Ha Ha Halong bay

Hanoi, Ha Giang, Halong

Continuation after the Ha Giang Loop:

The sleeper bus had very narrow cabins and it was nowhere near as comfortable as the VIP bus on the outward journey. So we didn't get much sleep overnight. The bus driver also drove very fast and every now and then you feared for your life when you made sharp turns or braked, because we would arrive earlier than expected... namely 4 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. Yay - thrown out on some big street in the middle of the night where there was nothing except a weird place where a few guys were sitting, who were again excitedly trying to market themselves as taxis, so there we were.

OK, we thought it would be smart to save ourselves the hassle of having to stay overnight, sleep in the bus and walk a bit to the harbor for our boat tour. But now, in the middle of the night, that didn't seem so cool. We tried it anyway. We fought our way through until it rained again, looked for free internet and walked and walked even when we couldn't anymore and it got lighter and unfortunately hotter. Really crazy - of course we could take a taxi - but that was the goal. We wanted to save ourselves the trouble and theoretically we had the time. And you know what, we really did it. We walked to the harbor until 7:00 in the morning, where we got a coffee.

And then it took a while and was complicated to find out exactly where we were supposed to meet the people from the boat tour advertised on the internet. After a few uncertain moments and suspicions that we had been taken in, we finally found them. The tour to Halong Bay started at 8 a.m., which lasted 4 hours and included a bit of kayaking in a small bay and a visit to a cave.

All in all, it wasn't long, but we were happy to have seen the bay at least at first, and we spent a really amazingly ambitious and beautiful day together, with all the walking, the stress, the heat, the rain, and the annoyingly expensive taxi ride to the airport. We had walked a few kilometers back to save money, and it was almost pointless, because first a guy tried to rip us off, and then we booked through someone from a tourist office, who insisted on his price. Anyway... we made the best of it and made our way easier with fun guessing games about terms like antlers, spider webs, resin, boogers, electric current, etc., and learning topography on our phones, and we really had a lot of fun together despite the circumstances and the 8.5 km hike.

We finally landed back in HCMC around 11 p.m. and fell into bed, completely exhausted.