Day 13 – Party Boat
Halong Bay is one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of the
World. Now, this was an exercise that was crowdsourced and voted on online, but
still it seems quite interesting to note. I have only been to one of the others
– Table Mountain in Cape Town. I have no idea what the criteria is, as one of
the other seven is the entirety of the Amazon Rainforest, but after going to Ha
Long Bay I can indeed say it is beautiful. I can also say that the Oasis Bay
Party Cruise experience was, well, a party.
It takes a while to get to Ha Long Bay from Hanoi – and I don’t
think there is any other major city on the way that would make your transit any
easier other than staying in Ha Long itself. The bus we had was nicely air
conditioned and allowed their seats to have a ridiculous, business-class like
recline. Most of us slept on the way there, especially the first half of the
three hour ride, which ended with a 30 minute pit stop.
When we reached Ha Long Bay, it was close to noon, and we
were shuttled from the three or so buses we all arrived in, to a small boat to
take us to the bigger boat. I have no earthly idea why the main boat couldn’t
dock directly on shore as similar sized boats did, but anyway, it was an easy
enough process. What really made it was that the torrid rain that was coming
down during various parts of our ride over ended right as we embarked on the
Oasis Bay ship.
Overall, it was about 50 of us (they exclaimed it was one of
the larger groups in a while) thrown together. It was an interesting mix. There
were finally a handful of other Americans – we were still outnumbered by Brits
(especially if you include a group of five Irish guys), French and Australians.
Once again, it is exceedingly clear how little Americans travel relative to
other places. This doesn’t upset me, really, but it is interesting to note.
The actual boat itself is nicely set-up, with an open sun deck
on top, a main dining hall / entertainment area on the third floor, with a jacuzzi on one end, then two levels of rooms,
with a jacuzzi on one end of the second floor. Basically, a lot of jacuzzi.
The day started with a family style lunch that to be honest
was neither here nor there. Dinner would be slightly better, but food is not on
top of mind of the Oasis Party Boat. Drinking is, with a cruise-like room key swiping
system to have you order and pay for drinks.
The first actual activity was at 2:30pm, with kayaking past
a few rock cliffs into an enclosed lagoon and back. Firstly, I have to say I seemingly
have no idea how to kayak. Our kayak was among the slowest both out and in –
though out we were also one of the last ones to get started. Basically we
zig-zagged there going either too far left or too far right. We eventually did
reach the lagoon, after having a few brushes with the rocks and caves, and met
our compatriots in a large floating kayak circle. In the middle, the tour guide
Phat gave us a few stories about the history of Halong Bay, the nature within
(included having us do a minute of silence, wherein you actually could hear the
monkeys in the lush greenery around you. After this he taught us how to cheers
in Vietnamese – we were all told to bring at least one beer on the kayaking trip
for this purpose. We did, and despite the beer being hot out of can, it was still
so perfect to match the more brutal heat and humidity of that moment.
We returned to the main boat and entered into an hour of
swimming in the Bay, diving off the boat – with most of us taking them up on
diving from their 8-meter third floor, and bouncing onto and off of a
trampoline. Overall, it was a great time. Through the pressure of the crowd and
the affects of alcohol, they got nearly everyone to take the leap. Oddly, it
didn’t hurt one bit, but man was the water way saltier than I expected – this is
what happens when you spend the last two days swimming in clear freshwater tide
pools in Laos.
After the swimming session, which lasted too short, was a nice
round of beer yoga. Essentially, it was 30 minutes of yoga, where at various
times you are told to take a sip. It should be noted that alcohol is not included
in the price of the ticket, so there is an uilterior motive to making you get a
drink for parts of the day, but then again this is a ‘party boat’.
After beer yoga came about an hour of free time before
another family style dinner, with really great fried oysterds, prawns, chicken
curry and some nameless vegetable that our table couldn’;t figure out. Again,
the food isn’t the forte here, but it was actually a decent meal.
After dinner was a little entertainment, mostly audience
games where the winner gets a shot. The two people running this were a brit
named Stu and a Canadian named Patrick – both perfectly typecast for the ‘explores
the world as a tour guide for years at a time’ model I’;e come to expect from
years of doing this. That said, it does seem like a fairly chill life.
After the games was basically an all out do whatever you
want party that lasted from 9pm to some unknown time (bar closes at 3am – I slept
at about 1:30am). The drinks were flowing throughout – with a giant cocktail
list where I focused on white Russians. More than the drinks, the helium-filled
balloons became a hit the second that helium tank was unleashed. I had my first
introduction to this at The Observatory in Ho Chi Minh, and they were just as
good this time if a bit smaller.
On the whole, I don’t know if your biggest aim is to see the
wonder of Halong Bay if this type of cruise is the best avenue, but then again
the boat anchored in picturesque spots and the sunset view from the sun deck
with the other ships in the area littered about was incredible. What this cruise
was, however, was a chance to have a damn good time with random people for a
day, and forget about everything else. It was funny how many of the people were
like me about to end their trip, and we could all share the relative sadness we
were about to go back to, and therefore the happiness of this moment.
