We were again back on Highway 1 but this section was better than further South, wider and not as much traffic. It was hot again, 34 degrees, but the road was flat and we made good times until Mike had his first puncture for the trip which he mended by the side of the road. We passed a roadside bus stop café, our signal to have lunch, we use these as often as we can, then on to Dang Ha. We were about to stop at Dang Ha when Heather had a fall, luckily onto a pile of roadside rubbish which broke the fall. Unfortunately the right brake lever was damaged which Mike managed to get back into place and it is now held together with duck tape. A trip to the local medical centre, a bit like a small public hospital emergency room, where there was an English speaking doctor who examined the sore arm in the waiting room and then sent his patient off for an X ray upstairs, the results came back, no break but some nerve damage, three prescriptions which were filled at the clinic - within an hour we were out of there, total cost about $11 Aust. The arm needed to rest for a week, but after a couple of days at Dang Ha, a dusty industrial city which Highway 1 passes through, we decided to catch a bus to Hanoi. Dang Ha we will remember for two things, the injury and seeing dog meat on the menu for the first time. The bus was a ‘sleeping bus’, these buses travel at night and instead of a seat passengers have a bed to lie on with a pillow, blanket and a bottle of water supplied. We rode through the night and arrived in Hanoi at 6.3o in the morning. It was cold and raining, a bit of a shock coming from 34 degrees to 13 degrees in a just a few hundred kilometres . Hanoi is the capital of Vietname but not as big as Ho Chi Minh City, and is like any Asian city, polluted, noisy with lots of motor bikes and cheap eats, though not as cheap as down south. We did find a very good place to eat, the Kangaroo Club, where else, who served large meals so Mike did not have to order two, and they had things live pumpkin soup and fish and chips, with real chips, on the menu. We went to see the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum but it was closed but we did get to the Ho Chi Minh Museum which was very interesting, he is revered throughout Vietnam as a great person who overthrew the rich and nobility to make life better for the poor. It is winter with an overcast sky ,we did not see the sun once while we were there. We applied for our visas for China, expecting them to be back when we return from our trip to Ha Long Bag. We calculated it will take us at least three months to ride to Beijing but we can only get a one month visa, which gives us only 20 days in China within that month. Other people, and books we have read, tell us not to worry, that we will be able to get extensions easily, but we are a bit nervous about entering a country without everything in place before we go. We booked our trip to Ha Long Bay, a bus trip from Hanoi then cruising in the bay to marvel at the beautiful islands, 3,000 in all. We had the opportunity to go kayaking and explored a couple of caves and saw the people, about 400, who live permanently on the water here. We spent the night on the boat, then went to Cat Ba Island where we did a walk to the highest peak, but the view was nonexistent because of the low cloud it was very muddy and most people decided to have a coffee rather than do the walk. We left the tour then and spent a couple of extra days on Cat Ba Island away from the hustle and bustle of Hanoi, it was very quiet there as it was the low tourist season and we spent the time relaxing away from honking horns and traffic. There are no seagulls in Vietnam, we find it quite strange not to see them at the beaches, especially the fishing villages, but on Ha Long Bay there are sea eagles which glide through the sky looking for a meal and dive for fish. The trip back on the boat took us to an incredible cave with stalagmites like we have never seen before, we could have spent a lot longer there but we were on a tour and time was limited so we took lots of photos to look back on. Our last day in Hanoi was St Patricks Day so in the evening we went to the Irish Wolfhound Pub where we had a couple of drinks and dinner as well as a chat to a father and son from Queensland who were travelling together and Fergus, the very drunk manage of the pub who gave Mike a souvenir Guinness T Shirt, this will match his Guinness hat that he got last year and the Irish pub in Frankston. Tomorrow we leave Hanoi for a two to three day ride to the Chinese border.
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