Vietnam, Part 2!

So we made it to Halong bay, and conveniently it was also Jayes birthday. We had organised with the hotel to book a tour around halong bay, not knowing how it all works. If you were wiser about it then you'd just go down to the wharf in the morning and pick someone waiting around as they have signs up detailing routes and costs. I think we overpaid slightly, but still, what we got was an entire boat to ourselves, and the three crew.

Racing some other boats out. It was actually quite slow, and very calm.

Our own private boat. We weren't allowed up here when they were docking.

Panorama of the bay.

The route was supposed to go via four stops, or four things that required the ticket. There were two caves at the first stop, Thien Cung Grotto and Dau Go Cave.

The bay. Lots of construction here to cope with more tourists I guess.

Happy birthday Jaye! You're in Vietnam!

Inside the cave.

People throwing money into bits of the cave.

Best cave photo, and my new background!

More cave. Notice the two people sitting in the middle with computers and printers... Yes, even inside you can get your photo taken for a price.

A geyser in the cave.

HDR Cave

After the colourful cave we were directed past a turn with the name of the second item on the ticket, so I'm not sure if we missed out there. I wanted to see more caves. Caves are awesome. It was back on the boat to our next mystery destination.

Through this gap...

More gap.

Floating fishing village.

The boat stopped next to one of the floating houses. We didn't really know what was going on. The plan was that we were stopped here to buy some fresh seafood which they will cook on the boat for us. No one was that hungry and we weren't really prepared for it. They offered a big fish for $30, expensive I think, but cheaper than I'd seen in my travels for a fish like that. There were various other seafood items available too.

More seafood! We ended up with $10 worth of the Sea Mantis which are in the lower right there. Ended up being about 20 of the things.

Trying again to sell the fish. They knocked the price down to $15, but no one was really that hungry. Our guide was bargaining for us, but I'm sure they get a cut. When we were back on the boat the guide exchanged money with the fishermen, not sure if they were getting or giving money.

Then it was back on the boat for more floating around cliffs. They cooked the Sea Mantis for us which we then ate while enjoying the view and wondering what was going to happen next. Because we didn't know how to eat these things the guide helped us by cutting them open to get at their tasty insides. Probably got ripped off, but for $10 it was an odd experience!

Leaving the fishing village.

More cliffs

Cock fighting island? I think that's what it's called.

After we finishing eating we noticed we were heading back to Halong City. We thought there might have been a bit more to do as a few things were stamped on the ticket yet.

They came on board and tried to sell fruit.

Boats in the bay. Ours looked like that.

Then once we were ashore we wandered back along the coast to find something more substantial to eat. After lunch two, Jaye and I headed up towards the big bridge to look around, and Voula headed back to Hanoi as there were some more things there she wanted to do there.

The bridge!

Random filming on the beach.

Beer on the beach.

The view from the beach.

The next day it was time to head back to Hanoi. We caught a 12:30 bus back which was eventful. In one of the towns the driver got caught speeding, so we had to turn around and go back to where the police were sitting. After about twenty minutes we set off again, but then suddenly we turned around again... We ended up back at the police again because the driver had left his licence there...

Along the way we made a scheduled stop at some tourist trap souvenir shop.

Apparently some people are proud to show off what they bought here...

Everyone was finished looking and waiting to go again.

When we got back on the bus I there was water spay through it. They had washed the bus while we were inside and my bag was on the floor soaking up some water. Luckily just the laptop case was wet, everything seemed OK.

Once we got back to Hanoi we stayed in an awesome hotel and got upgraded to the super special rooms. The nicest place I've stayed in while travelling. You can gauge this by how wet the bathroom floor gets after showering. In the morning we had breakfast made in front of us by a bored looking cook, then it was time to pack, and head to the airport for our respective flights.

Here's a few things I saw from the taxi window:

Balls.

Overloaded bike, pipe.

There are lots of these things.

Interesting cargo.

And the number one best photo from Vietnam that I took.

Jaye and Voula were off at 1pm. I had organised my flight for an hour after that when I booked, but with this being Lao airlines they had moved the flight to 5:30. So I hung out for a lonnnnnggggg boring time waiting to get a ticket so I could at least access the area to wander around duty free. At least it was one of the brand new A320s from Lao Airlines and not the smaller propeller types.

And that was it for Vietnam. Hanoi is crazy busy and noisy, Danang is probably great in summer and being developed along China Beach, Halong bay is awesome but requires more knowledge of the routes.

