Our first trip alone. No-one else to take the responsibility. What's the first thing that happens? We miss the bus. Almost. Well we did but MJ being a legend drove like a bat-out-of-hell and caught up with it! Turns out I bought bus tickets to the wrong airport. Our plan: sit quietly and hope the driver doesn't know that we're supposed to get off at KLIA and not LCCT where the bus stops next. The plan worked!
The flight to Hanoi went pretty smoothly. But we were unprepared for the arrival: it was cold. We're not used to cold anymore. After a bit of asking and reading we found out that bus no.17 runs from round the corner of the airport to the city centre. So walking out of the airport, past heaps of taxi drivers all shouting "TAXI" we come to a dusty 4 lane road. Not going to lie we were both bricking it, so much so we pretended our rucksacs on our front(yeah thats right we went full tourist with the bag on the front!) were bulletproof vests. This bus was an old-school rickety, rusty affair, but it only cost 20,000dong (70p) for the hour to town. What an introduction to Vietnam though, the only foreigners on the bus, bouncing down a single track country road, and then the best radio ever: Jingle Bell Rock, in Malay! The first christmas song I'd heard and it was 23rd December. A bit of a wild goose chase round part of Hanoi trying to find the bus station and we run across the road to catch the bus to Haiphong as its still moving. A nice 2hr journey gave us the chance to watch some Vietnamese dramas on TV. Warning: NEVER EVER WATCH DRAMAS FROM SOUTH EAST ASIA, EXCESSIVE CRINGING WILL OCCUR!
Scam number 1 of Vietnam: throw the foreigners off the bus on a street corner. Scam number 2 of Vietnam: charge the foreigners three times normal fare for a taxi to the harbour. Arriving at the harbour we were ushered on to a hydrofoil boat before we could say "its not a mistake, its a lesson learned" (our motto for the trip!) Getting off the boat at our final destination, CatBa Island, Halong Bay, was incredible. Our room was on the harbour front with a beast view over the bay and all the limestone scenery.
Once we met and had a good catch up with the other PT'ers we decided Christmas eve would be spent on motorbikes (read scooters). I've been told vietnam is one of the worst places to learn to ride a bike, I can see why! No point using mirrors tooting the horn is how you let people know you're there! Therefore Vietnamese roads are very noisy. Please note: the best thing to do when you want to stop is not to panic and twist the accelerator more but to pull the brake, especially when in a petrol station! Once we had the hang of the bikes we were off down quiet roads, limestone cliffs covered in jungle towered over us. The beauty of the place made jaws drop further with every corner we turned. Stopping at a stall (someones house) to get some food we were entertained by local children showing off their slingshot skills. All was going well, we took the coastal road back, saw the sunset over a bay, until almost simultaneously we find out the road ahead is shut, I don't have enough petrol to get back to the town the long way and Rianne gets a puncture! Luckily we had passed the only garage we'd seen since leaving the town 100m down the road. Rianne gets the puncture fixed, I buy some petrol in a bottle and we're on our way! Slow is the aim of the game as by now its dark, I have no rear brake light, Rianne can't see well in the dark and Vietnamese roads are pretty pot-holey! I am glad this series of unfortunate events happened though, otherwise I wouldn't have seen the silhouettes of the karst, with a clear sky, full moon and hundreds of stars. Hard to keep your eyes on the road. Felt like I was standing in a picture from National Geographic. Beautiful! Of course then came Scam number 3 of Vietnam: accuse the foreigners of breaking the bike. We didn't!
The next day saw us having a "beach christmas", no it wasn't hot (I wore my woolly bobble hat) and we didn't have a BBQ however we built some sand-men, went paddling/swimming, sung christmas songs, said merry christmas to everyone we saw and had a traditional christmas dinner of pizza or cheeseburger finished off with a few drinks and games of pool! Secret santa was also pulled, gifts included starfish, ibuprofen, a bong, flip flops and a farmers hat!
Boxing day we took a Junk boat tour of Lan Ha Bay consisting of cruising, kayaking into caves and under arches into lagoons, lunch on the boat (exceedingly good considering it was cooked on one stove on the boat), and playing card games with some germans!
On to the capital city Hanoi next, expecting to stay in a dingy hostel in a backstreet so it was a very pleasant surprise to be staying in SE Asia's best hostel! Full of westerners, a bar downstairs, pool and free wifi, but right in the heart of old Hanoi! Hanoi is an amazing city, huge markets of the most colourful foods and textiles you have ever seen. There appears to be a different street designated to a different item, eg one street would be filled solely by shoes (get it?!), knock-off fakes of course! Lunch one day was at a local cafe in a narrow street, we sat on hobbit sized chairs with a hobbit sized table and ordered food which for all we know could have been hobbit! There was an old bicycle sitting on the opposite wall and chickens running round our feet, again it felt like I was part of a National Geographic photo! Alistair and myself were up at 5am to catch our flight back to KL, may have been wiser to take less advantage of the cheap beers the night before but hey ho!
Chao for now! I'll be back soon with contents including: New Year, Cameron Highlands cycling trip, Final Trek staff training expedition and Thaipuasm, possibly the most bizarre religious festival out there!
