Hanoi to Cat Ba: Phase 2

I left the café after a man with brown teeth started talking to me 20cm from my face. He kept on saying the word, “Samsoong,” which I realized was a reference to this netbook. I took that as a cue to leave and head back to the “travel agent” that sits opposite an industrial scrap yard of sorts. A few panicked moments were beautifully dissolved into celebration when a group of similar travellers were deposited at the same spot.

Reassurance is the most underestimated feeling ever.

I was finally told to buy my ticket and we were all bussed off to somewhere on the other side of the shipping version of Mordor.

Our bus stopped next to a rusting pier and a few ancient, inadequate and largely suspicious-looking boats somehow moored to a lop-sided, rusted-through, self-conscious pier. Well, what were boats and what was a pier. My heart sank.

My fear of being sold into slavery subsided into vivid visions of a headline on page 6 of an inconspicuous local publication in Hai Phong: 17 Tourists Die in Ferry Accident. Sea Angry.

A slightly better looking Ferry arrived shortly after I contemplated what to say to God.

Don’t get me wrong.

This is no engineering feat or likely anything legally seaworthy. I’m just more comfortable with the idea of the sea than I am with slavery. Regardless, I have subsequently taken a seat right at the back closest to the exit above board.

With any luck, there will be Phase 3 to this day. Dear God, that would be kind.