Where's Vic?: 'Nam part 3a- The North. Tam Coc and Hanoi

After getting through the flight to Hanoi despite feeling rubbish, I got my first ever "VIP bus" to Tam Coc. This was quite interesting, the chairs all came with in built massagers. Tam Coc is known as the inland Halong Bay and it did not disappoint. It was much calmer than any of the cities and you woke up surrounded by these huge karst mountains. The homestay I was at had a swimming pool, was on the river's edge, quiet and a 5 min walk to the main street.

On my first day, I went on a boat ride from the town centre, powered by a woman using her feet to row the oars. It was pretty cool, with these mountains surrounding us and going through caves. The ticket place was absolutely chaotic, but I was told what to buy, and wasn't told there was a second part after the boat ride.

I'd signed up to do a tour the following day that took you to various temples and the Trang An national park. Turns out these places were all cycling distance away, so I needn't have bothered, but at least I didn't have to use my brain.

Trang An was amazing! Another boat ride similar to the day before, but even more spectacular. It's also where they filmed the more recent King Kong films.

Finally, we were taken to a view point with 500 steps to the top. Which didn't sound like much, but was a lot in the heat. It was beautiful at the top but absolutely rammed as it was sunset. We (a couple of my day tour buddies and I) queued to climb up to the final apex, but after 10minutes and what looked to be incredibly sketchy footing, I gave up.

The next day, I chilled by the pool and then went to do part 2 of my Tam Coc ticket which was a temple inside a mountain cave. Apparently there was a part 3 too, but that never materialised.

Next, back to Hanoi for the night, before heading to Ha Gian in the north. I hadn't quite realised you could go directly from Hanoi, but it gave me an extra day's recovery before a 7hour bus ride lying down. That evening I went to the Hanoi Water puppet show which was really interesting. Lots of funny sketches using puppets controlled with rods underwater and a suprising amount of indoor pyrotechnics. The hostel I was staying in was an odd one- triple bunk beds, a Japanese style toilet (with a heated seat and various sprays) but no doors to the rooms, so noisy.