Hanoi, Halong Bay on a 3 day cruise, back to Hanoi and now we are in rainy Nha Trang.
30 October
This morning we checked out of the hotel, had breakfast and then went and sat at The House (a Belgion/French/Laos bar) to use their wifi as the hotels was rubbish. We both had a Skype session with our parents and I had one with Hollie! Then we got a tuk tuk to the airport and after some utterly rubbish security checks we waited in the one departure lounge where you can pretty much get up and go on any plane you like, nobody checks tickets! The hour’s flight from Louang Prabang to Hanoi was amazing. Seeing the rolling hills from the sky is incredible! The scenery changed little crossing from Laos into Vietnam until we started approaching Hanoi. It is a huge city, we weren’t really expecting that! Apparently there are 6.4 million people living in Hanoi alone with 3 million motorbikes!
On arrival we got a taxi to the Old Quarter, which took about 45 minutes, they drive even more crazily here!! We walked around in the darkness for a while before we found a hotel we liked called Duc Huy Hotel for $20, they are all around this price (over our budget!). We found a little restaurant around the corner and as Shaun wasn’t feeling very well he wanted vegetable soup, when it came it was stir-fried cabbage and noodles!
31 October – 1 October – Happy Halloween
For the next two days we continued to explore the Old Quarter and the main area around the Lake which even has a couple of shopping malls with shops like Aldo (my dream shoes!!!) and Accessorize!
We have booked a cruise for tomorrow on the infamous Halong Bay for 3 days 2 nights on the boat which we are REALLY looking forward to!!
2 October
Next morning we woke up late for breakfast so we quickly grabbed a baguette and banana and jumped on the mini van to Halong Bay. Of course the mini bus was completely rammed not leaving a single spare seat. The trip to Halong Bay was insane, people have the craziest idea of road safety over here. The journey on the motorway was a constant zig zag in and out of traffic with the non-stop use of their horns. We arrived at Halong Bay harbour which was full of old rotten wooden boats and some beautiful wooden junks, we were just praying that ours was one of the good ones - luckily it was, The Phoenix! After settling into our room for ten mins we went on our first trip to the caves (Surprise Cave). It is apparently called this because when the French found it they were ‘surprised’ it was so big! It consists of a small cave, leading to a bigger, leading to the biggest which is HUGE!! After a long tour of this amazing cave we headed for the kayaks. They were all stacked on a floating island (the one out of Top Gear!) and were damaged with dodgy looking repair jobs. After about an hour of exploring the islands we started to get wet bums which meant the repair jobs were as good as they looked. We are due to have a full day of kayaking tomorrow and just hope it isn’t in these. The sun then set whilst we were still in the kayaks, it was an amazing sunset on the calm ocean amongst the karsts.
At dinner we sat with a couple and their two children (who were Danish but live in India) who told us that our next stop Nha Trang was flooded and the airport had closed. When we looked on the net it said they had had 20 inches of rain!! O dear.
3 October
Waking up early after a surprisingly good night’s sleep on the boat, we were already drifting along Halong Bay. We had breakfast early, 7.30, consisting of eggs, bacon and bread (not very Vietnamese). Later on in the morning the rest of the passengers from the boat who were only doing 1 night on the boat departed off to the beach. Six of us left got in another boat and sailed through Halong Bay until we reached the Catba National Park area. We all clambered into the kayaks (much better condition than yesterdays!) and headed for a small dark cave. We all got our torches and cameras out and descended into the blackness. The caves were so small that you literally had to fold in half to duck beneath the roof. Shaun even ended up cracking his head and scratching his glasses! He was not happy to say the least! We explored quite a few different caves which led into secluded lagoons between the karsts, amazing! Our guide had told us that sometimes you can see monkeys, but after his hilarious monkey calls, our faith in him was dying until the professional photographer couple spotted a monkey. We are very privileged to have seen a very rare monkey indigenous to Halong Bay, there are only 100 left in the wild! We also saw a few massive spiders (one was running above my head while in the kayak and I freaked out!) and also a snake lizard and a crab on the sealing of a cave, very strange and loads of bats! Shaun actually spotted 2 out of 3 of these too!!
We headed back to the boat and had a swim off the side of the boat. Shaun of course did his bomb shell off top deck!! And then had an amazing seafood BBQ on board!
In the afternoon we went to visit a Floating Fishing Village. 600 people live here, there is even a temple and a primary school!! Most of the people who live here never step on the mainland!! The men fish, they keep their fish in farms in front of their houses and the women take tourists on boats or are Boat Hawkers who row up to the cruise boats and sell food and drink to tourists.
Today we made it back to the big boat just in time to see the sunset, you really have to see it to believe how beautiful it is here! We ate dinner, with a whole new set of people starting the cruise and opted out of karaoke again!
