Hanoi and Halong Bay, Vietnam

September 15th - September 21st 2011 

We flew from Hong Kong and into Hanoi, Vietnam. The visa on arrival was pretty straight forward and as we had booked a night in a hostel a man came and picked us up. As soon as he started driving we noticed that the traffic is absolutely mental! We'd heard that the traffic might be a bit crazy but were still shocked to see babies being held while on mopeds weaving in and out of traffic, people on mobile phones driving motorbikes one handed etc. The highway code definately does not apply in Vietnam!

Vietnam Traffic

We got to the hostel (Central Backpackers) and was pleasantly suprised, big rooms, a clean bathroom and big comfy bunk beds with plenty of space. The hostel offered free internet, free breakfast and free beer during happy hour! We were very impressed especially after what we had received in Hong Kong. It was also in a great location, only a short walk to the lake, water puppet theatre and there were loads of good restaurants nearby too.
 

Lake near our hostel

We spent the first day exploring the area and trying to exchange Hong Kong Dollars for U.S Dollars or Vietnamese Dong which seemed impossible although after hours of walking we finally found a place that did it. We booked a Halong Bay tour to start in a couple of days time to give us time to get our laundry done and see a little more of Hanoi. We wandered around the night market after dinner and sampled the local sugar cane juice which was like clementine juice but very sweet.

Night Market

We spent the second day getting completely lost trying to find the train station to book train tickets down to Saigon, we eventually found a train station but it was the wrong one! On the walk we did see lots of sights, a woman washing snakes in a bucket and lots of weird and wonderful market stalls. The long walk gave us good practice at crossing the roads too. You have to walk and let all the cars, mopeds and bicycles avoid you!

We eventually got to the right train station and booked train tickets to Da Nang. We then spent the evening at the famous Vietnamese Water Puppet Theatre which was actually pretty good and for only approx 2 pounds. We had dinner at a place that does vegetarian food and I had an amazing Vietnamese dish of fried potato with tomato and rice. It was so yummy we went back a few times.

Water Puppets

Day three we went on our tour of Halong Bay. We had decided to go for three days and two nights. One night on the boat in the bay and one night on Cat Ba Island. Halong Bay was absolutely breathtaking. We toured a cave and went swimming in the water which was as warm as having a bath. We swam with others on the tour until the sun set and then had dinner and played cards with a few of the people that we had met.

View from the boat of Halong Bay

We woke up the next morning and got to Cat Ba Island. There was a bit of trouble when we got there as a British guy came up to us and a few others on the tour warning us not to stay at that particular hotel as he had been threatened with a knife the night before. He started walking away shouting about waiting for the police to arrive when a local man hit him hard to the floor with some bamboo and then kicked him while he was down. We were all obviously shaken up but had no choice but to stay the night. The night picked up when we walked with two other couples we had met and had cocktails down by the water.

Halong Bay

Our last day on the tour we went kayaking around the bay which was tiring but fun and we made our way back to the main land and back to Hanoi. After the tour we had one more night in our hostel before we packed up and got on our very long over night train to Da Nang. We hadn't researched what to do in Da Nang but thought we'd be spontaneous and decide once we were there where to go and what to do.