Vietnam - Vinh to Hanoi to Ha Long Bay

Sunday, July 10th, 2011

On the way from Vinh to Hanoi, the sleeping bus made one stop early in the morning at some restaurant for a bathroom break. That bathroom smelled like a thousand year old crap-hole.

The sleeping bus.



We get to the church in Hanoi around 4:30AM and there was no one up to open the gates. We wait outside in darkness for a good 30 minutes before we're let in. Once inside, we lounged around for a few hours, washed up a bit, and ate church-made pho at around 7:00AM. In between the lounging around and washing up, I got my throw up in. I felt real good afterwards. This finished off my recovery and I was back at 100% -- approximately about a day later.

Inside the church.

Outside the church.

Inside the church.

Diane (left) and Denise (right).











Vivi (right).

Tim.





We left that church and got on the tour bus at around 8:00AM. The tour bus made one stop at some touristy spot for us to use the bathroom and snack.

Outside of the church.

























Bathroom stop.













We get to Ha Long Bay around noon. Once we ferried out to the bay, we made a stop at a floating seafood store, got back on the boat, ate lunch, stopped at an island with the famous caves, stopped at the water house for kayaking, and got back on the boat for swimming. Swimming was pretty much just jumping off the top deck of the boat. Pretty fun.















We needed two small boats so this group had to wait.





















































































































Floating shop.






































Audrey (right).

























































































































































































Kayaking.















After that we watered down in time for dinner. The food on the boat was pretty good. Right after eating, we went up to the top deck to chill (I actually was able to sneak downstairs to do some laundry - laundry is washing your clothes in the sink with your own soap, and leaving it on the deck to dry - unfortunately rain came down around 3am and killed my do). We played a couple beer games (apparently all the alcohol in Vietnam are watered down to increase profits so it's not really real alcohol) with cards, singing, and hand signals. Some of us played a dance game that was immediately shut down because the crew was sleeping a deck below.















We all went to bed around midnight.

And here are some bonus pictures courtesy of Ngoc's camera (in no particular order):