue an hour later. Thus began my adventure in Vietnam :)
[Vietnam was my first solo trip. The tiny country has got fantastic landscapes, natural wonders and other attractions at every step. It's map is marked with UNESCO Heritage Sites all over. It is a thin strip of land so the beach is never far away. The people are super friendly and I have numerous incidents where someone went out of their way to help me. It the second cheapest place I have seen after Cambodia. The communist propaganda occupies every other billboard. I traveled from Hanoi to Saigon taking one bus after another. It was a (not so) cheap but a bad decision - the buses were always late and very uncomfortable and tiring. Since the buses were always late and I had just six days to explore, all my plans went haywire. But the route offers views of some stunning landscapes and the sea. And I had my own set of small interesting incidents which mitigated the monotony of traveling constantly and occasional boredom. The only place I didn't like there was Saigon or HCMC. It's too hot and crowded compared to the calm and charming Hanoi. People have really weak English - in smaller places it's almost comparable to the situation in China. But the use of Roman script for writing saves a lot of effort.
All in all, Vietnam is one of the more interesting and unique places to visit in South East Asia with some of the friendliest people.]
A little while back, us guys had been divided in small groups and each group was having good fun in their own way until the so-called-tour-guides came, got our attention and one of them dropped his whatever-was-left-of-whatever-had-been-barely-covering-his-patootie. Whatever followed can not be termed fun in any manner that involves sobriety of even the slightest amount. I didn't want to rain on their parade and remained upstage for whatever time I was there in the bar. The girl sitting beside me was also quite nettled by the antics of so-called-tour-guide but was smart enough to blend in discreetly and chatting to her was the only joyful activity I could afford to find in there.
The morning thereafter we were joined by some more tourists who had taken a longer 2D2N tour and had spent their second night on one of the islands. Almost everyone was terribly drunk. Most of them were here on the extended 'trippy' leg of their journey that began from Laos. It was exact opposite of what I had been looking forward to; I couldn't have witnessed a starker contrast between my expectations and what the trip turned out to be like. Well, the evening before had been quite good in fact - we had had a good lunch, we had jumped into the cold water and pedaled to small cave a little far in kayaks (having rotten perforated plastic) without a life jacket. And then it was a climatic flop of the trip as the sequence of events veered on a switchback and lost all touch with anything related to Halong Bay in particular and sobriety in general.
That morning I met a guy from UK who was as sorely disappointed as I was, and seeing me sitting aloof in one corner, came to me and asked me if I too was as pissed off as he was. It was nice to find someone sensible in the chaotic herd of drunk apes.
Late morning we jumped on to a small boat to get to the shore and after a five hour bus ride I was back in the backpackers I had stayed in the day I landed in Hanoi. I immediately got a bus ticket and was on my way to Hue an hour later. Thus began my adventure in Vietnam :)
[Vietnam was my first solo trip. The tiny country has got fantastic landscapes, natural wonders and other attractions at every step. It's map is marked with UNESCO Heritage Sites all over. It is a thin strip of land so the beach is never far away. The people are super friendly and I have numerous incidents where someone went out of their way to help me. It the second cheapest place I have seen after Cambodia. The communist propaganda occupies every other billboard. I traveled from Hanoi to Saigon taking one bus after another. It was a (not so) cheap but a bad decision - the buses were always late and very uncomfortable and tiring. Since the buses were always late and I had just six days to explore, all my plans went haywire. But the route offers views of some stunning landscapes and the sea. And I had my own set of small interesting incidents which mitigated the monotony of traveling constantly and occasional boredom. The only place I didn't like there was Saigon or HCMC. It's too hot and crowded compared to the calm and charming Hanoi. People have really weak English - in smaller places it's almost comparable to the situation in China. But the use of Roman script for writing saves a lot of effort.
All in all, Vietnam is one of the more interesting and unique places to visit in South East Asia with some of the friendliest people.]
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