Hong Kong

I can't quite believe it but we're in Hong Kong. I remember discussing coming out here with Tommy and Jenny (our friends who we're staying with) in the summer and it always seemed so long away. The plan is to stay here a few weeks and I'm going to sleep and not lift anything heavy for a few days, the rib is really annoying me now just because it's not getting better and is uncomfortable.

So last few days in Hanoi were good. I went to see the Ho Chi Min mausoleum where he's embalmed. Normally you can go in but it's closed at the moment. So went to see the 1 pillar pagoda, which was really talked up in the guide book, I was expecting to be blown away and witness some form of scientific miracle as a whole pagoda balance's one 1 tiny pillar. Well it was a small pagoda, on a huge pillar so I was left only mildly impressed. The HCM museum was closed so I walked for a bit past all the importanty buildings in Hanoi which was slightly amusing. The museum was quite good when we got in, full of Communist propaganda, but interestingly laid out and much more modern than I expected. We also went to the museum of Ethnology which was interesting and had displays on many of the ethnic minorities that we saw during the bike trip.

Getting around Hanoi became a bit of a nightmare. The city itself really grew on me, and although a lot of people go on about how French it is and how much it feels like Paris (err, not at all in my opinion, I don't think they'd ever been to Paris) it's less congested that Saigon and less seedy. We weren't offered drugs once (as apposed to every other yard in Saigon) but we found the taxi and moto drivers really dishonest. One we used claimed his meter didn't work, it did and said 30.000dong he tried to charge us 80.000d! We just refused to pay, gave him the right money and walked away. Afterwards we took a moto and agreed 50.000d for the 2 of us, the guys English was good, but when he dropped us (2km from where we wanted to go which is a joke!) he tried to charge us 50.000d each. We ended up avoiding using them and only going places within walking distance.

We did have some great food in Hanoi, I love the street food in Hanoi, esspecailly as you get to sit on tiny tiny plastic stools at tiny tables, like the ones we use when we're toddlers at home. Me and Helen looked like giant western monsters sitting at them with our legs everywhere. Food wise we had a bbq beef dish, where we fried our own beef on a little stove that they put on our table, and other great noodle soup dishes.

On our last night in Hanoi we went to the water puppet theatre, a Vietnamese tradition. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to and could listen to the music, which we've found to be so different to music at home that it just sounds like noise to us sometimes.

Left Hanoi on a bus 'direct' to HK, the idea was that we wouldn't have to carry our bags, seeing as I can't lift my big backpack. It went to the border with China, where we had to go through immigration with all our bags, Helen bless her had to drag mine and hers through. Then onto another bus to a city called Nannying. At Nannying we were met on the bus (we hadn't planned any of this) and escorted through the bus station, which was nice like a small airport. We then, along with all our bags were left in the 'control room', the office where they managed all the buses. We had 3 hours before our bus to HK and were escorted down to get some food, all a bit confusing but I think it was to do with the fact that no one spoke English and there were no signs in English - however it was a bit strange that they knew we were coming. We escaped to sit outside watching Nannying, which was very build up but looked pretty shit, there was a lot of foggy pollution in the air. The overnight bus driver came and collected us and we had a 12 hour drive to the HK border, the man behind me snored so loudly you couldn't believe it and the man opposite Helen took photos of her sleeping until I had a go and told him (although he had no English) that he was a disgusting man.

Got into HK fine, had a crazy taxi driver who kept telling us how glad he was that there were 2 more beautiful girls in HK and how HK men have to run away from ugly girls. He asked Helen if she had a boyfriend, she said yes, then if she had a husband, she said yes again, the man nearly was practically beside himself that she had 3 men who loved her (boyfriend, husband and Dad) and kept telling us how lucky we were! Was so lovely to be met by Tommy and him and Jenny have a lovely apartment. Going to a bbq with some of Tommy's friends this evening, really nice just to be doing normal things and not be constantly on the move!! :-)

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