I was a ATM machine for the travel mafia in Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island

Most stories are good and one or two are bad, it is the way of the world.
We decided in Hanoi to book a 2 night / 3 day trip to Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba island, considered to be a highlight of North Vietnam. The tour was one night in a hotel on Cat Ba Island and the a night on a boat in Ha Long Bay.
The trip started ok, picked up from our hotel by tour guide no 1 (we had 7 in total) during this trip and got on the bus to travel to Ha Long Bay. All receipts for the trip were taken never to be seen again………… Then met up with more tour groups and boarded our boat to go on a cruise around Ha Long bay to see the Len Hau cave, floating fishing village and do some swimming and Kayaking. Sound good huh. The tour group was a nice mix of people all ready to have fun.
The crew of the boat were sullen, rude and unprofessional, no safety drills or explanations what to do if things went wrong, no bringing even drinking water on board, but we were allowed to buy drinks at three times the going rate (going tourist rate that is which is 3 or 4 or 5 times the local rate)  The Len Hau Cave (one of the 7 wonders of the world.  It was found in 1999? by a fisherman during a typhoon were he was washed up and saw a monkey going into the cave) was good, as was the fishing village and the scenery was beautiful.

Len Hau Cave

Floating Fishing Village

Ha Long Bay

    
Kayaking reduced to 30 mins. But no swimming allowed, the reason given was the water was too polluted  and it was full of we had jelly fish. Then to our hotel for the night in Cat Ba Island, here the fun really started. Hotel ‘Sun Flower Two Hotel and Restaurant’  in Cat Ba Town had the staff from hell, crap food, no water provided with food (as stated on our tickets) and the check out time was 0800hrs which is a bit off as even cheap hostels let you stay till 1200hrs in Asia. Next day the day part of the tour was to be 4 hours kayaking and look around the town but hey this was cancelled. Not much fun was being had by the punters by now as we had to kill the day in a yuk place that was starting to piss us off.  (the night before we had local women grabbing our arms to force us to their plastic tables for beer, then chasing after us screaming abuse for more money….in the end we had to pay just to get rid of them, even though we had paid the agreed price for the beers!)
Then when you thought things would improve we went to our second boat ‘Phuong Bong’ for our over-night stay on the ship in the Bay and by now the punters  on our tour were in open revolt with tour guide number 5. No cabins were allocated till you handed in your passport (so they could check your record for crimes the guide said). No amount of arguing could change anything with these criminals, they had done it many many times before and just stuck to the standard not my problem story. Also everyone had paid different prices for the tour ranging from US $54 to US$120 and we were all getting the same crappy service / trip. No AC and no hot water on the ship. When we mentioned two people had hot water the crew went to these two cabins and turned the water off. Unbelievable! 

One of the two dodgy boats we had during the trip

Ha Long Bay

Nicki in Kayak mode

         
But hey the mentality there is that you are a rich tourist and we will get your money, and sadly this is the mentality the majority ( 90% ) of people there during our three day trip that you are buying stuff from. Its tiring, disrespectful, frustrating and so blatantly in your face.
There was a tourist that had left a bag of essential medicines (and money but she didn’t care about the money, just wanted the medicine) in the hotel and the guide basically refused to help her (we were anchored 2 minutes from the harbour for 12 hours) and when she called the hotel they refused to help, screamed at her and told her not to call again!
Food on the boat again crap, no drinking water, no swimming (if you really wanted to swim you could from 0630hrs to 0700hrs when there were no jelly fish or pollution?) and our romantic night on the boat was 300 metres only from the jetty. These tour guide people are nuts. Lucky the tour group were a good lot and we did have a lot of fun since we all had a common enemy.
Next day again up at eight for checkout of our rooms on board the boat, whether you liked it or not,one cup of tea per person and no more, even though they had a huge thermos for the staff, no cruise around the islands as expected but a slow cruise back to Cat Ba Island.  Sadly all around the jetty was brown trails were all the boats (i think there are up to 600 of these boats) discharged sewage, the people that had had the early morning swim felt a little ill!
Bus back a horror ride, packed like sardines and people missed connections to other buses and trains.
But hey south Vietnam is supposed to be better, but I can see why the return rate for tourist to Vietnam is 5% and Thailand 50% these people we had to suffer for three days have lost something along the way to becoming a more open country. I hope for all our sakes that things change here.
And if not I am leaving this country early………. just dreading bargaining for the tickets
PS
We have just had a good last night in Hanoi, spent all day hiding in the hotel room to watch the last day of the Olympics. The hotel must get a mention as they were nice people and looked after us real well. We stayed there when we first arrived in Hanoi.
Hanoi Friendly Hotel, 78 Hang Ga Street, Old Quarter, Hanoi. www.hanoifriendlyhotel.com