Across from us was a booze cruise having a wild party all night until the sun came up, it just looks wrong in this setting!!
4 October
We had a 7.30 start for breakfast then headed off on a smaller boat to Te Top Island. On this Island they have a viewing tower at the top so we trekked up the hundreds of stairs where you can see all of the 2000 islands of Halong Bay. The view from up here was incredible!! There are islands as far as the eye can see. After about 10 minutes of taking photos we trekked back down and had a swim in the turquoise water. We then hopped back in the boat and were taken back to the big boat to check out.
An hours sunbathing, reading our books and we were back in port amongst the hundreds of other junks (that’s what these boats are called). We were hearded onto the smaller boat again and taken back to the mainland. The journey back to Hanoi took an hour less this time thank God but was definitely more uncomfortable as we were sat on the back seats above the very springy suspension!!
We found another hotel across the road, Hotel Rose, for $17. A month of Asian food and we were craving something from home! We found an Italian restaurant and both had pizza!!
5 October
Checked out of the hotel, it’s so noisy in the mornings, and checked into Charming Hotel for $22 down a quiet allyway. Other than that haven’t really done a lot today just wondered around the lake. Then I started feeling severely ill with achy bones so stayed in bed the rest of the afternoon! And being in this city when your ill is not great, it’s noisy, smelly and sooo busy!! You really have to be alert to cross the road in between the thousands of motorbikes. The trick is to walk slowly and stare at whoever is coming for you in the eye so they avoid you.
In the evening I managed to get out of bed and go out for some tea. Shaun had a frog curry!
6 October
Again, we haven’t really done a lot today, still ill. We moved hotels though because this one was fully booked so we checked into Holiday Hotel back on the main road, opposite the first hotel.
In the afternoon we wondered around the lake again in search of new sunnies for Shaun but had no luck. We ended up booking a flight to Nha Trang for tomorrow. We have been debating it the last few days but decided to just go and hope the rain stops! We have decided to fly as it’s only a few dollars more than the train and apparently the train track is part broken so involves getting on a bus and all sorts of other hassle. However, this means we are missing Hue and Hoi An (popular traveller hot spots along the route).
For dinner, we decided to try and go local so we went to a Noodle Bar which only serves beef noodle soup! It was absolutely delicious!! And because it was only 25,000 dong each we had money for drinks!! We found a very traditional English looking bar playing the footie, a bit of normalcy!
7 October
Shaun woke up early and had breakfast. This is getting to be our usual routine, if there is breakfast we eat and go out, if not we stay in the hotel until lunchtime. We packed up and checked out and got directions to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Ho Chi Minh was the president of Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City is named after him but I have no idea why he is buried at the opposite end of the country in Hanoi?? Anyway, we weren’t that interested in seeing the Mausoleum we actually wanted to see B-52 Lake (a tiny little lake where a B-52 plane was shot down in 1972 and it still remains), which we had been trying to ask for directions to all week and no one knew what we were on about. After an hour, we eventually got to the Mausoleum, quite impressive for one guy! By the time we had actually made sense to someone we were out of time! The bicycle-tuk-tuk said it would take 20 mins there and back so if we had we not stopped for a drink we would have made it.
We boarded the plane, which stank by the way, and were off on the 1.40 journey. In the isle next to us, there was a really crazy man, who I can only assume was coming down from heroin or something, basically everyone in front, next to and behind him all moved seats because he was so erratic and noisy! Mid way through the flight he decided to go and have a fag in the toilets so they escorted him to the naughty seat at the back of the plane!!
We arrived at Nha Trang at about 8.30pm and could feel the humidity difference straight away! In Hanoi the evenings had been cooler (not cold like you lot at home though haha) whereas here it’s almost 100% humidity all the time with temps of about 30°C in the day and 25°C in the evening.
We settled on getting the bus for 40,000 dong each to save some cash, so our bags were chucked into the back of a mini van, and we were on our way. Along the way, on the other side of the road leading to the airport there were fallen rocks everywhere, this gave us the first idea of how severe the rain had been affecting this place. After an hour the bus eventually just stopped in the middle on nowhere. There was one Australian guy on the bus who had his Lonely Planet Travel Guide so we just walked with him to the main strip! As usual, Shaun did the run up the stairs to see the room while I had a break and sit in the lobby, a good deal I think! He eventually settled on just about the last one on the road, The Golden Hotel, for $12 a night.
Realising it was 10.45pm we dumped our bags and headed straight out for some tea. We chowed down our food and headed to a bar for a free cocktail - local whiskey and coke urgghh and actually watched a bit of football. Most of the bars are all empty and even some of the hotels are closed as it’s rainy season so it’s pretty much a ghost town until you get to the occasional packed bars playing the football!
We are one month down and already at our 7th place and 3rd Country!
A la perchoine, Jo & Shaun x
