Ha Long - Day one (day of the craps)

This morning I started my cruise to Ha Long Bay . The bus arrived to It ck me up it 7:45 AM .It was suppose to arrive about 8:30. I was still ordering my breakfast at 7:45 AM when they turned up to pick me up I told them to go away and come back later.

The bus came back at about 8:15 and once on the bus  I talked to the others and they had the same experience. Which is pretty poor really.

Once we were on the bus and only 10 minutes underway we were told that we would not get to see the floating village because it does not exist anymore ... it is in the sales brochure so I'm not very impressed with that scam. They told me that the floating village was taken away four years ago by the govt due to pollution.  That may will be true but, they have not updated the brochures or website.  That's just not good enough and i'll have something to say about that when I get back. Most people on the cruise felt duped and confused about what they had paid for. I specifically wanted to get photos of the village.

I paid by Visa and these things can be sorted out, ill be stopping the bloody transaction I expect. Everybody else had paid cash, so no luck for them I guess.

Along the way we were dropped at the front of a shop. The shop sold large marble Buddhas and vases etc.  We were basically made to walk through the shop to the rear where the bus would pick us up at the other end. This is a supposed rest stop...more like a scam to buy stuff yet again.
It was off course tempting to buy a 30 foot marble statue of Buddha weighing close to eight tonnes, but then it would never fit in my backpack - so despite all the assurances that it was a good price, I abandoned the idea.

We reached Ha Long city about 12:30 pm and boarded a small boat which in turn transferred us like cash vomiting cattle to a larger boat. We left our luggage in our cabins and checked in. I must say the cabins ("AST Travel / Christina Cruise") were not too bad. I did expect worse to be honest. And the food we were to later have was very good also.

Soon we returned back onto the small boat where we went a short distance to shore and see a cave "song so 'surprising cave?' " . It was good, but very overcrowded with more cash spewing cattle (as I have now come to feel I am in Vietnam).
I jumped the fences a few times to get good photos. Else any photo was impossible with the huge volume of people in there.




From there we went to another island and some of us climbed to the summit to get some photos of the view. There was a beach at the bottom, and a number of boats were docked and unloading about 20 people each.

 It was quite misty around a whole bay so it was quite difficult. i got what i could anyway. Then we were taken back to the larger boat and we were all able to have a nice hot shower . shortly we were off to a cooking class and then to have dinner.

My stomach was feeling quite queasy so I skipped both.

I went to bed early at about 7 pm, and spent the whole night throwing up. I also had the shits, but other than being quite tired it was not to spoil my trip at all. I got no sleep at all, and was very dehydrated by the morning. I had no fluids in my room - and there was no way I was going to drink the shower or basin water. By the time morning came I was very dehydrated, but I could tell I was getting better.

Here are a few more photos taken this day ....