Hanoi

Well Hanoi as my first stop in Vietnam was such a great introduction, thrown into the middle of the chaos of hundreds of scooters, street food, street drinking and a maze of small streets!! I stayed in Friendly Backpackers which was great location, my first surprise was to learn the shower was positioned over the toilet... Compact if not slightl inconvenient..I was quickly told that this was the norm in Asia!

I met some great people in Hanoi an an always had company, and overall spent a few days soaking up the atmosphere!! The women's museum was a cultural highligh and gave an interesting perspective on women's roles past and current!

Sapa

My first experience of a sleeper bus was to Sapa and although I rarely suffer from travel sickness, the twisty roads and speedy driving had my stomach swimming around!! But the sleeper bus was really comfy, everyone has individual seats and I could almost lie out straight!! While Sapa is in the mountains, its very touristy and the local mung people have some of the best selling skills!! The countryside is beautiful with rice fields dominating the landscape. I did a day trip to the famous Bac Ha market which was extremely colourful and enjoyable. We also visited a local village and the Chinese border which was pretty cool!! I also did a one day hike in Sapa, which was brilliant, led by a local girl with excellent English, it was interesting and we saw beautiful views :) afterwards it was the sleeper bus back to Hanoi and t then taking another few buses and ferry to Catby island!

Catby Island

Catby island located just south of Halong bay, again met some really nice guys, took it pretty easy on the firstvday and on the second day did a boat trip to Halong bay, we kayaked into caves, lunched on the boat, swam to a little private beach, overall a really relaxing day!!

The electricity went off in the early hours of the next morning again.so between roosters and hot humid air there was no pleasure in having a lie in!! On recommendation from the Dutch dude, decided to have breakfast at the bakery which was a great choice,egg salad sandwich and an iced coffee for 30,000. After that it was decision time, now or neverf to rent the scooter so II went for it ,thought I got a good price for 2e but then was told I had to fill it with fuel,so my listen was him leading the way to the petrol station,half filled it for another 2e and off I set on my adventure!! and Thank god the roads were quiet!! It was quite pleasant once I knew I was on the right road !!! Anyway I was too scarred to stop and see some caves as there were no other tourists were around so I motored on,at one stage I was driving through roadworks, looked like they were blowing up the rock as there were
Loads of pieces on the road, praying that they didn't blow up any as I past i went as fast as I could over the bumpy far from finished road! Anyway was partly relieved to get back to the busy catby town,tried finding fort canon, their map was terrible but eventually found the entrance, the guys charging to go in were charging 2e but were unable to on were tell me how far down it was so with only 20 mins left before the bike was due back I decided not to chance it, and typically when I dropped the bike back nobody was there!!! Then it was off to the beach to sweat , oops I mean sun bathe!! Went to cat co 2, it was so quiet, only 4 others on this beach, loveeely!!! One returning to the hostel, the owner was nice enough to allow me to shower in the public toilet!!! As i say,very common to have showers in with the toilets here! It was great as still no power, so no air con, reducing supply of cold drinks!!so with now if I to arrange my future hostel or ongoing transport I set off to get the 3pm Bus, that brought me to Haiphong and got the sleeper bus to Dong hoi,now as in writing this while on the bus,I can't joke about it yet!! But holy god, what an old, uncomfortable, rickety bus, so II go into meltdown mode when get told my allocated seat number is at very back in this dark hole,no thank u luckily a lady came on and seeing my tear stained face told me I could sit some where else, it was one of those moments of overwhelment at the prospect of arriving somewhere at 5amwith no plan, also one of those moments in which ppl surprise u, Lucas from Slovakia was so kind and consoling, even came down during journey to check if I was OK,so with my oreos, Pringles and a reassuring text from Chris, I settled in for the one shaking journey to dong hoi.