Vietnam: Hanoi and Ha Long Bay.

Vietnam is a country with 90 388 000 people, lots of history and different  landscapes like rock formations, beaches and jungle. The capital city is Hanoi, a big city with 6.5 million people and about 5 million motorbikes, as the locals always said. There are lots of things to do in Hanoi, like visit the historical old quarter, the War Museum, walk around Hoam Kiem lake, try the local food and meet the locals. One of the main destinations in Vietnam is Ha Long Bay, one of the world´s natural wonders.

A taxi to Don Mueang airport (Bangkok) cost about 500 bahts from the center, but the hostel arranged a shared mini van for 150 bahts. I flew to Hanoi with Air Asia and it took about 2 hours, arrived  and pay 45 usd for my stamp, I got a visa in advance with Vietnam-visa.com  paying 21 usd online. Hostel sent a person to pick me up from airport, then we drove 1 hour to town (cost me 15 usd). I stayed in Golden Times hostel,  nice rooms, breakfast included and very helpful staff, they gave me a map and all the directions, I also booked a 3 day trip to Ha Long Bay with the hostel, it cost about  109 usd.

My hostel was  located on the centre, close to the old quarter. Go for a walk in the center of Hanoi it´s an experience, motorbikes everywhere, people having green tea or beers and talking on the streets, markets, random street shows and the Hoan Kiem lake. On Friday night you can´t even walk because there are thousands of people on their motorbikes everywhere driving like crazy, was fun!

There are lots of things to do in Hanoi, like the puppet water show (cost 100 dongs), shopping, visit the War Museum (30 dongs plus 20 dongs to take pictures),  Hochiminh Mousoleaum (20 dongs). Hoan Kiem lake is nice for a walk, you can see some the locals walking, having street food and wearing traditional clothes, there are also shops and bars around.

Travel around Vietnam it´s not that hard, as they have an international airport in Hanoi (north) and another one in Hochiminh city (south), there are bus companies and trains to travel around this country but the drives are long and not everybody speaks English. Some hostels offer hop on hop off bus services, bus and train tickets.  

The sorroundings of Hanoi are also interesting, me and some friends made a full day trip to Ham Toc, located at 2 hours from Hanoi. This area has rock formations, forests, temples and rivers, people say it´s the inland Ha Long Bay because the landscape. We made a great group of friends with some Brasilians, Colombians, English and Mexicans. After this day trip we went out in Hanoi and had a few beers on the street, with lots of people everywhere sitting on small chairs and having beers for 0.25 cents per glass. So cheap and a great atmosphere.

Another places to visit are Perfume Pagoda and Sapa, located on the north of this country, here you can do some trekking and enjoy the countryside and its culture. You will have to catch a train to get there.

Ha Long Bay was the main reason to visit Vietnam, it´s one of the world´s natural wonders, it name means ¨Descending Dragon Bay¨ and it´s located at 4 hours from Hanoi, in Quang Ninh province,  It’s a bay with an area of 1533 Km2 and more than 1 thousand islets, most of them are limestone.  Our group took a boat to explore this place, we had a tour guide, good cabins, bar and a whole area on top of the boat just to sit down and see the landscape talking with other travelers.

Ha Long Bay has one of the best landscapes I have ever seen, huge limestone formations everywhere, beaches, some locals fishing on their  boats, at night you can see the stars and enjoy this natural wonder. We stopped a few times on some of the islands to see the lanscape, swim  and  explore the caverns. We also had time to do some kayaking around the islands.

The second day of the tour we visited Cat Bah Island, the biggest on this area, we did a nice hike on the forest and then took a bus to town, after lunch we went to Monkey Island to enjoy the beach. At this small island we could do a short hike to the top of a rocky hill and enjoy an amazing landscape. At night we went out to a local bar called Rose Bar, there were many travelers that we saw during the trip, it was interesting to meet people from so many countries. We had a fun night.

The third day of our trip we woke up early and we went to the boat, we sailed around the islands for a couple of hours, watching for last time this amazing landscape. This one was of the highlights of my trip and the most beautiful places I saw in Vietnam. Anyway I think that I should spent more time in Vietnam as the coast has amazing beaches and Ho Chi Minh city sounds like the best place to see the culture of this country. 

A good option is to travel along the coast from Ho Chi Minh city to the north and see Nha Trang and the beaches, Hoi An, Hue, then get to Hanoi to see Ha Long Bay. You can also travel from North to South and then go from Ho Chi Minh city to Cambodia and then to Thailand. But you need time to do this route and really enjoy it, I would recommend to don’t rush and spend a few days in every place as it´s too much to see and the bus or train journeys are very long.

After this trip I took a flight back to Bangkok and had a couple of free days to plan the next part of this journey.