Sapa and the Halong Bay in the End

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After a short stay in a side street of Ha Noi and a stroll around the lake, we booked our trip to the mountains of Sapa. At the same day of booking we stepped on the night train (the luxury wooden cabin 😊). While waiting for the departure in the waiting hall, Thomas got all excited to watch a GERMAN Bundesliga football match BVB and Gladbach.

In our cabin we met Julie & Gary, a nice French-English couple which we spend the next 10 hours on the train and the next 2 days in Sapa.

We arrived Sapa at 5:30am - it was raining cats & dogs!! The visibility was bad and did't get better the whole trip. Actually we couldn't see more than 50m and on top of that it was COLD.

As the Minibus (which picked us up from the train station) arrived in front of our hotel (the Sapa Global Hotel - NEVER go there!!!) minimum 20 women surrounded the van and wanted to sell hand made stuff to us. While checking in the hotel they were waiting outside the entrance for us to come out. When we went for a small trek they were following us. We actually were surprised by their English - the hill tribes women could speak better English than the hotel manager.

The next day we went for a home stay in the rice field mountains. Getting there was extremely muddy, rainy, and foggy. We couldn't take postcards picture of the rice fields, the only one we got, was taken from a board entering the national park.

At actual home stay we didn't get a real home stay feeling, we slept with the family under one roof, but it was more or less like a overnight stay in a big dorm. Furthermore, we found a traditional game for hill tribes - a pool table. 😊

Once we got back to the hotel, we went to the safe luggage room and found our looked backpack without our laptop (this explains, why we haven't been able to update our blog lately). Of course that was an insight job of the hotel-staff. In this context we got to know something about the typical character of the Vietnamese people: unfriendly, unhelpful and striving to get the money of tourists - and the professionalism of the Vietnamese police: "we don't have time for you right now - come back tomorrow". Unfortunately, the behavior was confirmed the rest of our stay in Vietnam.

Nevertheless, we had a lovely time in Vietnam, on the island Cat Ba and the Ha Long Bay.

Departing from Sapa, we stopped in Ha Noi train station for an hour and right a way we took the train to Hai Phong and the speedboat to Cat Ba. At the harbor of Cat Ba we were welcomed from hotel owners and they offered us hotel rooms with air-con and sea-view for just 8 dollars. That was truly the price. We checked in a hotel room for only 7 dollars and enjoyed our first shower after 3 days.

After we explored the island with a motorbike and met Julie & Gary again (the couple we meet on the train to Sapa) and had dinner & cocktails with them.

The next day we went to the national park for a hike and in the afternoon also our friends Jule & Marc arrived from Ha Noi. So we had a nice evening with both couples. The same evening we decided to go with Jule & Marc on a private boat trip in the Halong Bay for 2 days, 1 night.

After a little hangover, we started the day with a breakfast on the boat and a spectacular view on the rocks. It was great: sunbathing, reading, kayaking, eating, drinking, relaxing, and playing cards under the starry sky.

We really enjoyed the days with our friends in the Halong Bay. It was worth going.

On Nikolaus, we decided to leave Vietnam for a new adventure in Laos.

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