Vietnam — Next Stop — Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
Time to move on
September 2015
After my time in Hanoi, I was looking forward to getting out of the city and exploring one of the natural beauties just down the road — Ha Long Bay.
I had enjoyed Hanoi, but at the same time, I thought it would be nice to get out of the city for a few days, away from the noise, the buzz, the heat and the air pollution.
For my visit to Ha Long Bay, I used a company called Glory Cruises, which laid on a coach to the bay.
When the coach arrived to pick me up from my hotel, the weather was looking grim — it was pouring rain.
I was picked up from the hotel by bus at 8 am for a 3.5-hour transfer to the boat — a distance of some 230 km. The bus was a 20-seater and picked up guests from several different hotels. It seemed to take an age to pick up all the guests. The bus was nice, with comfortable seats and fantastic air conditioning.
The main motorway outside Hanoi had been resurfaced, and they hadn’t put in road markings — no lanes or junctions marked. This made for an interesting drive as drivers invented their own lanes and took their own road positions.
Some side roads in the small towns were flooded to several feet deep. Roads through towns were very busy with slow-moving traffic.
After about 80 minutes, we stopped for a break at a "Production Workshop for Disabled People". This was a regular stop for buses going to Ha Long Bay, as several other buses were pulling in as we arrived.
I was hoping for a coffee.
The bus dropped us off on one side of the building, and then we had to walk through the workshop to return to the bus. On the walk, I passed through the workshops and was offered “special deals” on the goods on sale.
I did find some coffee and snacks, but the coffee was not available "to go". The snacks, chocolate, crisps etc. seemed heavily marked up; for example, a Mars Bar was 50,000 Vietnamese dong (£1.70 GBP (they cost £0.60 in the UK); $2.25 USD), and yet I had paid only 25,000 in Hanoi. The total stop time was 30 minutes.
After the stop, the roads slowly got worse. Very bumpy in places, and with some significant flooding.
The approach to the boat terminal was through a semi-flooded, partially deserted seaside resort complex. Very weird. It was a sort of Disney-themed area. What was most disturbing was that most houses seemed empty or only partly built. There was no sign of work going on.
We were transferred from the terminal to the main boat by tender.
It was an interesting drive. It was good to get out of Hanoi and see some Vietnamese countryside.