When I got back into Laos I used my freshly acquired US$'s to pay for the visa, but apparently the notes were not "new" enough... I used one of the $100 notes I had got beforehand and that was ok for them, then they handed my change and I went downstairs to try and change that into Lao Kip, but of course, the change was not "new" enough for them either... Thanks for giving me money that even you wouldn't accept. Great. I had a whole bunch of US$'s that were now useless. I think I can use them while in Vientiane, so I might try and get rid of them that way.

Vietnam part 1!

My Lao Airlines flight had been changed to later in the afternoon, and now that I've checked my flight back has also been pushed later. There wasn't a way for me to check on the flight until I got to the airport but it looks like all the schedules have changed on the 1st of January. There was no notification about this, so I just had to wait for three more hours in the airport. I wasted time at the West Coast restaurant in the airport, which has the same logo as the West Coast Eagles, I should get a photo next time I go through. Oh, and the Tuk Tuk driver ripped me off of course, welcome to the world of not having your own transport.

Then there was the simple process of going through immigration, no one was at customs, and then trying to find where to get my next flight to Danang. That flight was delayed about an hour, but it was still scheduled for the same time at least. Then everyone crowds the gate to get on the plane the quickest, but you get loaded onto a bus first which takes you over to the plane which is parked away from the terminal.

Finallay, Danang! It looks like this:

Rough seas today...

Cloudy.

I was staying in a hotel near the beach, but in a very isolated part of Bac My An beach. I'm not sure where "China Beach" starts or ends, but I guess it's resort area which was about 1km south of there. There is a lot of construction going on around the place so there will be hundreds of hotels there soon.

And then Jaye and Voula arrived after their tour through Vietnam, and along with another hotel guest, James, we started exploring this strange town. First stop, Han Market:

Most of the packaged food stalls. Upstairs was clothing and shoes, and  towards the back was the fresh food and fish stalls.

Candy!

Vegetables, boo!

The traffic just outside the market. It's bikes everywhere here. Everywhere.

Panorama of the river.

After the markets Voula had stopped at a stall to buy some cards, but then I noticed afterwards that the lady in the stall was getting her blood pressure checked. I decided to hang around and get mine checked too by the crazy Vietnamese street doctor!

She said it was 120/70, which is normal... Then I wondered about her qualifications. 

Some of the items the in the stall that lady was selling. I thought it "Exciting water" due to the picture (which I pixelated for those at work :D), until James pointed out that it was actually Exiting, now I don't know what it's for.

Weird shop names.

Traffic at one intersection.

Moments later...

Bikes bikes bikes.

Bridge bikes. Jaye, Voula and James over there on the left.

Then finally it was time to head back to Hanoi so we could travel to Halong Bay. Inside the airport we found this:

Why is this here? In Danang Airport?

Blue Sky Brewery is a brewery in Cairns. They're the ones that gave me food poisoning when I was in Cairns last time and vowed never to go back (and now this is a search result for this particular outlet, it's not a review). I guess I didn't break that rule because I didn't go back to the Cairns one, but I did need some beer that wasn't from south east asia.

We arrived in Hanoi quite late, I got to my hotel at midnight which was just down the road from Jaye and Voula's more expensive hotel. They said their toilets were smelly, mine just smelled of clean (before I used it). I won the hotel challenge with a cheaper non smelly hotel, and with a better included breakfast.

In the morning we wandered round Hanoi's Old Quarter to have a look at the sights, while avoiding getting run over. I didn't take too many photos along the way, but here are some:

Selling Oranges from a bike. Note the exceptional focus in this photo...

Pansy coffe! Obviously, I could not enter because I am not a pansy.

Another variety of people trying to sell you things.

Dong Xuan Market. This was busy with small little isles. You had to push through, I managed to get a few elbows into the backs of people after being annoyed at all the shoving.

Part of the famous little bridge on Hoan Kiem Lake.

Because the other half had a tarp over it...

And then it was time to get into the car we hired to take us to Halong bay. The hotel told us about two to three hours to get out there but it ended up taking four, and everyone was quite annoyed with sitting in a car for that long. Once we got to Halong city we had a hotel we were going to try, but it was all locked up and the lights were off as we arrived, but then they started opening it all up as soon as we got out. We seem to be the only people staying here! I have a view of the bay outside my window, but it's very cloudy still. Hopefully the weather clears up later as we're going on a boat trip around the islands later.

More photos later...