Hanoi and Ha Long Bay: To Heaven and Hell and Back

It is mayhem here. The streets are alive with noise. There doesn’t seem to be any coordination. Right outside a nice coffee shop there will be a woman fixing an old motor and a chicken running around. It’s busy and the traffic is so unorganised, but somehow it works. Everyone just drives in the direction they want, across the road, the wrong direction and even sometimes in the right direction. Crossing the road is a lot easier than it looks though. Quite simply step out and the bikes will go around you. Wes wasn’t convinced, so I proved my theory by stepping out without looking and made it across fine. Sorry Mum, probably shouldn’t have mentioned that.

We got a motorbike taxi around the city. The driver handed me a feeble excuse of a helmet. It was made from a thin bit of plastic and the buckle was broken. As we drove around I had to hold it on with my hand. In the unfortunate event that we were in an accident I don't think it was going to be of much use.

You'll notice everyone is driving in different directions

Taking his shopping home on both handlebars and giving his mate a lift.

We went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. I didn’t know Ho Chi Minh was a person, I’ve only known him as a city. He was the first president of Vietnam and helped gain independence from France…I think. To be honest I’m still not entirely sure who he was and what he did. I was too hungover to really learn that much about him. He must have been pretty important to have had a city named after him. I ought to read up about him.

We later went to the Maison Centrale Prison. Built by the French to imprison and torture any Vietnamese who opposed their rule, and later housed American pilots that crashed and landed in Vietnam. John McCain was imprisoned there. It puts my complaints of being hungover into perspective.

Back at the hostel and both Wes and I agreed that we must not get drunk that night as we’re getting picked up for a boat trip at 6am. You can imagine what happened next. This one was my fault to be honest. I was easily attracted to the 3-hour happy hour – with one of those hours of FREE beer. I’m not entirely sure what time we retired to bed, but only a few hours later we were up and preparing ourselves for a 6-hour journey to Ha Long Bay. Bus, boat, bus, and another boat journey and we made it. And when we got there all of our complaints were forgotten as this was to be our home for the next few days.

A tropical, hidden paradise. No wifi and no connection with normal society. Just and incredible view and a few beers.

Unfortunately the island was already inhabited by a group of people called “reps”. These people are employed to make sure you have a “good time”. 

Wearing the typical uniform of flip flops, shorts, a baseball hat on backwards and a very loose fitting tank top. They often shout through a microphone “who’s ready to have a good time?!” Just shhh. I want to have a good time, but stop shouting. Give us some safety information, tell us where is the first-aid box is and put some music on. The rest will take care of itself.

Drinking from 1pm is dangerous. If there was a competition for who got the drunkest I definitely won and partly down to Wes. One of the rules of the beach bar is that if you ring the gong hanging nearby you must buy everyone a drink. Wes turns to me and asks “should I ring that gong?” to which I have the easiest answer for him. “Yes. Yes, you definitely should”. He did. Twice. He has more money than sense and he doesn’t have that much money.

The next day there was very little time to rest and enjoy the scenery as we were on a booze cruise at 10am. Yes, 10am. It was a pretty sweet day of meeting new people, kayaking through Ha Long Bay, and drinking. It’s a truly beautiful place.

Two days on that island is enough though. After 2 days of very intense partying, no sleep, eating the same food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, sleeping in a sandy bed, getting sunburnt, being hungover, and having to listen to those reps constantly shouting I was ready to go. Unfortunately for me we had the 6-hour journey back to Hanoi ahead. I was suicidal.

I am currently writing this edition from an overnight sleeper train from Hanoi to Hue. It’s peaceful and I’m going to get the first good night’s sleep in since leaving England.

It’s almost been a month since I stopped working, travelled to England, back to Seoul, and have been enjoying myself in Vietnam. It’s moments like this one that you appreciate the small things. A bed free of sand, a non-alcoholic drink, and time to rest. 

Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying

The Lunar New Year was marked in calendars all over Korea last weekend; it’s probably the biggest celebration in Korea annually. I was as excited as all the Koreans as it meant I got a four day weekend. Revelling in the added social time James, Josh, Susie, and I decided to go skiing/snowboarding. To make the most of the weekend James, Josh, and I went out on the Thursday night in Hongdae (for a change). Having got home late Friday morning, an extended lie-in was needed; we did not get this luxury as we had a coach to catch. We set alarms that were put on snooze multiple times and before we knew it we were running out of time. If we missed the coach our weekend was over, but as we all know there is always time to stop for road beers and soju. We rushed around a GS25, picking up as much beer and soju as we could carry and headed out. We had no time to eat and got a taxi to Jamsil. (After many trips out with them I’m not sure why I rely on James and Josh’s time keeping). We made it in time and even managed to get the back row of the coach (just like all the cool kids used to do at school!)The only food I managed to pick up was a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits. Then the hangover kicked in, I felt horrendous. James announced that in the rush he didn’t have a poo, which then made Josh need a poo, which in turn meant that I needed a poo. We were the Shitty Pants Gang and we hadn’t even left Seoul yet. 

The organisers of the weekend had sold the trip with a promise of a party bus atmosphere on the journey to the slopes. The “party” started with the film Out Cold, one of the worst films I’ve ever watched. Seriously don’t bother. There’s not much worse than being hungover, needing a poo, and watching a terrible movie. People had more enjoyable experiences on long journeys in the 1940s. Josh was able to stomach a beer but I couldn’t compete with him at the time. The motto for the weekend was coined, no matter how bad it got the response was “we’ve got beers though”, which was usually followed by the second motto of the weekend “I’ll have one but I don’t want one”.

