–October 16

Today was blog day!!!!! I just sat and cranked out three of the four blogs from our tour. I will say here, Jeff and I loved our tour. We can not recommend OHG Travel Tours enough!!! Or at the least, highly recommend the Cao Bang Loop. So very lovely and beautiful! It was not crowded – as we have seen from pictures of the more famous Ha Giang Loop. We have decided not to do that loop, because we were so pleased with what we did already. I felt doing this venture, or tour gives one a taste of north Vietnam – the country and the people.

Anyway, we had breakfast at our Hotel – juice, porridge, toast and me an egg. We purposefully went very light. It's time to get back on track with our eating. I know I have gained some weight! Now back at our room, I put together the first blog. Jeff read and had a much needed relaxing morning. His back needed the break.

When I finished that first one, we had some lunch – fruit that Em had given us. We did the bananas with some PB & Nutella, and dessert of chocolate. We realized we never had dessert on our tour – it was not offered and never came up. We did not need it by any means.

Now I went back at it. I got out blog number two and we chose the pictures. Man, we have so many!! I did start deleting some of the multiples that Em took. Crazy lots of them!! While I had been doing this blog, Jeff went and picked up our clean laundry he had turned in last night. Then I took a much needed break. My eyes were getting wonky! We both left the room about 1630 and went for a walkabout around our place. Then back to our room. We had dinner – the last of the fruit from Em, which was one of those oranges from our tour, and an apple with PB. We also had some wine, bread, and chips we had bought on our walkabout. We even had more chocolate. Then I got out the third blog. Bed by 2200.. mentally drained.

     —-October 17

Today was transition day.

I think I woke Jeff at 0500 when I was hot and stirring. I was able to go back to sleep, but not Jeff. Anyway, we got up and about by 0700 when I really woke up. Started sorting and packing. Then we showered and went to included breakfast at hotel. I had a fried hard egg on piece of toast, great tasting chicken, fried noodles with cabbage and carrots, and juice. Jeff had toast with jam, porridge, chicken, rice, and juice.

We went back to room had our Java- coffee/hot chocolate. I then put together the last blog for the tour. Man, that was some crammed out work. I felt like I was at college putting out a term paper that I had procrastinated on!
We left hotel at 10:40 by a taxi to a bus station – this was all set up by Em as the last part of service provided in our tour cost. But as we were loading in the taxi, a lady from the hotel stopped us – we hadn't paid! It was due to a mix up when Jeff had booked. Anyway, squared away we set of. Em called the taxi driver while we on the way, and I talked with her a last time. Yeah! That was a surprise. We arrived at the station at 1105, and we were escorted to our bus – it's a non-ac(?) minibus. Seating for 21 or 25. It doesn't depart until 1200. So we hung out. Many packages came and were loaded in the bus. We were the only passengers. The bus left at 1201. It was a normal bus trip along secondary roads, not the small farm roads we sometimes took on the motorbikes. We stopped once around 1330 for a toilet break at a gas station. In this town we picked up another passenger and dropped off some packages – this was all along the way. We finally arrived at Ba Be around 1520ish- I did not actually look at the time. We will be here two nights, but our place is still 12 km from where we were let out.

So now we caught two bike taxis–that was interesting with our luggage. Jeff was using Google translate to make the arrangements, so not everything was clear. Because the bike guy was saying we have to walk a KM. Anyway, they sorted the luggage. Each driver has a bag in front of him and we are wearing a backpack. This is normal for them so we set off. Jeff's taxi bike has more power and they pulled away. As we are going it starts to rain, of course it does. My driver pulls over and pulls out a piece of plastic to cover our bag. Then we continue on. It was at least a warmish rain.
We get to the Ba Be lake . It's beautiful. But we stop. Through translation this is where the walking comes in. My taxi guy comes with us he's carrying one of our bags, Jeff the other. The road is a mud path, we assume destroyed during the most recent flooding by the rain of the typhoon. Then we come to a raft crossing. OH MY!! This is all because the bridge was washed away. Many are actively working on a replacement, pounding in a new foundation. The ground we are on is actually shaking from the hammering. We three get on it after two motorbikes, and three ladies pull us all across. Thankfully it is not too far.

Our taxi guy introduces us to a hotel person. He has one scooter, loads our luggage and we walk the rest of the way – couple of blocks. We finally arrive at 1555 a couple of minutes after our bags. We go to our room unload and check out our place. I typed up this blog. Jeff read. Then showered and it was time for supper. There were three other couples that are staying here and we all ate together — one couple from the Netherlands, one from the U.K., and last one from Singapore. There is also a solo guy that never spoke to any of us – didn't speak English maybe; two Vietnamese ladies- I think they were guides; and another guy that joined us later, also from the Netherlands. Supper was fun and too much food as always. We were given Happy Water again, but it seemed more diluted. We only did a couple of toasts, and a couple of individual ones. We weren't the first to turn in, but second. Bed by 2200.