Hello Vietnam- Hanoi, Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island

Well Vietnam definitely had its ups and downs during its first week. I was so happy to finally be in Hanoi after such a long journey to get there (10 hour bus ride followed by an hour walk in a city who's name I cannot and do not wish to remember, and then another 2 hour bus ride on a sleeper bus we just happened to stumble upon!) It was quite the journey though a fun one with fun people, I also did my first boarder crossing by land out here.

Hanoi was great and I liked it so much more than Bangkok. Its quite a large city and all the noises and people reminded me of home; though on a whole nother level of busy and crowded. The street there were crazy and I had a blast driving around on them with my new motorbike I bought from a fellow backpacker. The first few days were spent exploring, shopping, drinking and meeting new people. The hostel I was at offered free beer during certain parts of the day so I took advantage of that. It was a beer called Beer Hoi. Its very cheap as it is brewed fresh everyday and you have to drink it quick or it loses the alcohol. Im not quite sure how that works.

I had my first challenge and downside of Vietnam when my phone was stolen so that was very frusterating. I got a new one the next day but pictures were lost and it was just one more added expense. After that I was pretty ready to get out of Hanoi. Another big part of the city and the country is so many people try to rip you off and you must barter for everything. Even water at times! With all this it was time to move on to the next destination. It should have been an easy drive up to Halong Bay on the scooter yet we were unaware that we could not take the scooters on the main highway so we had to go off course. After about 1.5 hours I also lost my buddy and had to find my way to the bay myself. What should have been a 4 hour trip maximum turned out to be 7hrs and I stupidly did not eat and only drank 1.5 liters of water all day. When I finally did get food it did not agree with my stomach and I spent all of the next day in bed.

Upon my recovery we went on an overnight cruise on the bay which started out poorly but we made the most of it and ended up having quite a good time. We got to kayak, tour a cave, fish for squid and just enjoy the beauty around us. Once we got back from the cruise we got out stuff, loaded it on the bikes and caught the ferry to Cat Ba Island. Here was another beautiful place and I met up with a Hungarian girl I had met in Laos. Its always fun when you see old travel buddies and get to meet up again. Cat Ba City was a small city so we saw it all very quickly. One of the coolest things I did was deep sea solo climbing. This means you free climb (no ropes) up the rock face and just jump off into the waters below. It was such a great time, but it was a lot more intimidating than cliff jumping. Unfortunately that night I had some bad beef and once again was stuck in bed all of the next day. Luckily for me the Hungarian girl put on her mommy mode and got me snacks and water and helped me with my recovery. Because of this I was unable to explore the island further but what can ya do? Gotta stay healthy. The next day it was time to go. I drove away to my next location after taking 2 ferries back to the mainland. It was quite fun.

Laos in a Nutshell

Plain of Jars Site 1

It is becoming that time in the trip where it is harder and harder to be aware of the world around you. As you can see I am behind on this blog, I have not been able to keep up with TV shows back home and did not even know the NBA finals were going on. Therefore I am going to make this one quick.

After Luang Prabang and meeting some great people I went down south to a city called Vang Vieng. This is known as quite a bit of a party city yet I was able to get my fair share of other activities cone as well. We went tubing down the river, visited some caves and a place called the Blue Lagoon. They had a rocket festival which brought in the rains to begin the rainy season (it actually did start raining the next day). I got to finally rock climb which i had missed so much so that was absolutely wonderful. Because we were so active, and sometimes had a little too much free whisky (yes FREE whiskey) we had a few rest days in there as well.

Upon leaving Vang Vieng we traveled to the central part of the country where i learned much about the effects on the Vietnam war on Laos. They were heavily bombed for many many years and they are still having repercussions from that today. I wrote a long facebook post about it which you can go check out. I don't remember all the city names but we went to a place that has the Field of Jars which was a major war zone area.
 It was a bus ride from hell getting there and I do not suggest anyone takes a bus in Laos ever again. The next place we went to we took a bus as well yet after 1 hr of driving in circles the bus mysteriously broke down and we were dropped off on some dirt road outside of town. We had to wait another 7 hours until the next bus. I was very angry about this but it ended up being okay because this is when i learned a lot more about the hardships the Lao people still face today from unexploded bombs. When we finally got on the bus to go to a place where people lived in caves for 9 years to escape the bombings it was another bus ride form hell. So long and you cant sleep from the bus jumping up and down constantly on these shitty ass roads. The caves were cool though not as much as we were hoping for.

Overall it was nice but if I had to do it again I would've stayed up North with another girl I had met while traveling. Her way seemed more fun and easier. We finally got to Vietnam but that was a struggle too though luckily the roads weren't bad so you could sleep a little bit. The bus took us to this smaller city in mid-east Vietnam and there was no bus station. No one could speak English and it was a struggle. We walked around with our heavy packs for about an hour until we saw a bus all lit up and asked if it was going to Hanoi. Luckily it was and we were able to catch a ride!

There is Laos in a nutshell