The Very Last Days Of My Trip

They were all gone. My travelmates from Germany and Denmark had gone further down Vietnam and there I went again on my own. I was in Ninh Binh, the old Vietnamese capital. I quickly booked an accommodation and walked there afterwards. Officially, it was a homestay, but in fact, it was just a normal hostel. The sun was already going down when I arrived there, so I just got a glimpse of the sunset and then it got dark very soon. I had dinner, took a map from reception and planned my next day. As I was only staying for two nights, I wanted to do and see as much as possible during my only full day. I got up quite early, rent a scooter at the hostel and then started my trip with quite a steep hike to the top of a mountain which was rewarded with an amazing view over the surrounding. It was generally pretty flat with a few rocks and hills popping up in between. The ground was generally quite wet and not very green. By the foot of the mountain, there was a small cave which was said to be nice, so I also went in there. It was nothing special though, so I left the place quite soon. After another few minutes of riding, I arrived at another place which is popular with tourists. It’s basically an area full of small temples and pagodas and in addition, there are some good walks around. A got pretty scared though when I was shortly before arriving there. I was just about to pass a restaurant at the speed of some 60 km/h when suddenly a woman jumped into the middle of the street to prevent me from going any further. That was really scary as I had to break extremely hard to avoid crashing into her. Very dangerous 😱 I even slid so I was not far from losing control over my scooter, but thank goodness nothing happened. So I went for a nice short walk to a small lake which offered a great view of the surrounding mountains before I started climbing up to the temples. They all looked good but that was it. So I went back to the restaurant run by the crazy lady, had lunch there and went back to Ninh Binh to go on a boat cruise on Trang An river. And it was really worth doing that cruise 🙂 I shared a boat with a Vietnamese guy. Our ferrywoman didn’t speak any English so we didn’t talk all the time but it was so enjoyable to be sitting in the boat while passing several mountains and going through some caves under a perfectly blue sky. Certainly one of the best activities I did in Vietnam 😊 And then, on the way back to the boat harbor, we even got to see a brilliant sunset. So beautiful 😍 I went straight back to the hostel as it was already getting dark. I also booked my bus back to Hanoi for the next morning. And then something happened to me that I had been managing to avoid during my entire trip until that morning – I overslept and missed the bus! 😭 I was a lucky guy though as I was able to book another bus without paying any extra cash 🙂 The bus ride itself was allright and I arrived into a rainy Hanoi in the early evening.

I checked into the same hostel as the last time and was ready to spend my last two full days in the capital of Vietnam. Nothing super special happened during these two days. I went to the rooftop bar, met some nice people there, spent a day with three really young people from Germany and Australia, went to some great cafes, such as the note cafe which is filled to the top with colourful notes, and enjoyed the quiet atmosphere of Hoan Kiem lake. It actually got really cold during these last days of my trip. I once again had to get my jeans and my hoodie out of my suitcase. Winter was coming to Asia as well 😉

Anyway, after a quiet last evening, it was time for the very last check out and get into the shuttle taking me to the airport. From Hanoi, I took a plane to Bangkok where I spent a few hours at the airport. It was a special day. A time filled with memories for life, encounters of numerous lovely people, loads of exciting activities and breathtaking landscape views came to its end at that airport I had already seen in the beginning of September, so it was an almost surreal feeling to get into the plane, leave all these memories behind and to realize that everything was over and I had finished adding a new chapter to my life. I will never forget this wonderful time!

✈🌏🇳🇿🇹🇼🇫🇯🇦🇺🇹🇭🇰🇭🇱🇦🇻🇳❤