RICOH GR (18.3mm, f/4, 1/40 sec, ISO280)

I have eaten a lot of burgers in my life. Especially during my vacations in Canada and the USA but I never ever had a burger that looked like this one.

I got it in a small restaurant just opposite of the ticket office for the cruising boats. It’s the first and only burger I ate in Vietnam so far so I can’t tell if they all look the same but I doubt it. The place was a tourist trap. You can get fantastic food in Vietnam but not here. It tasted like it looks. Pale and boring and it was the only thing I ate that day in-between an early breakfast at 7am and a late dinner at 10:30pm.

That day I spent 9 hours on dusty and bumpy roads on the passenger seat of a Mitsubishi Pajero. From Hanoi to Ha Long Bay and back in a day. I always wanted to visit the place but I never considered to go there as a day trip from Hanoi. But I had no choice.

General Vo Nguyen Giap died at the age of 102 years just a couple of days before I landed in Hanoi. He was number two behind Ho Chi Minh, a national hero, so thousands came to Hanoi to say goodbye. There was no chance to move around in the city. That’s why my local distributor generously offered to send his driver to get me to the Ha Long Bay. They told me that it will be an 3 hours drive on good roads.

Well that was not 100% accurate. It was closer to a dangerous ride of 4.5 hours on dirt roads but it wasn’t the fault of my driver. He did an amazing job and saved our lives a couple of times. Instead of a good long sleep and some nice sight seeing in Hanoi I stood up early and spent half of the day on the rocky roads but it was worth it. Ha Long Bay is a really beautiful spot. More about it here soon.