The journey to Ha Giang was a long one. After getting back to Hanoi from Cat Ba, we had to traverse the city in an expensive taxi to the northern-most bus station, Gia Lam, to get a bus to Tuyen Quang. This was the point at which we had to change to another bus, to Ha Giang, where we could stop for the night. The total journey time that day would end up being 17 hours.

After getting the early bus from Cat Ba to Hanoi, we ended up in the same station that we (Sebastian and I) had departed from. We had met two French travellers in Cat Ba, who were doing the same journey and we shared a taxi from there to the city centre. After getting back to the Old Quarter in Hanoi, I picked up my passport, which had been getting my visa extension and we got in a taxi to Gia Lam. There, it transpired, we had to get a bus to Tuyen Quang and then get another bus, which had not been obvious in the guide book. The bus was very slow and the bus conductor tried very hard to rip us both off.

Once in Tuyen Quang, Sebastian and I swapped buses for Ha Giang. Hoai, a student at the local college joined the bus and helped pass the time by asking lots of questions in English. Once in Ha Giang, we tried hard to find a hotel, which we eventually did by splitting up and going separate ways. After going back to one Sebastian had thought was free, we found out they had got rid of their last room about 10 minutes before and ended up staying a few doors down the road. The meal we had that night was a kind of porridgey soup, which had looked good, as it was in one of the only places still open. The family were very friendly and offered us clams and rice wine, which we accepted and the youngest child ended up entertaining us until our meals were finished.

The next days we got up early and got our permits for Dong Van. This is so far north, known as a frontier town, that you need a permit so that you don’t cross the border into China. Once on the bus, it was another 6 hours through the mountainous scenery to Dong Van.

The time spent in Dong Van made all of the journey time worth it. The next day the market was on and all the minority groups from the surrounding areas came down and were all in one place. It was such a huge explosion of colour that it was hard to take in at some points. Sebastian and I followed some of the villagers back to their villages and we went on one of the most magical walks through the hills that I think I can remember. Parts of it were like being in a dream.

The next day, Sebastian went on to Ninh Binh and I stayed in Ha Giang province and went to the capital, Meo Vac. This I did on the back of a motorbike, which I negotiated down from 200 000 VND to 150 000 VND and it was also an amazing experience. The scenery was stunning, with huge karst mountains rising up from the valley bottom and a winding road cut into the hillside.

Once in Meo Vac, I found a hotel and climbed up to the nearest pagoda. Staying there for a while, I took a convoluted way back and decided that I would move on to Ninh Binh the next day. This I did the next morning and was in Ninh Binh a day or so later.

I got to Cat Ba by taking a bus from the Luong Yen bus station in Hanoi. The ticket I bought was actually for the journey to Cat Ba, not just a single bus. The journey consisted of a big bus to Haiphong, a small bus to the ferry terminal, a boat and then another bus. Without knowing it at that point, I would eventually talk to every person on that journey, as we were all going there to do the same thing.

Whilst walking around the sea front in Cat Ba, Sebastian and I found the office for a tour operator which did boat, kayaking and climbing tours of the local area. They seemed expensive, so we declined to sign-up to anything, but met two Australian guys who were interested in doing the same thing. After going for dinner with them, they pointed out the other Italian girls from the journey, who were thinking of hiring a boat to go along the bay. This sounded more like my kind of thing, as I wasn’t there to do kayaking, but would have to if it was the only way to see the bay. One of the girls, Gabri, came over to say to the boys that they would not be joining them for whatever activities they had planned, as they were thinking of hiring a boat. I asked about this and we eventually ended up staying in the same hotel, going in the same boat and generally spending most of the next day together.

The boat trip was amazing. The weather had been grey and cloudy up until this point, but as we were sailing around Lan Ha Bay, the sun came out and the weather was marvellous. I had to borrow sun cream off Nora, who along with Eduardo, had also joined the boat trip. Nora, Eduardo, Sebastian and I all ended up going swimming, despite not actually having any swimming stuff.

On the way back, we also stopped at Monkey Island, which the boat driver said we could do for free, so we obliged. The boat from the big boat to the shore was tiny and threw you about a lot, but it was worth it, as the view from the top of one of the karst peaks was astounding. After spending about an hour on Monkey Island, we got back on the boat and headed for Cat Ba.

Day two was spent climbing the mountain in Cat Ba National Park. Gabri, Claudia and Bernerdetta had decided to move on at this point, so it was just Nora, Eduardo, Sebastian and I. It was still very good and we hired scooters to get to the park. After climbing the mountain, we decided that it was too much effort getting back to the other side and ended up stopping in a small village on the other side of the park. There, a woman was trying to sell us a ferry ride back to Cat Ba, bikes, or both. We decided to walk to the ferry terminal, where we got on a small, local boat back to Cat Ba. Once in Cat Ba, it was obvious that we needed to go back to the National Park to get the scooters. This we did by hiring one more scooter, which Nora, Eduardo and Sebastian got on and went back to the park. After returning with two scooters, they dumped the (new) hired one and I got on the back of Sebastian’s bike with Eduardo also joining us on his scooter. Once back in the National Park, we had 3 scooters again and went back to Cat Ba to join Nora for dinner.

