SEA Trip: Hanoi and Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

CAUTIONS: This post does not contain any practical information. All is unimportant stuff filled with subjective judgment. Do not continue reading if you're currently doing research for your trip. Read this if you miss me ;)

Day 6: 05/08

Morning in Hanoi was too fast, too rushing. I arrived at about 5.30 about 6km from the city center. Unfortunately I met some crazy boys who preferred to go there on foot to spending money on taxi and get scammed; and so do I. We really walked 6km and separated, they took a train to Sapa and I continued by myself to Old Quarter. Here is the only good picture I got from Hanoi, and I still can remember the warmth it gave for seeing so many people enjoying time, frozen in time.

Hoan Kiem Lake, Old Quarter, Hanoi

By 8 am, I departed to Ha Long City. Ha Long Bay is definitely charming. I booked the ticket from any proper tourism office i saw in old quarter, but the price I got was reasonable ($50 for a 2D/1N tour) and it includes 4 times meals, a room (shared with one other person), an english speaking guide (not really good actually), and one stop at the cave also kayaking. The bus took about 4 hours from Hanoi to Ha Long City and we waited at the harbor about 1 hour, so we started at 1 pm. They didn’t give us any itinerary so we just followed the guide. The meals are pretty boring, not really delicious nor interesting, however I should thank God since that’s the only chance I eat properly. You can book exclude the meals for $40.

These are the Ha Long boats!

Ha Long Bay in bad luck, bad weather!

 I got an interesting group consisted of 16 people, all of them are French, Germany, US, and Denmark. There’s a fun (yet scary) accident while we did the kayak. The two French guys flipped their kayak far away from our boat. There was me and Evan (an USA stranger who share the kayak with me), and we offered some help, trying to flip the boat and emptying the water but it just didn’t work. So we decided to tie their boat and sway together until the boat. Two of the USA’s friends, Zach and Ben, went before us to tell to the boat that their tourist had an accident. After like 30 minutes of hardwork, we finally saw a fisherman boat going towards us. But it’s really surprising that right after they took us to the boat, they started hitting and punching the French guys, even almost do it with s wooden block. Evan was almost hit too, but fortunately it’s just a little. We came back to the boat and I don’t know how the French guys settled this. In the night, I fell asleep at the deck and suddenly it’s been 11 pm, so I went directly to the room. Actually it was nice to sleep outside since the moon was almost full, too bad we had storm that night.

the hilariously drowned French couple

 

oh please tell me this is hilariously fun!

Day 7: 06/08

The sunrise expectation was a big failure since we just had storm on the night, and it’s still cloudy and a little rain on that day. But Ha Long Bay is nice, really.

My total failed Ha Long Bay sunrise attempt