Well, so, we ended up making our way back to Dalat to decide what to do next. ‘The group’ were still there as they were about to take the same journey as us either two days or three days later. We had friends who were already in Hoi An, who we had been in contact with, to see if it was worth going there. They told us that actually Hoi An had been flooded completely; the streets were filled with water by a good few inches. They sent us a video of one of the streets and you could see the rush of water, I guess it was now definitely monsoon season.
Nia and I made the decision to see how much it would be to fly from Dalat up to Hanoi. It turned out that the flights with Jet Star weren’t too expensive at all. This was the best option rather than to take the long train journey up. I don’t think we could bare the thought of getting on a bus and the same thing happening to us again to soon either. We had one more night at the Dalat Sky hostel and we booked our flights for the next day. It was a quick and easy journey and the other three girls in the group decided to join us for the flight. We then all booked into the same hostel in Hanoi, ‘Flipside’. A hostel I would recommend, full review on my other page.
When we got into Hanoi the two English boys, we had met on Koh Rong, were already there and staying in another hostel. We were in contact with them and decided to go for a bar crawl together. Standard, typical, backpacker behaviour. In the day we explored Hanoi, which is a beautiful city. They have a huge lake in the middle of the city, which you could wander around in the evening after you just enjoyed your evening meal, or perhaps even before you’re about to head out for some drinks.
In the daytime all the girls decided to go to the woman’s museum, which was just a new cultural experience, and we thought why not? On a rainy day. We also went to the night markets which were better than the average tat markets. They sold random Vietnamese delicacies and food market items – a bit different to what we were used to.
The two American boys in ‘the group’ had decided at the beginning of Vietnam to buy motorbikes. Therefore, their only option from Dalat was to take the train, so they could fit their bikes on between Dalat and Hanoi. It was a long journey, which took several extra days, and looking back on it they wouldn’t have hired bikes in the wet season again, as they felt like they were wasted.
There was a time at the beginning of our journey, myself and Nia had a conversation as to whether we should get bikes in Vietnam. It was such a popular idea to do and I’d known a few people to have done it already, I would still like to do it someday. However, after our experience with the wet season I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing it any other time of year apart from January through to May, which are the best months of the year to travel to Vietnam. This is when the weather will be driest.
While we were waiting for the boys to make their journey up to Hanoi, the girls decided that we should go to a place called Ninh Binh. We booked this as a day trip which gave us the bus ride over there, a random river boat ride with a local woman who rode the boat with her feet, a night stay at a hostel, use of the bikes to cycle around and the journey back the following morning. Just a pleasant overnight day trip. Although the weather was still pretty bad at this point; we were having to wear our raincoats everywhere and take a spare pair of clothes wherever we went. My brother and his girlfriend visited Ninh Binh about three months later and had amazing weather. They said they were able to explore it more and said it was one of their favourite places. In hindsight I would have preferred to have done the same and just booked a bus ride over to Ninh Binh to do a proper explore of the area, rather than just one night. I can add this for my things to see next time when I go back, in the summer of course.
The next big decision we had to make was the Ha Long Bay booze cruise, gosh these big life decisions. There was one very famous cruise, which you had to book at a particular hostel, called ‘The Castaway Cruise’. A lot of hostels will call their tours a very similar name so make sure you don’t get caught out on this. There are so many different cruises you can do though, they don’t even have to be a booze cruise. You can go for a day, one night, two nights, depending on how much time and money you have. Look at the travel consultant coming out of me. The ‘Castaway’ cruise is definitely the most well-known cruise in the backpacker world. It’s name had reared it’s head in a few conversations we had had with multiple different travellers that we had met along our journey so far.
When the boys finally got to Hanoi and we met up again as a large group. There was another option that came up at this time which was to just go to Ha Long mainland. We could then just book a bay cruise when we arrived there. As we were travelling as a big group, we knew that we would have fun no matter what we did. The boys drove first on their bikes and ended up finding a not-yet-finished-refurbishment hotel, which they stopped outside to look on their phones for directions. They got chatting with the locals who owned it and they asked us to join them there once we’d got off our bus ride. We ended up staying in this hotel which probably had sixty different rooms in it, but we had it all to ourselves. The family running it decided to grab us beers and then make a family meal for all of us. It was a really nice experience to come across and we wouldn’t have had that experience if we’d have just done one of the bog-standard Ha Long Bay booze cruises. It was a special, unique travel experience I won’t forget.
We had all come to the idea at this point that we wanted to stay on Cat Ba Island, as a lot of people had also said that it was a fun place to stay. If we had just done the Ha Long Bay cruise it would only have been for a day and it would have taken us back to Hanoi. Once we had had a couple of nights on the mainland of Ha Long we grabbed one of the local ferries across to Cat Ba Island. This was basically had a Ha Long Bay cruise in itself; but without the unlimited drinks, loud music and beer pong related activities. It was still a chance to see the beautiful Ha Long Bay with the peaking islands out of the water. The ferry took a good couple of hours, so we had plenty of time to take it all in.
Cat Ba island was a beautiful island, we absolutely loved it. It was one of my favourite places in Vietnam. We somehow managed to have some very good weather here, this meant that we could use the beach and play around in the sea. It was the perfect end to our time in Vietnam. We hired mopeds in the daytime to explore the island and at nighttime had some really fun, typical nights out. After four nights on the island, Nia and myself said goodbye to ‘the group’, again, just for the time being, and we set off to make our journey back to Hanoi.
We were going to head up to Sapa Valley, as I’d seen so many photos of on social media. It looked beautiful and right up mine and Nia’s street. However, when we spoke to the hostel staff, they said there is no point in going up there if it is going to be so cloudy, as you’re not going to be able to take in the spectacular views that are surrounding you. We came to the conclusion we should continue to the next stop on our list and the new country of Laos.
LEAH HANCOX 