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I caught a bus from Luang Prabang to Vinh in Vietnam since I felt I was least likely to get ripped off but it turns out things would have been much easier if I'd caught the Hanoi bus since it was a direct bus, not a ticket deal involving bus changes. We left about an hour late and started the slow and windy road East. I actually think this road is worse than the ones further north, but it was a fancy expensive sleeper bus, only half full, and no-one was vomiting. You also get your very own bed which makes sleeping a little easier. We arrived at the Vietnamese border just before 6am and sat around for 2 hours waiting for it to open. When it finally did, it was the most epic border crossing I've been through so far. There were 2 bus loads of people going through and the Vietnamese officials seemed to be doing background checks on everyone or something - and processed all the passports at once and gave them all back together instead of doing one at a time. Once this was over, we were back on the bus and didn't stop for toilet or
food again until midday by which point I'd barely eaten in 24 hours. We were taken to a padang style restaurant where everything was either raw or meat so I just sat at a table and pretended to not be hungry.
We arrived at a town at the fork of the road - Hanoi was North and Vinh was South so I got off and hopped on a local mini bus going North. A man from the bus I was on from Laos told me it should cost 100 dong to Ninh Binh but the driver was asking for 200. Another girl (from Hanoi) also got on this bus and only paid 120 to get to Hanoi but the driver and his sidekick conductor still argued with me for a good 5 minutes before realising I wasn't going to pay more than 100. After this I spent the whole bus trip paranoid they would demand more money or dump me in the middle of nowhere. They didn't, but they did pack on at least twice the amount of people the bus was designed for which made for a very uncomfortable 5 hours sharing a seat with 2 other people.
When we drove through towns we had to close the curtains on the windows and people in the front had to duck to avoid being pulled over by the police. We got busted once and the police were chasing us down blowing their whistles but the driver just ignored them and sped off! The highway was insane and our driver was completely psychotic. Driving in SE Asia is pretty dodgy but this was the first time I really thought we were going to have (several) serious head on collisions. I thought this must just be what bus rides are like in Vietnam but the girl from my other bus told me it was the worst bus trip in her life. It was the day after labour day which is apparently why there was even more traffic than usual and so many people trying to get back to Hanoi. We arrived in Ninh Binh around 6:30, just as it was getting dark and I get my luggage (minus my bags rain cover which they somehow managed to loose), and find a random hotel. I hadn't had a shower or even had the opportunity to get changed after the trek so I
was feeling pretty disgusting by this point and paid extra for my own room with a bathroom. I finally got around to washing my clothes which needed an unbelievable amount of water changes before it stopped turning instantly brown.
I went to Ninh Binh to see Tam Coc which is a 10km bike ride away, part of which was on the highway. Eeeeek! I got there earlyish in the morning so there were virtually no other tourists around and I went on the 2 hour boat trip up and down the river which also goes through a few caves. It's pretty amazing, especially because your in a row boat, not a motor boat so no guilty conscience and no noise. They call it 'Halong Bay in the rice fields' which sums it up pretty well with huge rock formations popping up in the middle of a massive sea of rice paddies. Both the sellers in other boats with their fruit and coke as well as my own boat driver who pulled over to the bank at one point and tried to make me buy souvineers she had stashed in a bag are pretty insistent but as long as you
keep repeating ‘no thankyou’ they do stop...eventually. After the boat ride I rode around the area and through some bizarre concrete ‘villages’. Every house is a plain square of grey concrete surrounded by concrete walls/fences that run down to the narrow concrete alleys. What is this? Vietnams attempt at Soviet architecture to prove its status as a communist country while everything else screams capitalism?
I also went to Moa Cave - actually I didn't go to the cave, I just walked up to the top of the cliff for the amazing views. This was actually much better that the boat trip in terms of scenery and cheaper, although still not free of course. I spent the rest of the afternoon cruising around the town and highway on my rickety bike which turned out to be quite fun in a masochistic kind of way. I also found a supermarket which didn't have any muesli but did have a large selection of fake meat including vegan 'gizzards' and vegan 'pigs ears'. mmm yummo!
