It was a early-ish wake up and breakfast and then a wait for the bus to arrive to pick us up and take us back to the boat for the trip home, when the bus finally arrived about an hour late, we were packed in like sardines and then off as if we were racing in the Formula 1, speeding through the small villages on skinny roads through the mountainous valleys of Cat Ba island. In no time at all we arrived and were taken down to the boat it was good to see it still had a list to one side. The boat headed out into the bay and we cruised through the majestic islands of Halong, it was a very beautiful ride back, when we finally burst out onto the open area of the bay we joined the armada of boats heading back to Halong City.
Our boat pulled up and we all unloaded and headed to the restaurant for our lunch, I shot off to grab my bike which was still at the hotel where I left it. Once I had my bike and it was back together I headed over for lunch, I was still not feeling great my cold was manifesting itself nicely I was only hoping I could do the ride and today and make it to Hai Phong and then head back to Hanoi the next day. I jumped on the bike and headed away and out of Halong city, the road seemed to disappear beneath me and I had soon cover 20km in less the one hour which with the way I was feeling should not be happening, then I realized the head wind that I had had to fight through on the way to Halong was now a tail wind speeding me along.
I made it to the turn off before any of the tourist buses from Halong had passed me, the road I turned onto was very quiet and was the perfect road of rolling hills. I soon came to the village of Rai Phong were I would catch a boat across the river. The lady at the counter took ages to serve me, I ended up gabbering to her about my day and only then did she sort out my ticket, must have board her. I pulled over and grabbed a coke from one stall and the lady from the stall behind got shirty because the trailer was just in front of her stall, and I mean of the 2 meter front of her stall my trailer took up maybe half a meter so to shut her up I reversed back passed her stall and made it so people trying to get to here stall would now have to walk right around me. With feeling sick and the not so good boat trip I was feeling let down by northern Vietnam, It could have been I now had resided to the fact that I would be heading home soon as well.
The ferry finally came and we all drove on and slowly made our way across the river to the other side, this is the heavy industry of Vietnam, massive ships up on dry dock and others having things replaced or taken apart. Cement factories lined the river bank and a new power station was in the process of being built. The road on the other side was filled with cars, bikes and trucks, I carried on through and after 16km finally made it to the bridge to Hai Phong, thank god. With my predicted milage this should be the 5000km mark, sweet, I had made it, got to that little point, for me this is what the last few weeks had been about hitting the 5000km and I had made it, done, finished I can leave and know that well I had made it, made it made it made it yippy yea baby, right time to find a bus, because I was feeling like crap I just wanted to be somewhere familiar.
I tried waving down a couple of buses but no luck there so had to ride into town to the bus stop, found a buses going to Hanoi and the driver was keen to take me but the conductor was not, he was a right arse would not help me at all, finally someone else took me around to another bus and we loaded the bike into that one. So there was the 3 km the ride to the bus station, I sure I have done a lot more kms then 5000, but it is 5003 map km done in 5 months over 6 countries, I will reflect on this later.
I talked to an American guy on the way back to Hanoi and he said it is not worth staying in Hai Phong at all so it seems my decision to head back to Hanoi was a good one. Managed to find a room for the night and after some dinner passed out for the night and did not get up until after 9am which for me these days is a really good sleep in.
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