Hanoi/Halong Bay, Vietnam: Castaway (November 2013)

You could easily spend a month touring just Vietnam, but since we only had about a week we wanted to utilize the time to our best ability. We booked a last minute flight up north to Hanoi. A friend recommended Hanoi Backpackers and their Castaways tour of Halong Bay. There are several ways to explore Halong Bay. 1. make your way to Halong and hire a tour from there, 2. book a cheap tour and be one with nature on a questionable boat, and 3. expensive booze cruise. Normally we’d opt for the first or second choice, but we heard RAVING reviews about the Castaways party tour so we figured we’d give it a shot and booze cruise our way through the bay.

The tour was… fine. Do I regret it, of course not… would I do it again, not so much. We met some amazing new travel friends on the tour and we made the trip our own. It was just a little too fratastic for me.

The bus ride to Halong Bay is about 4 hours from Hanoi. Most of the trip was spent chatting and sleeping like most bus journeys. Once we arrived, we divided up on to two big boats, which later were conjoined, allowing for us to jump back and forth. The first event was lunch and the “rules” of the boat/trip. Here was the first sign of feeling like I was at a frat house: the rules included no drinking with you right hand, unable to say the world 10 and some “copy/paste” game I never really understood. There may have been a couple other rules, but I honestly can’t remember them because they were just too lame.

After lunch we went kayaking, which was really fun. We went through caves and paddled around magnificent cliffs for about an hour. The sun began to set as we continued cruising around the bay. To give you a sense of the maturity level and disorganization of the trip, our first drinking game was “never have i ever”... with 40 people in a circle, which got pretty old pretty fast. A group of us who weren’t really feeling it went over to the other boat to relax and chat on the top deck. That night was spent dancing and socializing on the boat.  

The next day we made our way to Castaway Island, a private island with a bar and bungalows exclusively for our tour. Now things were starting to look up. We spent the day swimming and relaxing on the beach, with an option for rock climbing as well. After dinner the party really got started. Since the crew/guides seemed to lack the ability to organize an entertaining game, we decided to take matters into our own hands. A group of Dutch friends started playing a pong game that was a combination of beer pong and quarters. It caught on like wildfire. I don’t even know how many rounds and how may people participated in this fast paced game, but it was exactly what we needed.

One of my favorite things about Halong Bay was the phosphorus plankton in the sea. A night swim was in order. Seeing the bright glow around you in the water at night was absolutely incredible. The whole experience felt like Neverland, staying in beachfront bungalows tucked into palm trees, enjoying a carefree day with fellow travelers and being surrounded by Tinkerbell and her phosphorus fairy dust in the warm sea on a dark night.

Even though the Castaway tour had its flaws, overall it was a great couple days. The views are stunning, and luckily we were able to share the experience with an amazing group of new friends.