15th March: Cat Ba, Vietnam to Hanoi, Vietnam

On our way down to breakfast, the kitten came to say hello. I scooped her up, sharp claws and all, and took her to breakfast where she first curled up for a cuddle and then went to say hello to everyone else. Am I actually starting to like cats?!

Our bus wasn’t until half 12, so, after packing, I wandered down the road for a coffee. Muoi came to sit with me, and I felt sad leaving him! As we got ready to leave, the family in the hotel kindly gave us bananas and longans from their garden. We’d not tried longans before, but they are a similar fruit to lychees. Suddenly, I had a call from the bus attendant to say that they were waiting for us! We’d intended to be on the road well in advance but, somehow considering it had only just left Cat Ba, it was 20 minutes early. We ran down the hill, waving to the whole family as we left, and boarded the still waiting bus. Phew!

As we followed the spectacular west coast of Cat Ba Island north towards the mainland, rain set in once more. Nothing seemed to be happening at the dock – which wasn’t surprising as we were early for our crossing – so I took a wander around the shore. The damage from Typhoon Yagi was even more apparent up close, with trees snapped like twigs from the direct impact of the category 5 storm. A distant foghorn could be heard as the outline of a giant container ship was just visible through the murk departing from the deep-water port. It was atmospheric in a slightly dystopian way as the shadows of giant cranes loomed through the fog beyond the mangroves.

15 minutes or so later, we boarded a damp boat for a relatively calm crossing, aside from the occasional bow waves from passing ships. We crossed in front of a cargo tanker, which was small by ocean going standards but still seemed giant from our position below on the water.

Back in Hanoi, the bus wasn’t able to drop us at our hotel because the roads were already closed for the night market. It was only a 10-to-15-minute walk though, which we enjoyed through the narrow streets that we were looking forward to staying in the middle of. This is when the trouble started, though! Our hotel tried to put us in a tiny dark windowless room when we’d specifically paid over our usual budget to have a room with a balcony in the old city for our final stay of the trip. They would not budge, repeatedly trying to suggest this was somehow our fault. We straight batted them. The description of our room was very clear.  We were fed up with arguing and their attitude but were not going to give in. Eventually, it became apparent that every room of the type we should be in was full. Checking online, every other available room in the old town at this point was at least double the amount we’d paid. Our least bad option, after getting the manager to drive in and arguing the same nonsense all over again, was to get them to put us in the best available room in a sister hotel near the train station. In theory it was a big upgrade pricewise, but we would’ve preferred the room we’d booked. It wasn’t ideal but we were stuck and had already wasted a couple of hours.

We insisted they paid for a taxi to take us across town. The journey was quite funny as the driver kept using the word “Americans” as insult to anyone who cut him up or beeped at him, which seemed hilariously appropriate. He did, however, try to charge us 1 million Dong (£30) for the 1 km journey! We refused to give him anything and instead told the hotel manager to pay, which he eventually did at a frankly still extortionate 300,000 Dong. We got into our room and breathed. It was still the sort of room we’d normally have been happy with, but the stress of the whole unnecessary situation had taken it out of us. We’re determined not to let it impact our time in Hanoi, but that might be easier said than done! Fortunately, there was a vegan restaurant just around the corner, which we decided to check out for dinner. We had a delicious feast of banh goi – carrot, king oyster and black fungus mushrooms in deep fried dough with fresh mint and a sweet vinegar dip; banh xeo – Vietnamese pancakes with mushrooms, spring onions, bean sprouts, and carrots; and com tam sai gon – steamed rice with grilled mushrooms, tofu, mixed mushrooms and rice bran.