Indecision 2006

It was time to leave Hanoi, and head over to Ha Long Bay. This would normally be an easy thing to do. You either take a bus, or book a tour at the countless number of travel agents throughout Hanoi. This however, didn't keep me from taking over two days to make a decision. You have to watch out about some of the tour groups you see, since due to the non-existent copyright laws in Vietnam, new places can open out and steal the name of more established and legitimate places. This was easy enough to get past though, as the ever-handy Lonely Planet makes find the legit ones easy. The problem I was having was with what tour to actually book. It's really the people that can make a tour, and traveling alone, who wants to spend three days at sea with 10 60 year old German tourists? So the hunt was on to find a tour not only that I liked the schedule of, but also that had the right mix of people.

Asking around the Hostel made the choice even harder as three girls who were planning on going, were postponing a day to wait for their friend to recover from the Laotian "Happy Shakes". So I could delay a day, but that would have thrown things off a bit with Tet fast approaching. There were two people going the same day, but they were taking a luxury tour, which was a little out of my price range, I was starting to panic. Luckily as the zero hour approached I ran into three awesome Kiwi girls who were going on a two-day tour with the travel company I like the best, so off we went to see if the first day of both tours were the same, and that way I would of least have a few nice people for the first day. Luckily it all worked out, and the tour was booked.

I never really thought that I would mind traveling on my own, but this day really highlighted one of the problems I might have in the future. I really have to make my own choices, and if I make a mistake, I've got only myself to blame. And those choices can seriously affect the enjoyment of my trip. That being said, a bad day in Vietnam is still better than Canadian winters.