Back From Halong Bay - Hanoi Hotels - Vietnam Riders

[Sunday, March 8, 2009, 10pm Hanoi Time]

We're back in Hanoi at the Stars Hotel on Batsu, right next door to the Hanoi Boutique Hotel where we stayed the other night and thought we were staying tonight. But people on the tour to Halong Bay said we were paying too much at $35 per night. So we checked at the Star and we could get the same room (balcony on the street) for just $20 with a computer in the room. The room is exactly the same size, not quite as spanking new, but also with breakfast and close enough I can use the wifi from next door. Actually, people were saying that $8-$15 was the going price for pretty much the same hotel room all over the Old Quarter. As it turned out, the old hotel didn't have any empty rooms anyway and wanted to send us to their other hotel. There are little hotels all over the old quarter of Hanoi for very little. This is one case where internet prices are much higher than you can get if you just show up and ask.

Apparently the hotels make their money selling tours. It appears to be best to go directly to the tour company itself. Halong Bay, two days, one night, prices ranged from $40 (2 star hotel on land) to $250 (private car, sleep on fancier junk) per person. If you're on a budget, you really need to bargain and check out other places.

We had a very pleasant trip to the bay. I'm going to show you the trip in photos. This first post will be of the way there through mostly motorcycle pictures. Rather than crop the motorcycle pictures, I decided to leave them as a I caught them from the bus and you can get a sense of the 3 and a half hour ride to Halong Bay from the backgrounds in the pictures.

Our tour guide Bang.

The bridge over the Red River back into the center of Hanoi. Bang got a phone call, we had to go back and pick up some more passengers. Bang said that 6 million people live in Hanoi, and 8 million in Ho Chi Minh City.

Brooms.

The highway just outside of Hanoi.

Rice fields outside of Hanoi.

Not sure what these are. First I thought they were jackfruit,
but now I think they are a big squash, but I'm not sure.

One of many factories.

The obligatory Asian pit stop at a ceramics factory.

These little piggies are going to market I suspect.

And here we are at Halong Bay, getting ready to board our junk for the ride through Halong Bay.

Here's one more motorcycle picture. This is from the bridge again, coming back into central Hanoi at rush hour.