Hanoi and Ha Long Bay

G’day all,
Well today is my last day in Vietnam as I’m catching a lovely 22 hour bus ride to Laos tonight so yeah I can’t wait for that. The train ride up to Hanoi was kind of cool because for once I got to lay down for 2 days and sleep rather than sit upright on a bus seat. I got the cheapest bed I could manage and saved 20 bucks but it meant being thrown down the back of the train into the refugee section rather than with my mates in their soft bed 4-bed rooms. It was a little hard trying to speak English to my new Vietnamese mates but we all smiled at each other and did nose laughs for the 40 hour train ride so that got awkward after the first 2 hours. I arrived in Hanoi at 4:45am and it was pissing down with rain and I had no Lonely Planet and no accommodation. I got ripped off by a taxi driver who promised me cheap accommodation and ended up dumping me if front of this guest house in the middle of the night which also tried to rip me off. They tried to make me pay for that night (4hrs until checkout) and the next one for $20 US and I had a little argument for a good 20 mins with my new Vietnamese enemy and said “Not today mate your bloody loss not mine”. I then jumped back out into the rain in my ripped up cheap poncho and went for a beautiful 2 hour rain walk in the dark with my 30kg backpack and waited for the sun to come up. I had no idea where I was but after sitting down for an hour I finally built up the strength to find the backpacker area and saved myself 10 bob and celebrated with a nice sleep. Hanoi didn’t start growing on me until later on that day as the fact every man and his dog tries to rip you off and they laugh in your face about it really was getting to me. In Thailand and Cambodia people still try and rip you off but at least they are nice to you and smile. The Vietnamese just seem to snarl and laugh the more they rip you off as if they hate tourists with a passion. After my little powernap I went for a stroll around town and ended up taking a motorbike tour around town in the rain to get all my sightseeing out of the way. The guy took me to a few museums and temples and this cool prison where they held some of the Americans during the war. Before dark I went for a walk along this lake and then found this great little café called the “City View Café” where I sat for a few hours and looked over this busy intersection and watched the sun set and the lights come out. I took some great photos of the traffic from up there then had an early night. Yesterday I left first thing in the morning to head up to “Ha Long Bay” on 2 day 1 night boat tour. It has been amazing and so worth the money. Ha Long Bay is one of the natural wonders of the world and when you get here you can see why. It has about 300 odd beautiful rocky islands scattered everywhere in a 360 degree view as the boat cruises between them all. We also went to this fantastic cave on one of the islands which was so massive I couldn’t believe it and it also had really cool coloured lights lighting up different parts of the cave inside. The other cool thing we did was take a little boat through this cave until it reaches a lagoon inside one of the beaches so that was also very nice. We slept on the boat last night and I hung out with a heap of cool tourists from all over the world. I ended up pulling out the laptop and showing them all some “Aussie Rules” highlights and then we ended up watching “Crocodile Dundee” before heading to bed. The people running the boat tour are also evil and have even switched off the power to save money so my dunny wont even flush. I just left them a nice little present in the dunny so I’m sure they will enjoy that when we arrive back to shore in a few hours (a generous tip). At the moment I’m still on the boat heading back to Hanoi where I say for an hour before jumping on my 22 hour bus ride to the Capital of Laos whatever it’s called (I’ll figure it out when I get there). Anyway that’s all for now I’ll update ya all from Laos if they’ve invented the internet yet over there yet.
Cheerio Woodsy