All over the place (Northern Vietnam)

I begrudgingly admit that I might be suffering from mild burn out. The constant loud honking of motorbike horns, the long bus and train rides, and the constant struggle not to get ripped off are starting to get to me.

After arriving in Hanoi in the early morning, things have been less than ideal. Ok, well, the free shot of liquor with our noodle soup breakfast might have been a positive. We walked around looking for coffee but only found peculiar setups. Every other spot on the sidewalk was a little table covered with a few canned beverages, gum, and other miscellaneous items. Around the tables were men (sitting in mini-chairs) drinking either tea or beer and smoking out of something that looked like a bong. We concluded that it was probably just tobacco, but were confused about the extravagant smoking method.

Not having slept well the night before, we motivated for the last part of our mission: Get to Cat Ba island and go climbing in Halong Bay. We took a train to Hai Phong only to find out that we missed the 12:30pm (last) ferry. We didn't want to pay 3 times the price for a chartered boat so we decided to just spend the night in Haiphong.

Once again, there were no cheap options. So we settled on a place for 150,000 dong. It included hot water (for tea), tea, a tea set, towels, and a blanket. Yes, standards for hotels are higher in vietnam but so are the prices. I think we even had toilet paper. It was in Haiphong where we learned that Northern Vietnam is more expensive and the people are more focused on money.

The next day, we caught the ferry. I am still unable to comprehend how the boat took almost 3 hours to cover 40 kilometers, but somehow it did. We had to stop unexpectedly to rescue some people from another boat. I think that their boat sank (evidenced by the fact that only the very top was visible above water) but they were originally rescued by a tanker (the people were dry so we assumed that they were rescued quickly). The tanker was not going back to land anytime soon so the people jumped on our boat to get back and get sorted out. Sometimes you just have to fill in the pieces for entertainment value.

Cat Ba island was grey, rainy, and chilly the whole time we were there which is a negative side effect of visiting it in the low season. We did manage to score a room for $4/night though with a window/balcony overlooking the bay. Our climbing plans and motorbiking around the island plans were foiled by a) the rain and b) me being sick. It was really frustrating to try and find food that had any sort of nutritional value. Normally subsisting on pho and random snacks would be ok, but after a total system purge, I needed a little more...

After 2 nights, we decided to just cut our losses and head to Hanoi for a day and then leave Vietnam. Done, Done, and done.