Vietnam - Stuck in Hanoi

So from my end and three weeks of being in Vietnam. I spent my first 2 days in Hanoi, hiring a bike one day and peddling around the town, and just wandering the old quarter the other day. The 2nd evening I headed, by overnight train, to Sapa (just south of the Chinese border in the Yunnan province) where I went trekking and homestaying in some local tribes houses. It was beautiful scenery, but unfortunately things have changed since my uncles 1993 Lonely Planet, which I was using and advised that not many tourist go here. It is very touristy and the tauts are much worse than in Hanoi. Worth it all the same.

Another overnight train was taken to get back to Hanoi and it was on the morning after this that my stuff was stolen. Bad luck, a lesson, and a pain in the ass. I was planning on heading Halong Bay that same morning, but this was obviously cancelled and the day was spent sorting out a new passport. The new passport took just under 2 weeks to get here, but during that time I was able to head out of Hanoi, just not to far, because I had to come back anyway.

So I went south to Ninh Binh for 3 days. Had a look at Tam Coc (some rock formations that you reach by a boat and go through these caves, very beautiful), went by motorbike along backroads to Cuc Phong (a national park) where I spent the night. I was the only visitor here which was quite nice, but also a wee bit weird. The trip back from Cuc Phong was also by motorbike and through backroads, this was definitly a highlight so far. I was also taught to ride a motorbike by my guide when I got back to Ninh Binh, which was very exciting.

From Ninh Binh I went to Vinh and spent the night at a beach close called Coa Lo. This is a Vietnamese resort town and they obviously don't get many foreignors here because everyone was shouting out Hello etc even thought they couldn't actually speak english. It was a beautiful beach despite the massive numbers of Vietnamese crowding it, but it was a bit disturbing and I left early that morning back to Hanoi via local bus.

Partway through the trip a man got on the bus who had a pet monkey with him. This kept the bus amused for a while, until we got a flat tire. They didn't seem to have the tools necessary to fix the flat tire and had to send someone into the closest town. It was fixed pretty quickly though and we were off within 1/2hour.

The following day I went to Halong Bay. This is a beautiful bay off the East Coast of the north of Vietnam and has hundreds of these odd linestone formations protruding out of the water. It was pissing down with rain most of the time, but was beautiful all the same. I was lucky enough to have a great group of people on the boat who were all keen for a bit of a party and so we partied and swam into the night. Great fun. The following day we headed to Cat Ba Island. I don't know whether it was due to the weather or whether the Island is just not that great, but I wasn't really able to enjoy this and spent most of my time in the hotel. I did pop out to head to Monkey Island (where there are obviously monkey's) and go for a swim, but it was still pretty horrible weather.

The following day I headed back to Hanoi to collect my passport and sort out my Visa's. I was able to get my British one within the day, but apparently, like Rob, I need to have some proof that I'm leaving the country before Vietnam will issue a new Wietnamese visa. All a bit odd considering I came in without needing this proof. So at present I'm travelling without a visa and will sort this out in Saigon.

So far Vietnam has been great. There are heaps of tourists everywhere, unless you truly get off the beaten track, but this seems to be quite expensive. Hanoi has got a great feel to it, I certainly could have been stuck in a worse city.