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Published: November 9th 2010
Well, we waited for a break in the weather and it didn't happen. Instead we were subjected to flash floods and soggy feet. We'd heard along the travellers grape vine that there had been trouble with some coaches being washed off the roads and landslides making the roads and rail tracks impassable. So, weighing up everything we decided to catch a flight to Hanoi and miss out middle Vietnam. We weren’t able to fly for a few days as there was a problem with the road to the airport.
It wasn't until the next day, where our driver picked us up half an hour early, that we saw what had actually happened. The right hand side of the road had suffered from severe damage caused by rocks, mud and vegetation falling from the steep cliffs the road had been cut out of. We had to drive on the wrong side of the road and after seeing at least a dozen piles of boulders and such, it made us quite wary during the journey.
Thankfully we made it in one piece, had a pleasant flight up to Hanoi and checked in to a hostel on a busy busy street. After
eight days stuck in a hotel room (leaving only to swim to get food) Hanoi was quite a shock to the senses with a barrage of bikes, cars, cyclos, horns, people going in every direction, food smells, incense sticks, 'buy this' and 'buy that'. The only thing to do was to find a bar with a view of the street, order a beer and try to absorb and make sense of what's going on.
After some thought (and a couple of beers) we booked ourselves on a cruise of Halong Bay (one night and two days) for 8 o’clock the next morning. Being a bit nervous of how our accommodation would be, we were both over the moon when we checked in to the boat. We had a lovely double bed with posh en-suite, two big windows with views over the bay (the views changed, obviously). The food was amazing, the company was a riot and the activities were fun. In fact after finding out the rest of the boat had booked two nights, we extended our stay to join them for a night on Cat Ba Island. We went kayaking, swimming, visited some cool caves, we sung, danced,
played musical chairs(!), climbed a massive peak, drank a cocktail or two, played pool and generally had a fantastic time.
After a thoroughly fun but exhausting three days we're now back in Hanoi where the beeping of the horns and the bikes continue to buzz along the street outside. Funnily enough people stare more here than in the rest of the country, I imagine that's going to happen a lot more in the next couple of countries we're going to go.
Thinking of you all and wishing you were here.
Lots of love
S&S
xxxXxxxXxxx
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The start of the great escape
Soody
non-member comment
Halong Bay looks A-MA-ZING! Good to hear you survived the crazy rains guys...a case of bad timing I guess x