Vietnam

If Bangkok is chaotic, I’m not sure what to call Hanoi. Scooters honking and running past everywhere from all directions. They will not stop for you, instead they blow their horns to let you know they’re coming so you better get out of the way. The problem is that the honking is constant and you cannot tell where they’re NOT coming from, so basically crossing the street is challenging indeed.

Hanoi is a cool city: cool vibes, lots of young people, low key bars, and yummy cheap street food. The norm is to grab a beer and sit on a tiny stool on the sidewalk. We stayed in the Old Quarter, the hip bohemian part of the city. The hazy weather over the lake gives for a nice atmosphere. Worthwhile mentioning is the coffee, something I hadn’t expected to be so good, especially the iced coffee with condensed milk. I liked the city more than I’d expected, though I had no expectations; however, it’s too chaotic for me. After just one day, I was ready to get out and head to Halong Bay.

In Halong Bay, we did what all tourists that go there do: relax while cruising the bay, admire the tall sea stacks, stop off in an insanely huge cave, and climb to the top for the breathtaking viewpoint. Beautiful, relaxing day.

After the boat ride, we noticed that everyone seemed to be heading back into the city and we were the only ones that had booked a hotel in Halong City. When we told one of the crew members that we were sleeping in Halong City, he looked alarmingly surprised. He then quickly tried to cover it up by saying that it was a nice city and that it had nice museums, foreshadowing a series of unfortunate events that was to come on this trip. 

From the bay it seemed nice: tall, modern buildings along the coast. Once in the city though, it was another story. There were hardly any people, the streets were deserted, and everything seemed strange – like a ghost town.

The hotel was another eerie experience. We seemed to be the only ones in the 21-floor building except for the staff. What’s more, floors four through 18 were not only unoccupied, the elevator didn’t even have the option to stop there, leaving us very intrigued as to what could be there. The apartment was really nice though, very large living room area with a wall of windows overlooking the Bay and two bedrooms.

We were excited because this was the first night on the trip that we weren’t tired and didn’t have to wake up early the next day, so we were planning to go out for drinks. The hotel had a rooftop bar, which we thought would be a great place to have dinner and some cocktails. After resting a bit and getting all dressed up to spend the night out, we headed up to this rooftop bar. The bar was empty except for a couple of people, was not an open rooftop bar as I’d imagined but rather closed with windows all around, and wasn’t even that nice. It wasn’t what we’d expected at all so decided to go out for dinner instead.

When we went out, we barely found people and much less people who can speak English. There weren’t even any tourists on the streets, which was shocking considering how famous Halong Bay is. At one point we ran into a couple of foreigners, and we all cheerfully said hi to each other so glad to have found others.

We stopped off at a street food joint, where everyone was staring at us and we felt so out of place that we kept going. There were barely any options as far as restaurants and bars go so ended up at a mall with a food court, which the hotel had recommended. The food court was about to close, so we had to order fast. I felt rushed and I’m never good at making a decision in a rush, even something small like choosing what to eat. I couldn’t find anything that I liked on the menu and felt pressured as everyone had already ordered. I chose something quickly without realizing that it had shrimp, something I would not order in a food court nor in Vietnam.

Did I pay the price for that…Shortly after leaving the mall, I started to feel uneasy. We stopped off at 7-Eleven to get some drinks and then headed back to the hotel, seeing that there were no bars to go to. As soon as I cracked open my drink and took a sip, it hit me – I was nauseous, felt my food coming up, and had to get to the bathroom immediately. My entire night after that was spent continuously going between the bathroom and my bed. When I slept, I was knocked out, but the urge to throw up would wake me up from time to time. Fortunately, the girls were kind enough to give me my own room that night, even though it was my turn to share a bed, as it was also the one right in front of the bathroom.

At one point as I was getting out of bed to run to the bathroom, Rosa screamed from the top of her lungs. Then followed Laura. The screams were not light, but rather screams indicating that there was someone in the apartment with us and we’d have to run out the door. My first thought was not fear for who might be in the apartment with us; it was annoyance that I had to put on my flip flops and be prepared to run out of the apartment when all I wanted to do was run to the bathroom.

I walked out of my room and went towards their bedroom to see what all the screaming was about. Rosa and Laura had just run out of the room: Laura had a look of panic on her face but then I saw Rosa’s look change to one of relief. Without bothering to find out exactly what had happened, I assumed from Rosa’s face that it’d been a false alarm and continued my way to the bathroom.

After I was done, I did go back to their room to make sure everything was ok. Rosa explained that she thought she’d seen someone in the room but it turned out to be just her imagination. I calmly went back to sleep, as if nothing had happened. I just didn’t have the energy to worry about trivial things and false alarms.

The next morning, I still felt like shit. Plus, there was nothing to do in this town and we had to wait until 5 pm to catch the bus back to Hanoi. We went up to the infamous rooftop bar to have a drink, relax, and kill time, and unsurprisingly we were the only ones there. I laid down on the booth and slept for a couple of hours. I couldn’t even stay standing, that’s how bad it was. Then, we went to the indoor pool and chilled there for a bit too. The pool area wasn’t even nice. At one point, as I was on my way to the bathroom again, I saw a large hole in the wall under the stairs and a woman just sitting there, inside the wall. A strange sight indeed.

As we were finally leaving this hotel, we had yet to see another guest except for maybe the couple of people we’d seen at the bar the night before. Final synopsis: Halong Bay is absolutely stunning and worth as a day trip from Hanoi, but Halong City is to be avoided.

Back in Hanoi, we’d wanted to go see nature near Bin Nimb, which looks beautiful, but we didn’t get to as I was still sick and with no energy due to the food poisoning. It was a real shame because instead we spent the day killing time along Hanoi trying to find things to do. By then, I’d lost my interest for Hanoi and Vietnam, though it could’ve been because I still wasn’t feeling great. Had it not been for the food poisoning incident, Vietnam would’ve been better. This negative experience ruined my impression of the country, only because I wasn’t up for anything since most of my time there was me sick. It put a real damper on the experience.

I much prefer Thailand and was really looking forward to going back.