Day 4 - Sunday, May 3, 2009 - Halong back to Hanoi and on to Hue, Vietnam

Woke up around 7am on the boat, packed up my stuff and woke James and Meghan up to get ready. I thought we needed to get out of the room before breakfast, but it tuned out we didn't. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, toast, cucumber, and coffee. The coffee was quite bad, but Hong Kong has prepared me for even the worst bitter motor oil brews out there.

After breakfast we hung out on the top deck and talked with the others on the boat as the boat putted its way back to the harbor to complete our day. On our way we dropped off 3 people on Cat Ba Island so they could continue on for another night and leave the next day. The docking procedure was a crazy chaotic mess. We watched a lady on another boat that came in too fast fall down a flight of stairs and another woman on the roof almost fall off the front as the boat they were on barreled in to fast to get a good position and rammed the cement pier. There were so many boats in Halong Bay, the tour guide said anywhere from 500-700 boats like the one that we were on. We continued on to the port and had an alright lunch of seafood again. We departed the ship as we crawled and hopped a labyrinth of planks and halls over other boats to make it to the pier. We slugged through crowds of people waiting to depart on their own Halong Bay experience as we were leaving ours.

We met at a van and loaded up on our 3 hour trip back to Hanoi. We lost 2 of the Swedish guys and had to wait around for a while. Finally they showed up and we were off at around 12:30, down the slow and rugged highway. I slept most of the ride, thankfully. We stopped halfway for a break, I bought an ice-cream cone and a Taro/coconut bar for 30,000 VND. Then we loaded up once again and continued our way back to Hanoi.

When we got back, James and Meghan went to find a post office so I stayed back and ordered some food, a dozen spring rolls, sweet and sour pork with rice and a can of soda for 80,000 VND (18,000 VND = 1 USD) The travel company is supposed to come around 6 to bring us to the bus station and our overnight bus to Hue. We bought bug repellent and sunscreen to get ready for Laos.

The spot tracker seems to be a big hit, both James and Meghan have given the link out to their friends and families, it's too bad the computers here don't display google maps very well. Hopefully the overnight bus will be comfortable tonight.