Lauren –
We woke up early (like 5:30am early) to have a last Ninh Binh breakfast overlooking the rice paddies before taking a taxi to the bus station for our 6:30am bus. We had no idea what to expect, no idea if our bus ticket was the right one and no idea if it would arrive on time. It didn’t arrive on time (an hour ish late) but it was the right bus and we were on our way to Halong!
We were told the bus ride was 5+ hours, so this wouldn’t give us enough time to meet the 12pm check in on our Halong cruise. So instead, we decided to spend one night in Halong City. The bus turned out only to be around 2-3 hours (so we would have made the boat!) but we were dropped off at what was to be the strangest and funniest destination of our trip so far.
The hotel was on a long boulevard of French-inspired buildings. From afar they looked colourful, renaissance styled and classy. Up close they were badly painted, clearly made of cheap materials and completely abandoned. We quickly got changed and decided we’d spend the afternoon exploring.
It was well worth it.
Turns out these ‘French inspired buildings’ went on for MILES and MILES and were as deep as they were long. It would have all been well and good if it was bustling and ambient. But there was no one around, not a soul and the buildings were abandoned, crumbling inside. There were hundreds of mock up shops with classy logos and designs, but when you looked inside there were cardboard cutouts for chairs and tables. It made no sense. We walked for around an hour without seeing a single other person on the streets, it was as if we had entered into an apocalyptic world. We pressed on.
Suddenly we came to the end of the French building block and in the distance we saw what looked like a huge car park and a entrance to some sort of theme park – we could see a large rollercoaster in the distance. We were intrigued. The car park was completely empty, capacity for thousands of cars. We got closer and saw it was the entrance to a theme park, and it looked like the gate was open! Still no one in sight. We walked through the abandoned entrance and finally saw our first person in Halong! A lady was at the counter. She jumped up and shoed us out, telling us to leave. We saw two more people hiding behind poles. Again, we looked at each other at exclaimed how strange this all was.
We continued walking along the perimeter of the theme park until we came to the entrance. We peered in and saw signs of life! We paid the $3 entry fee (questioning if we’d ever paid so little for a theme park entrance) and excitedly walked in.
It was a real life theme park! With hardly anyone there! We spent the afternoon cruising to the front (as there was no queue) of the rides. I didn’t trust the stability of the large roller-coaster but David and Pete gave it a go – they said it was one of the best they’d been on!
All in all we had had a memorable day. We hurried back to the (empty) hotel, showered, and headed out to see if the place livened up at night.
We had dinner at a German pub, we were now accustomed to the strange offerings in this town, before wandering through the (now slightly more lively) neon lighted streets of Ha Long City. Music blared – and I mean BLARED – so loud that you couldn’t hear yourself think. No-one seemed to care too much. We bought a few bottles of water and headed back to our hotel to catch up on some much needed sleep before our Ha Long Bay cruise tomorrow!
Far Away From Home 