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Day Thirty-Nine
Ha Long Bay to Cat Ba Island
Can this tour get any worse please. It was ridiculous & I woke up more unhappy that when I went to sleep. The tour man now properly nicknamed Tom Bruise was banging on our cabin door & it was only 7am. Is he for real? We all shouted that we were getting ready & that we would be up on desk from our breakfast in five minutes but no, that wasn't good enough! After four minutes he came banging again so I shouted that if he banged once more I will be banging him right out!
Up on deck & front the look on the other people's face I guessed that they weren't so happy either. With everybody all eating breakfast, I sat looking around the room & noticed the lovely special breakfast that the Vietnamese people on board were recieving. I was totally livid plus I was feeling sick from the lack of sleep, the state of the sleeping conditions & the horrible feeling that it was my fault that we had no camera. I refused to eat anything at all so I took myself off outside to sit quietly & watch the boat pass all the mountains in the sea. After sitting there for 2 mintues Tom Bruise (our rubbish tour guide) came out to speak to me & that's when I turned to his face & blantenly told him not to speak to me.
With Andy & Ana having finished their delicious (NOT) breakdfast we all decided to try & lie back down to sleep for an hour. We slept like babies (NOT) because after returning to our great room before my bum was on the bed they were wanting us to check out of the room, just like in a hotel. I politely screamed asking where he wanted us to check out to... the bloody water. What a complete idiot! With our bags on deck we sat with the other travellers & chatted away for about & hour before the boat even came close to seeing a harbour or dock.
Finally on dry land & away from that horrible boat, I have never felt rage like it against Tom Bruise & they way that we have been treated. We were all told to sit on this brick wall along the waters edge whilst we waited for our bus to come & pick us up. We never got a minutes peace from the women swarming around us trying to sell us water & biscuits. She soon got the picture when I pulled out our big bottle of water & told her to do one.
Whoop whoop, the bus finally came & for a change we weren't packed in like sardines, we actually has some space. We waited for a while as we found out that we would be sharing the bus with another group. With everyone onboard another tour guide addressed the group & he was polite, smiley & pleasant, why oh why could we have not had him from the start. He spoke very clear English & was more than happy to answer peoples questions. He explained that we would be travelling around Cat Ba Island to go to the National Park & then we would be dropped off at our hotel where we will be having lunch. We could have the rest of the afternoon & night as free time to explore the place.
We arrived at the National Park only to be greeted by more women trying to sell us more stuff. I was getting highly cheesed off, more cheesed off than the cheesey crackers to was trying to rape my purse for. We had been warned that we had the chance to climb up the side of the mountain but that it was slippery & very steep. We thought what the heck the tour can't possibly get any worse. We all followed the nice tour guide & once again our guide was being lazy & he was nowhere to be seen.
We marched to these big stone steps & we were told that there was about 200 of them to climb before you can actually start climbing through the woods & up the mountain. Off we trekked, higher & harder up the steps till we finally came to an opening through the woods. The climb started to become more & more steep & the path become unclear until the guide showed us. It became more like rock climbing than trekking as we had to navigate around small pathways & with people coming at you in the opposite direction also needing standing space. I thought that it was beoming dangerous but I still continued.
We finally made it to the top & I don't know how Ana made it in her thin flip flops. At the top there was quite a few people & you could see through all the other mountains for miles & miles. The view was fantastic & I could have happily sat up there with a picnic for hours. Also at the top was an iron staircase which you could climb up so you could get even higher. There was a big massive sign on it to state only five people allowed on at anyone time but there was lots of poeple coming up & down it. Andy took the lead & marched up with Ana behind. I only made it to the first platform & decided to come back down. I felt the whole thing bounce & it was scary, sod that for a barrel fun so I waited at the bottom of the staircase for them to finish looking.
Why is that wherever English people go we always bump in to more English people & it is always in some unusual situations & we automatically start talking about all kinds. They started to ask me about how we got to Cat Ba & the tour we where on so when I began to tell them how bad it was & they were shocked at their's including the boat was great & they got it even cheaper than us. I was even more outraged but I was fuming that these people had got be angry again... it's always the way.
Finally they had come down from that staircase contraption so now I could give my heart a rest.
We headed back down the mountain which actually took longer than getting up the thing. At the bottom we were greeted by the nice tour guide & there was nice places to sit & relax & wait for the rest of our group the come down. Whilst we were sitting around waiting there was an ice-cream stall so Andy & Ana went to get one as I weren't in the mood for ice-cream. When &y came back he had 2 ice-creams in his h& & he had a big grin on his face. I commented & told him that I didn't want an ice-cream, thats when he replied that it was two for one. Upon further explaining he made me realise that he had only paid for one - the little b*****. So not to waste it I sat an ate it quite happily.
Back on the bus we set off having been told that the journey to the hotel would take about 40 minutes. Again Ana was trying to teach me Spanish as I was correcting her English. We arrived at this seaside resort which seem quite nice looking at it in the daylight & the hotel didnt seem to look to bad either. In the hotel our room was looked quite nice. There was three double beds, a private bathroom, a TV & mini fridge. It was a lot better than being on that grubby boat anyways. After we freshened up we headed to the hotel restaurant to have our lunch. The food was ok & again better than what we had been given on the boat so we were happy. Back in our room & comfortable on our nice beds we fell fast alseep.
We woke about 6pm & we hadn't realised that we had slept so long but it was good as we woke just in time for our tea. Once again stuffing our faces we returned to the room to get washed & then go out & take a look around the town. Out in the town there was a lovely harbour & you could see all the boats docked & the streets where lined with lovely exotic trees. We were quite happy to walk around until we realised that the people looked a bit moody & they were acting shady so we didn't stay out & about looking around for long we agreed that we would go to the hotel bar.
Up in the hotel bar the music was loud but there was nobody in there. There were a couple of table football machines so me Andy messed around on that for a while. We soon got to realise that the prices of the drinks in the hotel bar were expensive but we had forgotten about the nearly full bottle of vodka (terps) that I had in my bag still. Down to the room it was to get slaughtered on the cheap vodka. We used the laptop to play music whilst the supping commenced. The £1.20 bottle of vodka wasn't that bad at all. Before we knew it we had youtube on & whilst Ana sat drunk on the bed we danced around to songs like the Hokey Cokey, Superman & a few other Black Lace classics such as the gangbang song. If anyone seen us, oh my God the shame of it!
Before we knew it the clock struck 2.30am & we had to be at breakfast for 7.30, so with the fun & games over it was time for bed. What a total fun ending to a terrible beginning......
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