7:30pm - Get on an overnight bus for Cao Bang - we got to enjoy a couple hours of delightful Vietnamese singers and actors on a TV at the front of the bus at an usual high volume! We were the only 2 foreigners on the bus.
6am - We arrive in Cao Bang - it is raining and we are getting hassled by taxi drivers!
We see people selling meat, from a sheet, on the street, in the rain!
We see people selling meat, from a sheet, on the street, in the rain!
6-9:30am - We walk around the entire town and stop into EVERY hotel and ask about getting to the Ban Gioc waterfall.....where in every single place either got a response of a shake of the head, a no or something that was NOT helpful! In the wonderful, sacred Lonely Planet travel book, it assured us that any hotel will be able to hook you up to get to the falls and will be able to arrange the police permit that you need to go there. Unfortunately, hardly any of the hotel staff spoke more than a few words of English and had no idea what we were talking about, even when we pointed to the huge picture of the waterfall that they had in the lobby of their hotel!
9:30am - We catch a break and find a man at a hotel who doesn't speak a word of English, but for whatever reason is very eager to help us! Long story short, there was a man who came who was to take us to the waterfall! We were still a bit skeptical about not having this police permit, but we decided to go with it!
10am - We were finally off!
The taxi driver dropped at the side of the road for me to pee. I went behind an abandoned building and found that it seemed to be a hot spot for doing heroin!
The taxi driver dropped at the side of the road for me to pee. I went behind an abandoned building and found that it seemed to be a hot spot for doing heroin!
2pm - We take off for the waterfall....which we had been in anticipation of for almost 6 months...ever since Lance had found a picture of it and showed it to his students when he was teaching them about Vietnam! We came around a corner and there it was!
It seems as though I insist on standing like my wonderful mother in most of my pictures!
It was truly breathtaking! We paid a little money to have a local take us on a bamboo raft to get as close as we could to the falls! This waterfall is in the very most northern part of Vietnam and on the other side of the waterfall is China.
It seems as though I insist on standing like my wonderful mother in most of my pictures!
Our driver also served as our personal photographer and kept wanting to take pictures of us! We decided that we took more pictures together in that day then we did combined for our engagement and wedding pictures!
5pm - We head back to Cao Bang. Unfortunately, this was not a calm, relaxing ride back to town. Our taxi driver, whom I assume was feeling the effects of a long day, decided to drive like a bat out of hell, driving very fast and crazy around the winding roads and through villages. It was dusk, nearing dark and he seemed to not slow down for anything. The strange thing was that there were people on bicycles, walking, children playing, in the dark, right on the side of the road. I seriously thought that if I were to take my eyes off the road, that we weren't going to make it. To top off this stress, our driver also really liked his "boom boom" music....and decided that he needed to play it at an absurdly high volume. I couldn't even hear myself think! Strangely enough, neither Lance or I had the courage to nicely ask him to turn it down...instead we just suffered! I gave Lance a huge hug when we made it back safely!
7pm - We arrive back in Cao Bang and decide to check into a hotel and grab a bite to eat. We very quickly realize that it is a huge possibility that we might not get a hotel room because in this small town there is some celebration going on in which every room is booked! We looked at over a dozen hotels...all with no rooms. We decided to call our old buddy and pal taxi driver from earlier in the day. He took us to a few more hotels, all with the same luck and then we told him to just take us to the bus station. He didn't seem to understand the sense of urgency we had in potentially missing the last bus and not having a hotel room and not knowing what to do! He makes a call and I kindly say we need to get going! He zooms by the bus station and we try to tell him he passed it. He tells us, it's okay, it's okay.....(we do NOT believe him!). He continues his stellar driving habits and drives 80kph through town, laying on his horn the whole time!
8:45pm - The next thing we know we are on the side of the road and there is a bus and he tells us to get on it! We thank him and we are off....on our way back to the Hanoi!
5am - We arrive back to Hanoi and sleep the rest of the morning after our exhausting 36 hours of madness!
In the 5 plus hours that we spent walking around this town of Cao Bang, we realized that this town didn't see many tourists....we didn't see another foreigner the whole time. We realized tourists must be few and far between because of the stares, points, laughs and looks we got! It was to the point that it made us feel uncomfortable. Also, all younger children and older too, would say "Hello, hello!" and then giggle. I even got asked to take a picture with, like I was some movie star or famous person! The young girls thanked me endlessly for the picture. It was definitely an interesting experience!
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