Day 194 - Start of our road trip to Ha Long

Hey guys

Once again, we can start with 'originally the plan was..... but....'

Hehe :)

So: Originally, the plan was for us to stay in Hanoi until tomorrow and start our road trip through Vietnam the day after tomorrow. But yesterday evening, we spontaneously decided to leave today. Not because we didn't like Hanoi, but because we just couldn't wait to ride our motorcycles. We also discovered many tour operators that advertise a trip to 'Ha Long Beach'. According to Google Maps, this place was only 2.5 hours away, so we already had a destination :).

Today we got up at 8:30 a.m., had some breakfast and set off around 11 a.m. For the first two to three hours, we drove through the city and industrial areas, passing houses, hotels, shops, and warehouses. But then a beautiful panorama opened up in front of us and the ride became completely relaxed! We drove through forests, over passes, saw rice fields and really remote villages. Truly wonderful!

On the way, we thought a policeman wanted to stop us... At least he waved his stick at us just as we passed by. What did we do? Keep driving... If it was something important, he would surely follow us :)

Oh yeah... We all know the normal process for us: You buy a motorcycle, register it in your name, and become the vehicle owner. Here, you buy a motorcycle and don't register it again. The first owner of the vehicle remains registered. Conclusion: There is no tracking via license plate here :)).

Sooo, after almost six hours of driving, we were very close to our destination and wanted to withdraw some cash... According to the ATM, there was a problem with our card... After some back and forth, the credit card company told us that the problem was not on their end and that everything was fine. We went to eat something small and decided to try again tomorrow to withdraw money.

We booked a hotel for CHF 25.- right in 'Ha Long', which is located on a small peninsula. It is really beautiful! Unfortunately, we could not enjoy the view for long as we arrived at dusk. But from our balcony, you can see those small islands that are shown in all the tour operators' pictures.

And once again: Originally, we wanted to continue driving and slowly head south. But since we arrived here so late, we really want to go to the islands tomorrow. We hope the weather cooperates, supposedly it's not going to be great. But we'll see and hope that the island trip will happen :)

Here is our route for today:

Distance traveled: 160 kilometers

Travel time: Approximately 6 hours

See you tomorrow ;)