Docking at Ha Long City and catching the train to Lao Cai
I, as well as my fellow passengers, all slept through the night, so I guess the mouse either jumped ship or was a part of that appetizer thing we ate last night. As we continued to our destination we packed up our cabins and got things together. Our English speaking crew member Hung.
We all took some time to just relax and enjoy the remaining time we had aboard the ship, the views, the smells, the sounds of the old boat crawling along. We were all pretty silent, I think mostly because we would soon be saying goodbye to each other. Each of us going off on our own paths and searching for our own answers. We exchanged emails. We would all have new experiences, meet new travelers, and share this experience with them as they would share their travels with us, it was our nature.
As we emerged from the rocks our destination, Ha Long City, appeared before us, almost as if we were awakening from a dream. 
We docked and departed. 
I found a ride to take me to the nearest train station, about four hours by road. There I would meet my guide which I arranged for when I was in Hanoi, he would take me on the single most amazing journey of my life. I was heading for the remote mountain villages of Sapa in northern Vietnam.
I found my guide, Nguyen, and we headed to the train station to catch the overnight train to Lao Cai, this would be a 10 hour train ride and I hoped to get some sleep. Again, it’s not that it’s that far, it’s that the train and its tracks are old and not in great shape so the train cannot travel that fast. The chaos at the train station made the docks at Ha Long Bay look like Sunday church. Where Ha Long Bay was kind of touristy this was just the local train station, not a tourist in sight other than me. There is no way I could have pulled this one off without my guide, I could not have even figured out how to buy a ticket. The station was hot, smelled like a cross between a farm and an overflowing toilet, and was filled with the sounds of Vietnamese talking with each other and guarding their piles of luggage. A single fan circulated the open air and dimly light station as the sounds of horns poured in from the endless streams of motorbikes dropping people off. Nguyen went to the window and bought what I thought were tickets, however he then walked up to some other guy that looked like everyone else just standing around and exchanged them for tickets, no idea why or how it works, but somehow we were heading to the tracks with tickets in hand. There were three to four trains that were not labeled and I had no idea which was going where, but Nguyen knew where to go. I’m guessing that you only learn and understand this through past experience as he later told me of a few times when we was either on the wrong train or got off at the wrong station. Great, just the comforting thought I needed to help me fall asleep. We got to our car and found our cabin, a skinny room with two bunk beds which would be filled with two other passengers. This is when I was told about the whole ticket thing. The government owns and operates the railroad, however a private company has purchased about 60% of the tickets and upgraded some of the cars. The first tickets he bought were for a cabin that stacked 3 beds on each side, like a triple-decker bunk bed, six people to a cabin. He then when to this guy from the private company and upgraded them to the more roomy standard bunk bed, four people to a cabin.
As the train pulled out we chatted a bit before going to bed. The days since I last showered were adding up and the layer of filth that covered me also made it hot and uncomfortable to get any decent sleep, plus the three to four times the train stopped did not help, but this was all part of my experience and I was loving it.
VIDEO: Ha Long Bay in 20 Minutes