Another terrible night’s sleep but our final night in Hanoi… let’s hope things go up from here!

Daisy is out and about to go get her nails done at 9:30am – we aren’t leaving for a couple hours so more than enough time

In the meantime, Dave works, packs, tries to checkout finding the lift is broken ???? he carries both our luggage down the twisty stairs five floors down

Down the alley Dave meets the pickup for our journey to Halong Bay – but no Daisy… a short wait and she’s sprinting around the corner – we are off!

After a 30 minute drive, our car stops in the middle of nowhere and we are hauled out onto a bus that will take us the full journey

Part way of the 2 hour trip, we cruise down and have a cheeky freshen up stop – we grab a bahn mi for each of us, as we are of course starving, complete with an unknown chewy meat that is a bit fishy… who knows what it is!

Finally, we make it to Halong Bay, check into our hotel after they faff about for half an hour – but looks like we might be able to sleep here!

Halong Lavender Hotel is based in basically another place similar to Sunset Town, we encountered on Phi Quoc: a grand building project on a huge scale in European style buildings – just with nobody about!

We have a moment to chill briefly and then head out to Tuan Chau, the area all the cruises leave from for Halong Bay, seeing if we can grab a cheap deal – unfortunately, the ghost town continues here too

As we’re starving, we hunt and find before checking out the ferries to begin the form of a plan from here

Being on the water’s edge, we get our first glimpse of the luscious landscape Halong is famous for

We wander for a little bit in hope for one cruise place offering a secret deal with no luck; we find a taxi and make our way back to base

Snuggled and dead, we order a Grab pizza delivery – our first takeaway in many a month; an hour later, they cancel the order ????

Starving again, we desperately head out in search of food, down a few more deserted new build streets to the night markets – which are … ummm… also abandoned

We walk through some abandoned car park feels a bit like a horror movie zombie apocalypse with less people!

Attacked by a giant spider web, we surrender, run away and head down the main road towards some lights

There is a nightclub on the beach here that has a bigger setup for its light show than most music festivals! The music is so loud it rattles the entire town. It looks jazzy but we just can’t get the energy to head too far to it – especially after the spider incident

Papas BBQ actually has people in it – perhaps the entire population of this town… two pizzas and soft drinks for us

Dead, we head for bed and pray for a good sleep! ????