Vietnam-Hanoi and Halong Bay

Vietnam has a very well laid tourist track that covers at least 10 cities/towns, plenty to do for a month long visa. The great part is each place is unique and different from the last. The bad part is each location is brimming with tourists and locals competing for their dollars. I have never seen such a concentration of tourist agencies in one place as old town Hanoi and they can get aggressive. Despite the sharp competition, the locals are smart enough not to let this drive prices down. In Hanoi there is a citywide loudspeaker system that on occasions plays music, announces the news, and works the propaganda. One Vietnamese speaking ex-pat once wrote that over a holiday season, the speakers were regularly announcing, “Instead of price-gouging your fellow Vietnamese this holiday season, just gouge the tourists even more.”
The country can be exhausting because you never know what price will be quoted to you. Guidebooks are great and all, but usually you find the best places to sleep, eat, and drink through word of mouth from other travelers. Numerous times here I’d be told of a great guesthouse at a price of let’s say $5 a night. On arrival the front desk person would let me know today the price is $12 a night. And so the bargaining begins, but to do this several times a day, on a daily basis for a whole month is tiring. After three weeks, I had enough. Time to get off the tourist path and change things up. I stopped into a motorcycle tour company and signed up for a 7 day tour of the Northern Highlands. It would be a guide, 3 Germans, and myself, riding to local villages, national parks, lakes, waterfalls, over highways, country lanes, dirt paths, and bamboo bridges, each night ending with a fantastic village homestay with a local family.

Here are the pics from Hanoi and Halong Bay.