Halong Bay

Halong bay was spectacular! I can talk about the events, but throughout the whole thing was just this ridiculous backdrop. It was the prettiest place I've ever been I got there alone, and was meeting people on the 3 hour bus ride to the boat. Once I got there, they switched me into a different group, at first I was annoyed because I made friends with the first group, but it turned out to be the best thing I could have done.

I loved the second group. There were six Israelis, two British girls, an Aussie, a German, and a guy from Austria. We all became great friends. The moment we walked on the boat we had lunch, which was fine, but clearly of low quality. Quickly after lunch We went upstairs and started chatting. I think the Israelis all loved me because I was speaking Hebrew with them. I kind of surprised myself how well I was able to speak, I didn't expect to remember that much, but once I started it all came back to me.

We came to a small cave, where we needed to get into a smaller boat and then go inside where there was a little lagoon separate from the rest of the bay. It was fun, and then our small boat exploded, leaving all sorts of black shmutz all over me and one of the Israeli girls. We eventually got saved by another boat, but not before we had a few laughs about the situation.

That night we drank on the deck. It was nice. However, the German and Austrian got so drunk that they jumped off the deck off of the boat into the bay. As soon as they hit the water, it began to rain so hard we needed to go inside. However, the boys couldn't get back into the boat. So, I had to go outside in a mansoon and lift them into the boat. Overall everyone was safe, but it was a mess.

After they got back in the boat, we went into the British girls room, for the after party. The Austrian guy (Christoff) was getting out of control. He eventually stripped naked and was walking around the boat going into peoples' rooms that weren't friends with us. I went to sleep soon after. I was sharing a room with Christoff and Martin (the German Guy), but they were up messing around, and I wanted to enjoy the next day.

About a half an hour after I went to bed, Christoff came in, stripped naked, and fell on his bed. It seemed about right, and I didn't care, so I went back to sleep. However, about an hour after that, Martin came in and began to yell at Christoff in German. They were sharing a big bed, while I had my own twin size. So, Martin was understandably angry that Christoff not only took up the whole bed, but was totally nude as well. After about 5 minutes of them yelling in German (Christoff now standing, totally nude), Martin looked at me and asked in English "Why is he naked?". I couldn't help but crack up. It was all very humorous.

The next day the boat took us Kayaking, which was fine, but not that cool. Soon after that it dropped us off on an Island and we went hiking. I walked with two of the Israeli girls: Shira and Ravit. It was such a hard trail, and I made the horrible mistake of wearing flip flops and swim shorts. Soon the sort
s tore, so that wasn't an issue anymore, but the flip-flops bothered me the whole time. I really loved the company, but the trail was hard, and not that cool or different from other nature hikes. We got to the top, and it was actually a very nice view, but probably not worth sacrificing my shorts.

As we left, we headed back to the hotel (not sleeping on the boat this night). It was a really crappy hotel, and I was forced to share a room with this English guy I didn't know, because they only had two person rooms. After we ate, Ravit, Shira, Lauren (the Aussie), and Noy (the third Israeli girl) went to the beach. Like everything in the bay, it was so spectacular. I just can't get over how beautiful it all was.

We went back to shower and have dinner, which again was very low quality. After dinner, Ravit and myself went to find her an internet cafe, where she bought plane tickets for herself. We walked a while after that, and found like 20 brothels, which was odd. Later she went to bed, but not before I developed a small crush on her (she really was just hot, and sort of out of my league).

After that I headed downstairs to find my friends from the first bus. They were playing drinking games, and while I didn't want to play, I was happy to chill, and reconnect with my friends. We stayed up a while, and the English guy who I was with ended up going to get a hooker. the rest of us just went to bed (some less sober than others).

The next day we went back to Hanoi, but not before Ravit (the hot Israeli), Ashton and a guy named Torston (Ashton and Torston were gay men from Portland and Munich respectively) agreed to head to Sapa for a couple of days. Little did I know what would await.