Day 41 - Hanoi madness with water puppets

This is a police station.

Day 41 - 03rd August

It was a day off basically to fix things up before our trip to Ha Long Bay the next morning. This included actually booking the tour.

Jordy and I had breakfast and then headed to the police station. He'd had some money stolen from his wallet so he had to get a police report. The place was like a Spanish house, with yellow painted walls and green shutters. Inside, unofficial looking chaps sat with a policeman and we were told to come back at 3pm with a form filled out, detailing the nature of the theft.

Street food.

When we arrived back, Sèbastien joined us and we headed out yo book our Halong Bay cruise. We found a pretty good deal for two nights, three days. One night aboard a boat and another in a hotel on Cat Ba Island (The Woman Island named after the women who stayed behind with the children when the men went off to war). Our hostel wanted $135 U.S. But we found an agent who did it for us for $105. This also included kayaking, cooking and trekking. Bargain!

A cracking curry!

Shortly after, we had lunch at Aubergine, I had a cracking green beef curry with rice and the lads had their vegetarian options. I also learned that Cam Un (said as Come Un) is thank you in Vietnamese.

Jordy wanted to do something touristic after handing in his police report and 200,000 VND for the trouble (corruption much?) so the three of us went to a water puppet show. Prior to going in, me and Sèbastien visited Trippyland for tea and nuts whilst we waited for 6:30pm to roll around.

Strange puppet show but fun all the same.

The water puppets were interesting, with wooden puppetry and fire, some firecrackers and singing taking centre stage. There was laughter from the locals leaving us wondering what was funny about a fox catching a fish and a catfish looking unicorn dipping in and out of the water and watching the crowd each time like a sadistic game of peek-a-boo.

The big one before the long night bus.

Later, we had dinner at the hostel, I picked up some new The North Face hiking shoes for £30 and we had a few beers before retiring to the movie room to finish Enemy at the Gates. Sèbastien was delighted.

As I went to bed, the French guys asked me to do a wake up call for them as they were leaving for Sapa at 7am. I said if they wanted punches in the ribs at that time of the morning, as an Englishman, I'd be happy to oblige. In fact, I insisted.

I was really excited for Ha Long Bay, providing we didn't get any dangerous weather or cancellations. My fingers, toes and eyes were crossed!