Our plan was to head from Cat Ba to Cao Bang, on the Chinese border, but with two ferries at snail’s pace, we got stuck in peak hour in Haiphong and decided to stay there the night. It was our first real introduction to Vietnam traffic, with a cacophony of horns, trucks, cars, scooters, pushbikes, pedestrians…, factory workers, school kids… all competing for the same bit of tarmac!