Advertisement
The wireless in our new hotel doesn’t quite reach us on the sixth floor so we’ve had to wait to update at a cafe with wifi.
Day 1: Adventures to Cat Ba
Alarm mishap - around 630 am I started to get the feeling that we missed our 520am alarm... so we didn’t get to take the 2nd earliest bus out to Cat Ba. We decided that since we were still up early to go look for this place that we could book the tickets at instead of trying to at the bus station that supposedly spoke no English. This other place ran the same company but it was better for foreigners to book their ticket there. Crossing streets is like playing frogger with our lives, crossing a freeway of bikes and scooters by just walking straight through the middle of it because it is never ending AND that’s what the locals do- sometimes we wait for a local when we really think we are going to die and cross when they do, mirroring their every step, using them like a body shield. After crossing two of these freeways we arrived at our destination at 8:02am... the place was
supposed to be open at 8am.... Nobody around - nothing happening at all on the inside - locks and cages and curtains pulled on the doors. We spared all the time we could waiting for anyone and decided to take back off... instead we headed to the train station to book our tickets from Hanoi to Danang a couple days time - a very difficult task considering lonely planet claims that you should be able to get tickets the day that you want to leave but it’s best to reserve a couple days in advance. Three days early seemed to be a challenge for our lady - no trains, no seats, etc, she kept telling us. So we decided to extend our trip out to Cat Ba by an extra night and take the slow shitty train in what we think may be a car for foreigners considering our tickets say class: foreigner right on it! We scrambled to the bus station shortly afterward to grab tickets to Cat Ba for 11:20am without any language problems at all and headed back to the hotel to pack and get back to the bus station. We were definitely scrambling to grab something
to eat before our 5 hours bus-boat-bus trip as well as pack, check out and get back there. Arriving back at 11:15am... we ran through the bus station and approached the first Hoang Long worker we saw there - Cat Ba that way he said and as we took off that way we were stopped by 3 others saying it was already gone. DAMMIT!
So we go back inside... thinking we got scammed like always.... then back outside just in case it is still there.... and then the guys that originally were trying to tell us stuff took us to the desk and wrote stuff down on the paper telling us that we can take the 1:20pm bus.... well we wouldn’t have been in such a crazy rush if we had just made that plan in the first place!! But we wanted to be out there earlier because we still did not have a hotel booked and we didn’t want to be wandering around the island all night with our packs on! So we hung out in the bus station for a couple hours and around 1pm we headed out to the same spot that we had missed the
bus earlier. While we were waiting: a Vietnamese guy to me: pushes my backpack and mumbles “d;fkasfj;aj” something I don’t understand and walks away, me to Binnson “what the eff was that about?”, Binnson “I don’t know, not like we understood that”, me to Binnson, “okay I guess we’ll just keep standing here then”, bus launches forward at me and lays on his ear destroying horn, Binns grabs me and I jump out of the way, me to Binns, “guess that was what that guy was trying to tell me”, Binns to me, “yeah you’re going to get run over”.
Luckily we had this little French family that were also trying to figure out how to get to Cat Ba from Hanoi. So we tried to look out for each other conveying any English understanding either of us got from anyone. We all rushed on to the bus at 1:05pm and it took off out of the parking lot at 1:07pm. So the trick is to be there 2 hours early... The bus is only there for a quick moment in time and if you miss it you’re screwed. We bussed it to Haiphong then boated it to the
island where we took another bus to Cat Ba Town.
We started walking around looking for the hotels in the lonely planet book including one that had us completely lost and walking kilometers too far because it had changed its name recently. We had been sweating ourselves to death for the last 5 hours because in the +50 weather (with the humidity) the AC wasn’t doing so well in the vehicles - the company settling for driving with the doors and windows open. We were dying for something to drink and working AC. Finally we settled on a hotel that cost 10 USD a night in the harbour with a sweet view from the balcony at night. We struggled to work the AC but eventually changed rooms to the floor higher to get a semi-working one. It’s definitely a work out climbing 6 stories with our packs on... or even without because of the heat!
Finally after showering, we went for dinner and a walk around the busy harbour. Back at the hotel, I fell asleep in like a second while Binnson stayed awake trying to kill a big bug in our room. I was too tired to
help, I just told him to not let it eat me and passed back out as he jumped around the room with shoes on his hands. He later referred to it as ‘the large red flying animal bug’.
Day 2 and 3 were spent relaxing on the beach and figuring out the schedule for our next move. We will take a 5 hour bus-boat-bus combo back to Hanoi and then board the sleeper train for our 20 hour ride to Hoi An... where we will update from next!
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to follow us around Asia and leave comments on our blog! We miss you!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.061s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0363s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Amanda
non-member comment
It's like a comedy of err's you should have a camera crew following you around... even better an MTV reality tv show. I'd watch!! Nice pics. Take care.