Day 76

Cao Bang > Ha Giang

Okay I'm starting to catch up now, so let's keep it rolling.

Woke up, nice breakfast, packed up and hopped on the bus to Ha Giang. There weren't any tourist busses which meant I had to hop on 2 local busses. The difference between a tourist bus and local bus is pretty decent in terms of comfort, space, price, speed, and reliability so I settled in. The first bus wasn't too bad, but I had a very annoying person next to me that kept falling asleep and throwing her full body weight into me for every corner we went around - which being a very mountainous route was quite often. Honestly above the pain from my shoulder being hit into the side of the bus I was more impressed she slept through most of the full body attacks. Between the countless stops for people to hop on and off and deliveries to be given and received (including a full plastic bag of fresh meat placed on the floor) all the people eventually got off leaving just me and the only other tourist to wait around for the 2nd bus.

Luckily we didn't have to wait long but unluckily the bus was slowly getting fuller and fuller. I say full as if its an objective thing, but no full is how many people can fit in the space of the bus, not how many seats there were. Our bags were strapped to the roof to make more sense and we were well over capacity with one guy standing next to the half open door. The door was half open as the bus' AC either stopped working or the driver wanted us to melt. Melt we did and I could not wait to arrive and get off the bus. Exactly 10 hours on the dot later, I arrived in Ha Giang about 40 minutes from my hostel which I couldn't care less about the walk as it wasn't in the sauna of a bus.

When I checked in, there was a lobby full of people who were waiting for a bus, and by the time I had showered the entire hostel was pretty much empty as most people arrived during the night in a night bus from Hanoi. I went for dinner by myself at an Italian / Vietnamese place down the road that someone volunteering at the desk suggested and I ended up unintentionally ordering a mountain of food. After a long while I managed to finish everything and was left extremely full and satisfied.

Thinking I was ready to get an early night, I started chatting to the same person at the desk and I got invited to go out for karaoke with the group of volunteers at the hostel. We went to a private karaoke place and we had this crazy fancy room which made me feel like a VIP getting the first class treatment. After a few hours and some soju, we called it a night and I headed to bed for real this time.Baca selengkapnya