Kangaroo ..Rabbit .. now Monkey !!
Trip Start
Oct 18, 2009
1
52
132
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Holiday View Sapa
Cat Ba Island, Hải Phòng, Vietnam
Friday, February 19, 2010
An early start this morning (how many times have I written this?) as there was no doubt an action packed day ahead, though we had no idea what this might entail. After a nice fry up washed down with another ridiculously strong Vietnamese coffee we sailed for an hour or so to meet up with another boat. Some of us were doing a longer tour and we headed off to an Island called Cat Ba Island.
It was a lot bigger than I expected and after a 30 minute drive the bus stopped and our guide announced that we were going on a bit of a walk. He pointed up to a tower at the top of a distant hill (slight exaggeration) and said that's where we were heading. I tried to explain what he had said to the older and very French group that were travelling with us and by their reaction they were either surprised at the prospect of trying to get the 20 stone French women up a hill or offended by my lack of French ability. I believe it was the former as we didn’t see her again for quite a while.
Half way up the hill we chose the 'adventurous’ route which didn’t really live up to its name, but once at the top the rusty, rickety old tower with the sign saying ‘Maximum 5 people’ and at least 15 people on it, was getting close to an adventure sport. I seem to be getting more frightened of heights as I get older but I climbed up anyway in the hope that the original designers had not only known what they were doing 30 years ago but also known that future maintenance was never really going to happen.
After we had all made it back to the mini-bus we headed over to the main town. Now I was expecting a fairly small village with a few hotels, however it turned out to be a pretty large town with some big and swanky hotels, one of which we were actually staying in!
After a great lunch at the hotel we were heading out to ‘Monkey Island’ home to amongst other things ‘roguish monkeys’ according to an advertisement. A small boat took us the 30 minute journey through more of Halong Bay’s islands and also passed small fishing communities which were floating on the sea. As neither of us are fans of ‘roguish’ monkeys or any monkey for that matter we were keen to get out on the kayaks again. After the safety talk – "If you think it’s getting a bit dangerous you’d be better to head back in" – we headed out in our two person canoe hoping to circumnavigate Monkey Island. The guy had failed to tell us that the other side of the Island was in fact open sea but this soon became apparent. Firstly the waves and the swell increased in size by a very noticeable amount, and secondly, and this was the giveaway, there was no sight of land as far as the eye could see! So on one side there was open water and on the other there were 50 metre cliffs with waves crashing against them. Our only consolation was that we were not in Winston’s kayak. He was a young Singaporean guy who we had got to know on the hill trek and he too had opted to go round the island. The trouble was he had no one else with him and I reckoned he would run into trouble before we did. Not that being the second kayak to get swept out to sea was going to be much of a consolation. It’s probably safe to say that for the third time in two days I was out of my comfort zone, but we tried to read all the variables and successfully managed to make it around. And just as we were starting to get worried about Winston he also appeared at the end of the channel on the far side of the island having had to paddle a little harder against the current than the two of us.
We walked the plank back onto our boat, (all ferry and boat boardings carry a certain element of risk in SE Asia) and headed back to our swanky hotel for a slap up meal and an earlyish night.
Comments
I feel better now, Stephen, that it is age that causes you to be come a little apprehensive about high places!!
And Cat as well by the sounds of it. Guess we wont be seeing Rat Island !