When my friend from San Antonio came to visit in early May, we headed to Ha Long Bay to get out of the city. The drive there was only supposed to take 3 hours… but we got there in 5… possibly due to rain… but possibly due to driving slowly and picking up as many passengers as the van could hold. I can’t really complain though because a couple of the passengers were beautiful.
This is a picture of the largest hotel doors I have ever seen. They were massive- large enough to fit a MAC truck. The great thing about them, though, is that they easily swiveled on their hinges. Wonderful engineering and fantastic carpentry.
The doors belonged to the hotel we stayed in that was nicely priced: 150,000 VND (a little under 10 USD). The rooms were very nice with AC, TV, and hot water. The family that runs it was also very welcoming. We chatted for awhile when we got there, because the room wasn’t ready, and they even poured us tea.
The funny thing about staying at the hotel is that at dinner, the night before the picture was taken, I overheard a nearby table talking about a scheduled blackout that was to happen the next day on the side of the bridge that we were staying on. I translated to my friend the news. We both chuckled, then forgot about it. Sure enough, the next morning when we woke up the AC was off and the lights in the room didn’t work. We came down to check out and the receptionist confirmed the outage.
After we checked out, we decided to walk around town and get some breakfast. Again, very friendly people. Sometimes, you go to these tourists stops and get ripped off, but the lady at this particular bread and noodle shop was very welcoming. Then, again, I do have to remember that we were on the “undeveloped/soon-to-be-developed” side of Ha Long Bay- Hong Gai. I recommend it though. Not as busy with people looking for tourists to sell things to and cheaper prices for places to stay and eat.
We took a bus from My Dinh Bus Station in Ha Noi to Ha Long Bay and had them drop us off after we got over the bridge, and after we got past a large roundabout (center of town) in Hong Gai. That last bit was very important, or they’ll drop you off too close to the bridge and you’ll have to walk or take a taxi the rest of the way. The hotel was located on a street near the roundabout where many other hotels can also be found. If you ask for the best seafood, they may suggest the place where we ate at. It was suggested to us by the family that ran the hotel. I forgot the name of the restaurant but it’s on Tran Hung Dao. Initially, when the hotel owner suggested seafood and gave a price estimate, I replied with “Ohhh… Too expensive.”
But she convinced me with, “Tonight, eat the best seafood in town. Tomorrow… rice.”
It was pretty darn good.
I recently came back from a beach in North Central Viet Nam called “Cua Lo”. It translates to “Furnace Door”… and that is not far from the truth.