I caight an early morning bus to Haiphong where hydrofoils leave for Cat Ba island which is where you go to see Halong Bay without haviong to
book a tour from Hanoi. I met a Czech couple on the bus and we tried to buy ferry tickets at the port. I'd done some research the night before so I knew the ticket should be around 70 000 VND and that places further from the ferry terminal charged tourists 200 000 for the same thing. Despite knowing this we couldn't find anywhere that would sell us a ticket for less that 200 000 and an annoying woman followed us around and probably threatened the other agents to also ask for the same price. She told us it was for the fast boat and in the end we gave in and bought a ticket from her. It was of course a ticket for the slow boat but I didn't feel cheated since I already suspected this and knew we were being ripped off the whole time. The boat ride took about 4 hours, 2 of which were spent just getting out of the harbour. The fast boats are a bus-boat-bus deal that take you way out of town close to the actual ocean, move much faster, and land on the other side of Cat Ba island. All of this
takes about 2 hours as I learnt on my return trip, We also found out that with this deal,you can get all the way to Hanoi for the same price (and time) we spent just getting from Haiphong to Cat Ba.
On the boat we met a Brazilian man who was strange, a little annoying, but nice and funny. He didn't like wearing a shirt and some of the Vietnamese guys kept trying to touch his man boobs and belly. Cat Ba town is revolting - the boat ride goes past the uninhabited craggy coastline and then all of a sudden more and more highrise hotels pop around the corner. We met up for dinner and arranged a boat trip for the following day. We payed quite abit more than our hotel was offering for a similar trip but there are so many stories of bad experiences so we went to a company that had good reviews on other peoples blogs. The weather wasn't great - it was cloudy the whole day and rained a little in the morning when we first left. The boat goes through a floating fishing village then made it's way to Lan Ha bay.
We stopped in one area to go snorkelling but this was terrible and noone should get excited about the snorkelling option on a Halong Bay cruise. The water is murky and very polluted, there are no fish, and the any coral you may see is dead. It was also very cold and the mask leaked badly.
After this we pulled into a floating house in Lan Ha bay and went kayaking. This was nice but the kayaks were shit and it was impossible to paddle straight which was really frustrating. We had lunch on the boat while still anchored to the floating house before leaving for Monkey island. We decided to skip Halong Bay since it would make the day very rushed and Halong Bay is supposedly much the same as Lan Ha, only with a hell of a lot more tourist boats. Monkey island has some evil monekys on it and also a walk you can do for some nice views. We went swimming one last time, this time it was alot of fun and not nearly as cold, then headed back. We went hiking in the national park the next day which was ruined abit by annoying
moto drivers and other people. We were going to take the local bus but missed it since the driver said he didn't know if he was going to the national park and we got so many different stories about when the bus actually leaves so we didn't know what was going on. The Brazillian guy insisted on paying for a car to take us, wait for him, and take him back earlier since he had a bus to catch in the afternoon. We eventually let him do this but on arriving, the driver says he will only wait for 1 hour, otherwise it will cost more. This made the Brazillian guy stressed and in a bag mood and he sped off without waiting for us. The only walk we could really do was one up to the top of a hill which has nice views, although most was obscured by the fog. It was a nice walk and took about 2 hours.
Since there wan't much else to do we decided to go back to town also but the driver decided this was going to cost an extra 200 000 so we said fuck you and walked back. We
took the shorter road which is 10km to Cat Ba town but I think it was more like 12. The first part of the walk, still within the national park, was nice and we passed alot of caves that tours will visit. Luckily the Czech couple had also travelled through Laos so were just as over caves as me and we didn't stop for any of them. About half way I thought we had walked into a quarry, but it was just the road 'under construction' and we were dodging giant machines shovelling boulders into the back of trucks and hoping none of the bits of cliff falling from above where tens of Vietnamese were drilling into the mountain with jackhammers would fall on our heads. It was also increabibly loud and dusty. I said goodbye to the Czech couple that night but maybe I will see them again in China as they are probably taking the same route as me. I caught a bus-boat-bus deal to Hanoi which went fine other than having to wait an hour in Haiphong while a million buses (but not the right one for me apparently) heading to Hanoi passed by.
