We check out and grab breakfast. We are a little apprehensive about our journey today. What is going to happen? We go to the hotel and the guy is there. After 10 minutes and a phone call he tells us that the bus cannot come into the town today, due to the carnival, which I think has already ended. We says they will take us to the edge of town on motorbikes.

We jump on. Abs rides with the guy, and I, loaded with luggage, jump on the back of what seems like his Dad’s bike. I can feel myself sliding off the seat as we ride along. But, we make it to the highway, driving the wrong way up a one way slip road as we get there. We jump off and wait. Lots of public buses like the one we travelled to Halong City in stop and try to tempt us on. After 20 minutes or so a public bus appears in the distance and the guy from the hotel flags it down. Our bags go in the back and we have a seat to ourselves near the front.

The journey turns out to be good fun. The driver is a maniac, but we get to Ninh Binh in good time. I think most of the people on the bus had never been close to a white person before, and some had trouble controlling their staring. The ticket guy on the bus was much more accustomed to westerners, even giving us chewing gum after the toilet break.

At Ninh Binh we jump off. We don’t have a map and I ask Taxi drivers for directions to a hotel. They naturally want to take us there, but I say no, I just want directions. They point down a road. Abby sees them laughing and thinks they are sending us the wrong way, but they weren’t. We see some westerners heading towards us and ask about their hotel. Not only do they recommend it but the hotel manager is with them. We follow him back and find a good value room.

We try to get to the train station in the evening to buy our onward tickets, but fatigue and hunger make us return to the guesthouse after only a quick walk, during which some people fall of their chairs when they see us, and we wait forever whilst some Vietnamese take forever in what seems like their first ever ATM transaction. They are probably still in the ATM booth now.

After a good rest we try and find somewhere selling something that we might call breakfast. As we walk past the night market sight we spot several restaurants with English writing outside. We go over and find they all have a small western breakfast, perfect. After our customary omelettes and pancakes we take a good look around. Besides from the hotels, Bai Chay is actually quite small and we don’t really find much on offer. More importantly we don’t find a single travel agent. The weather is still very misty today, so we decide not to try visiting the island, but instead to travel south to Ninh Binh. We walk a mile or so down to the tourist jetty, but everything seems shut. We are approached by a guy saying he can arrange bus tickets for us. He is constantly on his phone which is pretty annoying. Even though we haven’t agreed to anything he starts to write our tickets. This seems too dodgy to me – giving a stranger cash in a bus car park – and after asking him about an office he gives me a business card for his hotel.

We walk back to the town. I notice another office called a tourist jetty. I ask a guy in there, and he calls a friend. An English speaking chap arrives and tells us that there is a public bus to Ninh Binh, and he thinks that will be fine. We thank him and move on.

We stop at the hotel on the business card of the guy from the bus car park. Sure enough he is there. He shows us in, and he does seem to be associated with the hotel. We decide to buy out tickets.

We grab some dinner and chill out.

We get up early to try and see Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, but decide against it in the end. We grab breakfast, pack our things and get a taxi to the bus station. We find a taxi really easily and he agrees to use the meter straight away, which is a surprise. It is a small car, and I have to sit in the front as our luggage takes up some of the back seat. As we are driving along I notice that the fare is jumping up and our driver is being shifty. I notice his hand regularly going to the pocket in his door, where he seems to be pressing a button. Sure enough, when he presses his button, the meter jumps up. I don’t say anything, but when we arrive at the station we get the luggage out and I ask Ab’s to stand by the wall with all the bags. I open the Taxi drivers door and pull out a rag that is covering the button. I ask him what it is, he looks at the floor as stays quiet. I have a good rant at him, at high voice, about how he is a thief and that he rips off tourists. Another taxi driver approaches and they exchange words, I tell the other taxi driver that he probably has a special button as well. I give our taxi driver half the fare and we leave him laughing as he drives away.

Two guys come straight over asking where we are going. We say Halong Bay and they try to take our luggage. We say no, and sit down to have a cigarette. We attract a little crowd, with one guy trying to take my cigarette. Weird behaviour indeed.

Inside I ignore the touts and get ourselves two tickets. We get on the bus, which is small and cramped. Our luggage comes in with us. We take our seats and manage to put our luggage somewhere. Once the journey starts one of the touts, who are now on the bus, tell me, via sign language, that we have to pay 100,000Dong for each bag. Considering that a seat ticket is 60,000Dong I don’t understand his maths. A older German couple on the backseat say no, and put their luggage on their laps. We sit in the seats they have made available, and put our luggage on our laps too. The tout turns away and we all have a good laugh at the situation.

The bus driver drives very quickly, with the touts trying to pickup people along the way. At one point they jump out of the bus and are trying to drag a man into the bus. After a small struggle the guy turns and walks away. Very weird goings-on.

Eventually, after being flung everywhere we arrive at a junction near Halong Bay. The bus stops and we and our belongings are shown the door. Nice service! We try and find a taxi big enough for us and the German couple. Eventually, after fending off a hotel tout and motorbike taxis we get one. The German couple get dropped at their hotel, but all we see are big expensive hotels. We gesture to the non-English taxi driver to keep driving. Nothing looks too promising. We see the hotel tout on his motorbike and the taxi driver follows him. We reach the town and we start driving up through hills. We see some good looking hotels and ask the taxi driver to stop. The hotel tout stops too and says he has a hotel further along. I ask him how much it is, and he says thirty hundred Dong. Confused I ask him again, and he says ‘how much you spend?’. That’s enough for me, and we start walking away from him. He says the hotel in front is now his hotel – he is clearly just a tout. We walk away from him and find a lovely hotel for a great price. We later see him talking to the staff, but they seem to just ignore him.

The hotel is perhaps the nicest we have stayed in, and all for £5. After the weirdness of the day has settled we go out for a walk. It’s carnival time in Halong Bay, and it’s very lively. We find great Vietnamese food and stumble upon the night market. People are interested in saying hello to us, as we are just about the only westerners here. One girl even comes up and touches me and runs away laughing. The people here are much more friendly than in Hanoi.

We get back to the hotel and sit on the step, eating ice cream, watching a massive traffic jam trying to unfold in front of us.

What has been a very weird day ends very nicely.

We take a walk down to the Cambodia embassy, to get our visas, but they are just about to shut for their long lunch break. We take a walk around a nearby lake and watch a bit of local life. We grab lunch and return to the embassy to be told that the consular is shut until Monday – or at least that we think is being said.

We decide to leave the visas and head over to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum, better known as the Hanoi Hilton. It’s a good museum, which mainly concentrates on the French revolution, but has interesting exhibits from the America-Vietnam war.

In the evening we head to the Cyclo Restaurant, where we eat excellent French food sat in old cyclos that used to the ride the streets of Hanoi. A very nice place. We decide that tomorrow we will catch the bus to Halong Bay, as we have had our fix of Hanoi.