Day 8: Back to Hanoi, Basque Reunion!

We awoke at 6am to get ready for our included hotel breakfast buffet. The sun was just starting to rise and cast its light into the Cat Ba bay.  The view from the balcony was gorgeous.

We ate our breakfast and headed down to the lobby to meet our tour guide. I made a quick call to Eliza and then it was back onto the bus for a quick 5min ride back across to the small harbour.

Our boat was ready and waiting for us and we all hopped back on.  There wasn't much planned for today because we were heading back to board our original bigger ship which would take us back to the main Ha Long port.

For the next 1.5hrs we sat on the roof of the boat quietly enjoying the view of the islands and the hot sun. I put on some Kow Otami music from Shadow Of The Colossus which seemed to fit the scenery perfectly.

As we approached our bigger ship I noticed Asier standing on the upper deck! I waved to him and he waved back. It was great to see him because I wished we had exchanged contact info and I doubted we would run into them again.

It's Asier standing in the green and black shirt!

We climbed up and over the railings with our bags and boarded the ship.  We went upstairs and chatted with Asier and caught up on what we had been doing since we last saw each other. It was another 1.5 hours to Ha Long port and Rob and I pretty much chatted with the Basques, standing at the front of the boat.  Asier kept joshing us about yolkless omlettes because Rob had mentioned it was something some people do in Vancouver. Eggs ended up being a big topic.  We told them about some of our favorite egg dishes such as eggs Benedict and soft boiled eggs where you dip your bread soldiers in the hill.  They had never heard of these dishes so I'm writting them here on the blog in case he forgets :P (Hey Asier)  One of the egg methods that they shared with us that I had not heard of before was that you first separate the egg white and yolk, then you fry the egg white first, and when that is cooked you put the raw egg yolk on top and just head it up ever Su slightly. Rachaelle put her thumb and index finger to her lips and kissed the air, with the gesture of deliciousness.  I agreed it sounded tasty!  Before arriving at the port we made sure to trade contact information so that we can share pics and give them the address to this blog.

When we arrived at the port, it was lunch time. We all made a short treck down the street to a nice hotel restaurant where we proceeded to have another nice lunch that was included with the tour.  Rob and I additionally ordered lemon milkshakes because they sounded interesting.  When served to us they turned out to be really light tasting and refreshing sorbet type slushies. Delicious for $1.

After lunch we crammed back into the van for the 3hr drive back to Hanoi city.  The 12 of us that had Dang as our tour guide pooled together some money as a tip because He had been excellent and we wanted to show our gratitude.  I realize now how much a tour guide can really make or break a trip.  Dang had been great!

Rice seedling farm on the way back from Ha Long

By about 4pm we pulled up in the packed Hanoi streets to Vega Travel.  We said our goodbyes to our group and walked back to the Blue Paradise Hotel.  The Basques be followed us there as well but the hotel rate wasn't so good (25USD/night) so we agreed to meet at 630pm for dinner and they left to find another hotel.

We deposited our stuff into the top 5th floor room and headed back out into the streets for me to do some let minute shopping for friends.  I managed to bargain  some "I heart Pho" shirts for $2 a piece which I was really happy with.

At 630pm we met the Basques at the arranged meeting spot and headed to this little Nom restaurant recommended from an Ipod app I had downloaded.  Nom is a Vietnamese street food consisting of a bed of thinly sliced daikon with cilantro, and three types of dried beef with a light sweet vinegar dressing and crumbled peanuts on top.  It was quite tasty and the experience of sitting on the road with mini plastic stools was fun!  We even had about 7 different ladies come by ad try to sell Vietnamese rice timbits and a guy serenaded us with his nose flute.

After that light meal we all went to Papa Roti for some of their delicious sweet freshly toasted buns.  We ate them standing in the middle of the street and watched two Vietnamese women get into a pretty physical cat fight while the police basically just stood there and watched.

The night was still young so we took our friends to Yummy for some coconut and fruit drinks.  I guess the Vancouverites were used to the jelly and big straws that came with the drinks but this was something new for the Basques so it was fun introducing them to this type of Asian drink.

After some laughs and the drinks we decided to go to one last place to hang out: Legends Beer.  It's a place we spotted on the first day and it has a long circular patio overlooking the major traffic circle in the heart of the tourist and night life area of Hanoi.

We said our last "Salute" (cheers in Spanish) and drank our beers while overlooking the bustling chaotic traffic.  Grimmace even made an appearance for a photo op!  He gets less shy every trip.

By this time it was 930pm and our friends had to get back to their hotel for their 6am flight to central Vietnam.  We walked them back to their hotel and said our goodbyes.  I told Asier I was getting married in January and he said congratulations.  I mentioned that if they ever traveled to Vancouver they should definitely email me and it would be a pleasure to show them around and maybe they can eat a yokless egg omlette :P  He replied back and said that anytime if I was to ever be in Spain travelling to Bilbao in a year, 3 years, 5 years, or whenever, to let him know as it would be wonderful to meet up with them again in the future.  I've always wanted to travel to Bilbao and now I am 100% sure that it will be on my radar for a trip in the near future.  I look forward to the day we get to hang out again!  Farewell and bon voyagé friends!  I hope the rest of our trip throughout Vietnam and Cambodia is unforgettable. :D

After saying goodbye we headed back to our hotel for some chill out time.  We had seem quite a bit of Hanoi at night and we thought it would be nice to wind down for the evening.  I had to catch a taxi at 6am so it was lights out for me soon after getting back to the hotel.

It had been a fantastic past 7 days and bumping into Asier and Rachelle again was the icing on the already delicious Vietnamese cake!