Hanoi is
busy, stressful, loud, and very hot! I spent the afternoon doing practical things like buying a train ticket and hunting down some muesli then I just wandered the streets of the historic old quarter aimlessly. I went to several markets the next day, none of which were very good and also to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the presidential gardens where I took a peaceful walk with 10 000 other people. It would seem that paying your respects to old Ho is a very popular Sunday outing for Hanoi families. I spent alot of time trying to find a bookshop to swap my SE Asia lonely planet for a China one. Good old LP had the bookshop maked a good 5km from where it actually is, on the other side of town. The book shops/exchanges are overpriced and offer bad swapping deals so I eventually found a hostel where I swapped it for free, but the China LP is a copy so the maps suck. I saw a water puppetry show in the evening which was cute and I got it for free from a girl at the entrance whose friends were too hungover to go but they'de already
bought tickets.
I caught the day train to Sapa which was actually more uncomfortable than most bus rides I've had. It was loud, there were small children screaming their heads off, and the guy I sat next to tricked me into thinking I was in the wrong seat and made me move to the one infront – next on a man who also took up half of my new seat, had bad breath, and left all his smelly food scraps on what was now my fold up table. Gross. When I got to Lao Cai I teamed up with the other 3 foreigners on the train, all trying to catch a bus up to Sapa. The price should be around 30 000 VND but the minivans were asking as high as 400 000. Eventually, after walking towards a hotel planning on catching a regular bus in the morning a taxi took us for 100 000 each. It's still a lot more than we should have had to pay but for a taxi it's reasonable. Once there, I tried to find out about trekking. I didn't want to do the standard trek offered since there's no limit on numbers and
I've heard stories of 20 people per group. This hike is also very easy, walking down rather than up the mountain. Again, being on my own I couldn't do any other hike other than this and since guided treks in SE Asia tend to leave me underwalked and overfed I decided to just do my own walks which I found out was possible from the people I sat with for dinner – an Australian couple.
I walked up to Ham Rong mountain which is a very short climb straight from the town center. It's actually called Ham Rong resort area so its not a hike by any means. It was bucketing down, I got drenched and discovered that my waterproof shoes are most definitely not waterproof. The weather also meant you could see nothing but a thick curtain of fog from the top. I went and saw the traditional music and dance show which is included in the entry fee and during this time it stopped raining and cleared up and I redid the whole area to see the views. It was too late to start one of the longer walks I knew about so I wandered round the
streets, got hassled by the hordes of Hmong women trying to sell you things, and hiding from them in my hotel room when it got too much.
The next morning it rained again and I decided to wait it out this time. Unfortunately this time it rained for almost half the day. I found out on the internet that I got a scholarship for Cambridge so I spent a long time trying to find a place that could print (the acceptance form). The email I got was a reminder so the original offer had been dutifully placed in my spam folder. Thankyou yahoo for trying to filter out my future. After this and an epic post office visit it was too late to do the long walk to Tram Ton pass so I just did the short walk to Cat Cat village which is more like a strip of stalls selling souvenirs than a village but it was a nice walk. I managed to swap the fake China LP I'd swapped my SE Asia one for in Hanoi for an original (with another book plus a small price) so I accomplished something that day at least. Sapa and the
surrounding mountains are really beautiful but the Hmong women who follow you everywhere you go, swapping between asking you a standard set of questions about yourself and your family, and nagging at you to 'buy somesing from meee' kind of ruin it and drive you to spend more time in your hotel room than you would like. They do all wear there traditional clothes which is pretty cool but I have a feeling this is only for the sake of the tourists.
Its a shame that people, mainly within tourism, but basically anyone selling anything, treat foreigners the way they do because its not always worth the hassel and I wouldn't go around reccommending Vietnam or be in a rush to come back myself. I've heard it has the lowest return rate of visitors out of any country in the world and I understand why. I left the country feeling abused, insulted, and descriminated against. The scenery is often more beautiful that Laos and Cambodia and I met some really lovely regular people but you just can't enjoy yourself too much when your constantly being overcharged (alot) and treated like shit.
I left the next morning down the
mountain by minibus then to the Chinese border by motorbike. I thought leaving SE Asia meant leaving behind bargaining and overcharging but I hear China can actually be just as bad on this front. On a positive note, Vietnam has toughened me up and I'm a much harder bargainer than I was 2 weeks ago.
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Penny Yates
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CONGRATULATIONS
CONGRATULATIONS MADELEINE ON GETTING THAT SCHOLARSHIP FOR CAMBRIDGE :) Bloody Brilliant !!