The next day, Nora and Eduardo went north to Sapa and Sebastian and I decided to stay in Cat Ba, as the weather was so good. This changed after about and hour or so of the bus leaving and so we hung around until the next morning, when we got on a bus to Hanoi.

I arrived in Hanoi having spent most of the night crossing the border into Vietnam. The border crossing consisted of two checks; a Chinese one and a Vietnamese one. These took place in or around Pingxiang and meant that I was up until about 02:00 having my bags scanned and passport checked.

Once I was in Hanoi, I left the train station to find that it was a lot smaller than I was anticipating and that I had to navigate the maze of taxis and taxi drivers in order to get to my hostel. It was about 05:30 and after asking the Vietnamese girl I had shared a compartment with what a reasonable price was, I got in one taxi with another customer. We arrived at the hostel and instead of using the meter (like we had agreed), the driver wanted another 20,000 VND, i.e.: about 1 US dollar. I had heard a lot of stories about taxi drivers attempting to rip you off, so I got him to wait whilst I got one of the hostel staff to sort the problem out. Eventually he agreed to go by the amount on the meter and I got into the hostel un-scathed. Apparently, according to the person who had sorted the problem out, it had not been an official taxi and could have quite easily driven me around for about an hour and expected 1,000,000 VND. This had happened to someone else and they had paid it.

Instead of waiting for my hostel to check me in, I decided to go any try and get my Vietnamese visa extended. As I had been about 2 weeks late entering the country, I only had about 2 weeks left on the visa before it expired. In the interests of staying independent, I tried to do this myself. The address the bloke the in the hostel had given me was wrong and I spent most of the morning wandering around trying to find the right place. After asking a lot of different people, I eventually found it and they had gone to lunch. After getting lunch myself (and trying Bia Hoi!), I went back and was told that I could only extend the visa if I came back to the same office in Hanoi on the date that the original visa expired. Then I would get 2 more weeks, or I could pay an agency to do it and get what I wanted, which was an extra month. This I did and 40 US Dollars later I had my extension applied for.

I changed hostel whilst I was in Hanoi, as the first one was far too loud and was meant more as a nightclub than somewhere where you could talk to people and make travel plans. In moving hostel, I met Sebastian, who I had played at pool in Nanning. We agreed to go to Cat Ba a few days later and amused ourselves individually in the meantime.

Things I got up to:

• going to the Vietnamese revolution museum
• going to the Vietnamese women’s museum
• going to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and museum
• going to Hoa Lo prison museum
• watching the water puppets (very good)
• watching an arty film in an independent cinema-type club
• other bits and pieces.

I enjoyed Hanoi but was ready to move on after about 4 days. This I did with Sebastian, to Cat Ba.

The journey to Nanning began in Sanya, where I got on a train to Haikou. I went to the train station after getting advice from numerous people and found queues of varying lengths, in front of signs with different Chinese characters on them in different colours. I had got up early to get a train to Haikou, so got some dumplings in Sanya and set off for the train station. I was working on the assumption that any train would do, but a fast one would be better and the shorter queues were probably for the fast trains. The advice that I had been given was that there were a lot of students returning home and the slower, cheaper trains were going to be more popular. I got to the counter and got sold a ticket for a high-speed train.

Once I was in Haikou, I exited the train station to find it was different from the one that I had used before. This wasn’t totally unexpected, but meant that I had to find my way to the ferry terminal using bus routes I’d never used before. I walked across the road and found something hat looked like a bus station. After pointing to the name in Chinese of the port I wanted to go to, a friendly bus-driver man pointed me in the direction of the nearest main road. I walked down that until I came to the first bus stop, where someone indicated that I actually needed the next main road, running perpendicular to the one I was on. After getting to that one, I showed someone at one of the stops the piece of paper the original man had written on and they tried to find the stop I needed on the bus information poster. Without confirming that I had the right place, the right bus turned up and the man driving it confirmed that it was going in the right direction. It was obvious when we were at the port, but another curious bystander helped explain where I needed to get off, before the stop arrived.

In the ferry terminal, I booked a bus ticket for Nanning. This was an overnight sleeper bus and involved a ferry ride, so I popped back in to Haikou to get some supplies before setting off. This I also did by bus.

Once on the bus, I got comfortable and we were all then told to get off. I walked to the ferry with Peter, a Christian missionary from Taiwan, who offered to help with anything I needed. I spent the next few hours talking to Peter, who was visiting Hainan on Church work.

Once we had arrived in China, we were all told to get off the ferry and on to the busses. This I did and we continued on the bus to Nanning. Instead of arriving in Nanning at about 06:30, as described, we got there at about 02:30. This meant that Peter and I were left to wander around the bus station at 02:30 and ended up getting a taxi to KFC, where we waited for places to open.

Whilst in Nanning, Peter had called one of his friends, who came to pick him up at about 06:30. They offered to give me breakfast, so I joined them on a trip to one of his friend’s coffee shops. This was a luxury coffee shop on the 23rd floor of an apartment block and he made me a very nice pot of fruit tea and a pancake. It was great and at 07:00 in the morning seemed very surreal.

Later the same day I got taken back by Peter’s friend (also from Taiwan) to where my hostel was located. I jumped out and checked-in, having a shower and sleeping almost straight away.

Whilst in Nanning I didn’t really do much, other than explore the city and find good places to eat. I planned how I was going to get to Hanoi and set off for the train station late on the last day.