Hanoi & Halong Bay

Arrived in Hanoi and were greeted with our first scam which Hanoi is known for! Luckily i had marie so we got very angry at the bus driver who had dropped us off outside of the city centre. We got a motorbike to the Old Town and found some accommodation. Stayed at Thu Giang Guesthouse, which was pretty cheap and i got recommended to stay there anyway. Booked my tour to Halong Bay and Sapa and went to explore Hanoi.
It was absolutely pouring!!! Experienced my first vietnamese rain and the streets were flooded in such a short period of time. It was up to my knees in some streets. Walked through the water to the indoor markets and had a look around. It eventually stopped raining and its amazing how quick the water disappeared.. Went to find this supermarket that we finally realised had been knocked down after asking about 5 people who each pointed in different directions!
The Hoan Kiem Lake is quite pretty. We walked around the whole Old Town and got some food. Went back to the hotel and chilled out for a bit. There was an aussie guy and a german girl in our room who were nice. I went to bed pretty early..
Next morning got up and went on the tour to Halong Bay. Marie was busy sleeping so i didnt say bye to her. Was on the bus for about an hour before we had finally picked up all the people on the tour who were staying close to our hotel. Finally arrived at Halong City and after standing around in the hot sun for a while got on the boat. We had lunch on the boat at the dock. I met these two gorgeous english girls called Lizzie and Fran and they too didnt eat seafood so we had an exciting lunch of rice and vegetables.. We eventually got moving then went through the bay. It was so peaceful and the rock formations were amazing. We relaxed on the top of the boat where there was a breeze and the sun was hot! We jumped off the top of the 'junk' (the boat) while someone kept jellyfish watch. There were qutie a few jellyfish with literally 3m tentacles (:O) We had dinner where we parked for the night and watched the sunset. It was amazing. We sat up the top of the baot and talked for a while before going to bed. i had to share rooms with this israeli guy (who luckily the french people swapped rooms or i would have had to share a double bed with hiM!!!??) and slept pretty well..
Got up early and had brekkie. We went kayaking through these caves which was really nice before heading back to Halong City. We stood around for ages at the dock and it was so so hot. We were getting really angry bcos we had to wait about 2 hrs in total while they organised the stupid buses and argued. We squeezed in the back and the same crazy evil bus driver that Lizzie and Fran had the other day drove us back to Hanoi.
I raced back to the guesthouse, had a shower and went to the bus station for my Sapa trip! Had a bit of a stress out bcos i was the only non-vietnamese at the bus station! It was a crap loud quite uncomfortable journey and i arrived at 4am to Lao Cai. I had to wait before someone collected me then had to wait 2 hrs till the 2 trains arrived and i was chucked into some minibus and driven to Sapa. I was very nervous bcos i had no idea what this tour involved! eventually got to the sapa summit hotel and my trip was ready to go. I had a yum free breakfast and am now waiting to depart for the overnight trek!

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