Finding the Unicorn

I booked with a tour for 3days/2nights to sail around the pillar islands of Ha long Bay. They were spectacular. The highlights of the tour for me were Kayaking and riding mountain a bike into the heart of one of the larger islands.

The Kayaking is fairly straight-forward; paddling along side cliffs and through caves where the water has eaten away at narrow bits of cliffs.

On the bikes we only had a couple of tough little hills. We followed the bottoms of cliffs and through a cave where your eyes don’t have enough time to adjust to the darkness before you come back out the other side – riding on faith that there are no stones or pot-holes in the path. Once inside we rode a while until we came upon an entire village that lives there in the middle of cliffs. They have a large flat area for growing rice in the centre and around the edges of the rice paddies are other crops. We had to ride back out the way we came in – single entrance village.

Luckily I got my cabin / room to myself. I paid for twin share but the other singles on the tour had all paid for rooms to themselves – bonus for me!! In our group we were 5 Aussies, 3 Kiwis, a Finnish couple and an Irish couple. We all got along quite well and purely by accident all the Aussies ended up having dinner together after we got back to Ha Noi.

I know I am just glossing over all this – don’t have much time. At least you are half-way updated. Next installment – Sa Pa.

I decided to try out the Airport bus to go back to Bangkok’s airport – it has a really long name that I am bound to misspell, plus the pronunciation only slightly resembles the written version. Easy as pie!! The bus came past about 60 seconds after I found the bus-stop which was very lucky. I’m told it goes past every half hour. It took about an hour and quarter and I caught it at about 3pm – busy time but not the worst of the traffic. After checking in I had some cheap dinner – yes it is possible to get a cheap meal at the airport!! Downstairs near the Airport Bus pickup / dropoff area is a food hall. Buy THB100 per person in coupons and you will change a fair bit of it back to cash. Oh yes, I figured out how to use the Thai food hall coupon system thing. You just have to make sure you don’t forget to get your unused amount refunded the same day. Anywhere else in the airport and you’ll pay through the nose for food and drinks.

The flight was barely half full, I would guess at a bit over a third and I think most of the passengers were from either Hong Kong, China or Taiwan – looked like a tour group, boisterous lot they were.

This time not only did I pre-book my hotel in Ha Noi, but I also got them to arrange to pick me up from the airport as I decided I was just not interested in having to bargain with Taxi drivers again and I knew that the airport is a fair way out of town. I spotted my driver almost instantly and was whisked away in no time in a brand new unmarked sedan. At USD11, it was well worth it I think. I arrived fairly late at night but the receptionist accompanied me to a stall to get a baguette. We ate in the dining room / kitchen of the hotel and then slept in nice bed – bliss.

My first full day here – yesterday – I wandered around. Found some antibiotic cream for some sores that don’t want to heal, found the Kangaroo Cafe and basically just drank in the atmosphere of the Old Quarter of Ha Noi. I changed to a different hotel – this one has no lift, but also has no street noise to blast me awake at 6am. Today I did basically the same thing again. We are having a few good thunder storms this afternoon. Tomorrow I will be up early as I have signed up for a 3 day tour of Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island. Will write again when I get a chance.

At last I am up-to-date with regards to writing. Next time I will concentrate on updating photos.