Ba Be Lake

We are so so tired. The Ha Giang Motorbike trip has really took it out of us. We had quite a reasonable lie in but a neighbouring house were singing karaoke all night so we had very little sleep. In the morning we were had plans to do a 15km hike, but it was too much so we decided to take a 4hr boat trip around the lake with the owner of the homestay. It really is the hot season at the moment just sitting still makes me sweat relentlessly!! On the boat it was nice and cool for most of the journey so it was definitely the right thing to do. We even spent sometime planning our next steps!

In the evening we booked our flight to Malaysia (woohoo we go in 2 weeks) and then had yet another super yummy dinner at the homestay. They grow and catch their own food and it's just super simple and tasty!

The next day I woke up with once again very little sleep. I know it sounds ridiculous but I'm actually beginning to worry about coming back, getting a job and having a "normal life" again. I think if I hadn't gone through a redundancy it would be fine, but annoyingly it does still upset me. The plan for the day was to get up super early, pack and go for a hike. We had no idea if we could make the bus back to Hà Nội at 1pm or whether we would need to stay another night. It all depends on how long the hike took.

Well we were up early and began hiking. It was hot, really really hot. I felt really nausea and had to keep stopping. We ended up cutting the walk early and booked our trip back to Hà Nội instead. Our main reason to get back to Hà Nội as soon as possible is to see Svenja again and be guided round by a local!

So having had only a pineapple we jumped in the minivan, which dropped us off at a boat, which dropped us off at a bus. The bus is an absolute dream!! We have the whole bus to ourselves!!! There is no way this will last for very long. I'm sure he will drop us off on a street corner where we will be picked up by a bus full of people, animals and furniture... let's see...

Well I can confirm that the bus was empty the whole way! Everytime the bus indicated we held our breath waiting for the driver to tell us to move bus. I honestly cannot believe it! We couldn't sleep for 6 hours as we were just waiting to be randomly kicked off haha how ridiculous. The journey was great and it dropped us off right in the old quarter. I think today is our lucky day as Svenja's friend has a spare room which she has let us stay in too. So we are sat in our cosy room just chilling. We were going to meet Svenja but ended up just going to bed!Read more