Next morning I asked the receptionist at my hostel to book me another night. Much to my surprise she just said, FULL! Instead of booking a room at one of the many other hostels and hotels in Hanoi, I decided to continue my journey towards Cat Ba Island - a 2-3 hour drive away. The road from Hanoi takes you through Haiphong - a massive container terminal - which turned out to be packed with trucks carrying containers to and from the port. Fighting pollution is not high on the list here in Vietnam, so it wasn't the most pleasant part of my journey so far.

Arriving at the ferry to Cat Ba Island, I pulled into the small queue and got my ticket sorted. Shortly after, a large motorbike, chauffeured by a westerner, pulled in behind me. Curious about the bike (and him) I popped over to have a chat. The bike turned out to be a Kawasaki Versys 300, and he turned out to be Sebastian from Frankfurt, Germany. Considerably younger than me (which is not too difficult to find these days) he had also started his Vietnam odyssey in Saigon. He had been in Vietnam a couple of weeks longer than me, and was flying out of Hanoi 3 weeks later. We "bonded" immediately, and decided to do the northern part of Vietnam together for 2 weeks, after which I would do my border run to Laos and he would go to Hanoi to return to Germany.

Arriving at our homestay in Phu Cuong it turned out we had hit the jackpot - centrally located, neat and tidy, wonderful owner who spoke English, restaurant for breakfast, and lots of good advice about visiting Ha Long the following day.

Sebastian and I booked a full day trip for the following morning - bus ride to the boat area, boat trip to Ha Long Bay, lunch, your own two-man kayak trip in the bay, swimming and return to Cat Ba. 550.000 Dong=$22. Fantastic day, meeting some other adventurers from Poland and France. The kayaking around the limestone formations, into small caves and on to small beach areas was just stunning. Again, check out the area on YT! 

In the evening we tried a Vietnamese specialty called egg-coffee. I can probably best describe it as a very runny crème brûlée with a very strong coffee taste. If you have a sweet tooth, I suggest you try it. I will probably have one more before I leave Vietnam in 5-6 weeks time! 

That evening we decided to leave for the Chinese border, in the morning.