The film finished and then the party started, they put music on and the atmosphere lifted. I was still struggling with my beer but thought it would be a good idea to start on the soju instead. Bottles of wine were opened, beers were flowing, spirits were being passed around the coach, and it was majestic. It was like a portable Reading Festival campsite. They were playing some fantastic tunes, Outkast, Drake, KanYe West, coincidentally three acts that are playing at this year’s Wireless Festival. They’ve got together my favourite line-up for the year that I’m out of the country! Furious.

The only problem with 50 people drinking a copious amount of alcohol on a coach with no toilet is that breaks are needed every 45 minutes. And then people get mad with you when you pee in a bottle. Crazy, right? A benefit of stopping so often is that it gives you the opportunity to restock on booze, we were fortunate enough to find this beauty of a drink. It’s a penis drink. We bought two bottles. Back on the bus and we gave it a whirl, it was only 13% but tasted rank. It was like vinegar. I only had one shot.

We got to our hotel room and met the random people we would be sharing with. It’s like Russian roulette that could potentially make or break the weekend. As they filtered in they all were great, couldn’t have asked for a better group of people… and by that I meant they all enjoyed a drink! (I even found a Charlton fan, I told him that I have a Charlton shirt. I could tell that he was impressed). It could have been awkward if the people we would be sharing with wanted an early night and we were up till the late hours drinking, but luckily they were all likeminded. Before we knew it the rumours spread; “party in room 324!” Our room. All entrants to the party were forced to have a shot of the penis drink, finally there was a half-decent way to get rid of the stuff. Neighbouring rooms also became lively and a few of us went to investigate. In the next room they were playing card cards but we couldn’t see a drop of alcohol anywhere, what’s wrong with these people? Cards were only invented to make people drink excessively. We swiftly left. The night carried on and it was great. I got to the stage where I needed to sleep, but there was a party in my bedroom. I picked up a blanket and a pillow and knocked on a random nearby door. “Hi, you don’t know me. Can I sleep on your floor?” Surprisingly I was let in.

We even got a chance to do some stroke photos. A simple but great idea, invented in the summer of 2013 on a holiday in Zante. You pull a stroke face, dribble beer out of your mouth, and take a photo.

The morning came around and I felt surprisingly fresh considering the volume of consumed alcohol over the past two nights. It was time to try on our rented outfits, they were shocking. Luckily I was blessed with a very desirable double denim get-up. (If you’ve read this blog before then you’re aware that Korea is still living like it’s 1994. The double denim is more proof of this). Over the weekend if you saw a foreigner also wearing a hideous ski outfit then you knew they were with our group. Of our group I was the only one to opt for snowboarding having done it 9 years earlier. Luckily the skills were never lost and it was like riding a bike, I had it nailed after two or three runs down a beginner slope. It was awesome; I kept on wondering why I had left it 9 years to go snowboarding! All the other guys were beginners, pretty much the first time they had skied. Which made me probably the most experienced; I was king of the Shitty Pants Gang. It is a little embarrassing though when the most experienced guy falls pretty hard, not much coming back from that!

A good 8 hours on the slopes and we headed back. There was also a promise of a huge night out for all the foreigners which included £4,000 worth of free beer! What could go wrong?! It started off like prom, all the boys on the left and all the girls on the right, then people started drinking, and soon after, carnage. There were a group of Americans not far from us who were drinking a lot of beer. Our room, not to be outdone, the Brits and the South Africans thought “we’ll show you how to drink!” Everyone was hammered as you’d imagine. Even though there was free beer, people still found it necessary to buy spirits. At one point I was in a convenience store drinking soju with James and some random girls. It seemed to be acceptable at the time… or maybe I was just that drunk. By the third night of drinking your decision making seems to become a little uncertain. The pictures of that night were a delight.

We even did a Wagbo audition. I won't go on to explain that one, it just won't be funny. But the pictures are good.

I was rudely awoken at 10am, to be notified that check-out was in 30 minutes. No time to shower, just pack up and get out. Whose idea was it to drink the night before?! Back on the slopes and I was still drunk. Literally one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had. Slide down a mountain at 40mph, on a slippery board, with no balance, on ice. Like I said, three nights of intoxication leads to unwise decision making. Time for breakfast. I realised that I had had nothing nutritional in four days. My diet had consisted of KFC, Dominoes, Dunkin’ Donuts, a terrible microwavable spaghetti, chocolate digestives, and alcohol. I eventually sobered up and took it easy for the rest of the day to make sure I could go back to work on Monday with no broken bones.

All-in-all it was a cracking weekend, made some great new friends, had a blast snowboarding, had some great nights, although I’m sure my liver would not agree. James took some footage of us on the slopes and edited it nicely together, see it below. If you wait till the end there is a short clip which pretty much defines me; I'm wearing a football shirt, and drunkly rapping to KanYe West. It's pretty embarrassing but if you know me at all then you've probably seen this before.

Video filmed and edited by James Johnson (James vs. World)

We got home late on Sunday night, and the alarm was set for 6am Monday morning, it comes around too quickly.