Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
What a difference an hour makes....its cold and crazy in Vietnam. After an easy hour flight and an even easier skip through the border (even though our visa wasnt valid for another 4 hours) we arrived in Hanoi. Thank god we opted out of the 30 hours sleeper bus.
From the minute we stepped out of the airport we knew Vietnam was going to be a lot different to Laos, not only was it cold, it was hectic. Never before have I seen so many motorbikes on the road, and in all different directions. Men carrying luggage while driving, families of four all on one motorbike speeding down the road and the beeping is constant. The DVLA would have their work cut out here! Crossing the road warrants a small pray beforehand and even though they have zebra crossings, the tolerance of them is non-existent. Standing on the side of the road for a gap to cross is impossible, they simply don't wait, you just have to go for it and hope they swerve. Definitely makes crossing the road more exciting.
Due to time, we're having to speed up our visit to Vietnam so immediately booked onto a Halong Bay 2 day 1 night cruise for the following day. Halong Bay is the reason I (Alix) wanted to travel. It's been my work computer background for the last year and come rain or shine I had to get there. In our case it was rain but it was beautiful and totally worth it!
We set off at 8:30 for our 4 hour back breaking bus journey to Halong City. Back breaking because of the amount of pot holes in the road combined with a bus that had no suspension. They seriously need to get the council over there to sort them out! Our cruise boat was lovely and our cabin very cosy, especially as Nick our Aussie friend came along with us and shared a room. Why I let this happen I'll never know. two boys in a small cosy cabin.....interesting and smelly.
The first day we were given a traditional Vietnamese lunch and taken to Thien Long Cave which was nice, but, and I don't mean to sound uncultured here but once you've seen a few caves you've pretty much seen them all. So after a quick whip round and a few photos later we were ready to get back on the boat. From there it was further into Halong Bay (which is huge btw) we only covered a small fraction. It really was like a fairy tale though and the mist made it even more so.
The next day we were taken to the Dog Islet fishing village for some kayaking. After mine and Liams rowing disaster on the Thames we were a little unsure if we'd manage it but as it turns out, we were pretty good. The weather was better and the air clearer so we kayaked round the floating mountains and into some small caves for about an hour, again still in my element I just couldnt get enough of the views. It was incredible.
We continue our whistle stop tour of Vietnam tomorrow with a bus down to Hue, Hoi An and after a few days Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh. Liam and I have only packed clothes for the heat so travelling south better bring back the sunshine!!!
- comments
kevin newton it sounds amazing . roll on the sunshine hey . kev & lynn xx
Karen McDonald Nothing like making dreams come true and you're certainly doing that! Hope the sunshines for you soon when it does send some our way as we've had more snow and its freezing. The spring can't come soon enough xx