Eastbound: Northern Vietnam pt. 1

Current location: Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam

I crossed the border to Vietnam by bus, and even though I had overstayed my visa by one day, had zero problems. The guy at the border just shook his head, gave a big sigh, stamped me out and waved me onwards.
When I got out of the bus in Hanoi, I had no idea where I was, and was swarmed by taxi and motodrivers trying to get me to go with them. I'd heard stories about the taxis and motos who royally fuck bleary eyed travelers over, so I set off towards a small shop at a street corner to ask for directions. As I had had a moment of unprecedented foresight at the border, where I bought a Vietnamese SIM-card for my phone, I called my contact in Hanoi who had a brief conversation with the owner to find out where I was. As it turned out, I wasn't too far from where he lived, so I walked a couple of blocks to get rid of the pesky drivers at the bus stop and hailed a moto. After another brief phone call to Thong (the driver didn't speak English and I don't speak Vietnamese) to let the driver know where I wanted to go I hopped on the bike and was off.

The traffic in Hanoi was, if possible, even more hectic than that of any of the cities I visited in China. With seemingly no traffic rules what so ever, it's who dares wins, or more often, who has the biggest vehicle, or the biggest balls wins. Crossing the road requires a zen-like state of mind and total trust in the drivers of the billion or so motorbikes that are constantly coming at you.

I spent a couple of days in Hanoi, wandering about in the Old Quarter, riding random buses into random places, eating delicious Pho and Bun cha at street corner or alleyway "restaurants" and sitting at little coffee shops, sipping insanely strong Vietnamese coffee.

After a while the hectic buzz of Hanoi had my head spinning and I decided to do what most travelers do when they want to take a little breather and booked a tour to Ha Long Bay, an area in the Gulf of Tonkin with thousands of karst islands rising from the sea.

The bus took me and hand full of other travelers to Ha Long city, where we boarded a "junk", or a little ship with a sundeck, a restaurant and little double rooms for 16 people.

On the first day of the tour we went cave exploring, kayaking and swimming, before setting anchor next to Cat Ba island to have dinner, and then, as the guide explained in his broken English, to party and sing karaoke, or relax and turn in early.
It was obvious that the crew were expecting a crowd that wanted to party hard and drink themselves silly, but as the loud dance music in the restaurant was only driving all the people either on to the deck or in to their rooms, they soon switched to that oh so typical soundtrack of Asian love songs.

As a Finn, I find it funny, and a little weird I must say, to see grown men all over Asia howling along to these love songs, and playing them over and over and over again. (For reference see the map of the world by concentration of heavy metal bands.)

After spending the evening on the deck discussing national service in different countries with a German, a Russian and an Israeli, I retired to my room to listen to some Turmion Kätilöt and Stam1na to get those cheesy tunes out of my head before getting some sleep.

The next morning I woke up early, went for a swim in the rather strong current (I had to swim pretty hard just to stay next to the boat), and had some nice, strrrooong coffee as the crew prepared breakfast.

The second day of the tour consisted of climbing a mountain in the national park on Cat Ba island, riding a bus to Cat Ba town, lunch at the hotel, and nothing much else. We were a bit surprised, as we had been promised kayaking trips and turtles and what not, but apparently that would have cost us extra. I said fuck it, and feeling a bit butt-hurt, set of to explore the town on foot, while others rented scooters to take around the island.

On the third day we basically just got back to the mainland and hauled ass back to Hanoi.

While I did feel I'd been scammed, having been promised a lot more than I actually got, the trip wasn't unpleasant. The views were great and the activities of the first day were fun enough to make up for day two. But what that experience did do, was reinforce my dislike towards "tourist"-traveling (hordes of tourists being herded from point A to point B).

A slow day in the Old Quarter, next to Hoan Kiem lake.

St. Joshep's Cathedral.

These ladies prowl the streets, selling noodles,
vegetables, fruit, sweets and what not.

My daypack had had two gaping holes in it since Tokyo, and this old lady fixed them in no time using a sewing machine she'd probably been using since before any of us were even born.

The Vietnamese living in cities keep birds in cages in front of their shops and homes (which usually are the same thing). Dunno what for, maybe I should ask someone...