Good Morning Misty Vietnam!

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I woke up and my fuddled brain slowly worked out - I'm in Vietnam! Yes I finally made it!

After very little sleep the night before pre-travel nerves, I set off a silly o'clock from Norwich train station on my adventure to Vietnam. What a stress free way of getting to the airport - 3 hours off my journey time (if I'd gone by coach) or 3 years onto my life (by avoiding the hellish tail-backs on the M25) and there I was checking in for the first leg of my flight, to Bangkok.

And mighty glad I was to be leaving London! Just crossing it, admittedly in morning commuter rush hour, had reminded me what a dreadful, souless place it is with the self-inflicted anonymity of strangers - don't make eye contact! This made worse these days by the invisible, technological - don't talk to me - personal bubbles that surround invdividuals plugged into their I-phones, I-pads, Kindles, laptops, MP3s etc. It's sad that the technologies intended to connect us to people all over the world instead isolate us from people we are physically sat next to!

Anyway, the plane set off - sigh of relief, it works - and I find myself in one of the prized front row seats with masses of leg room AND on the ailse seat too. Having pre-ordered veggie meals, these were brought to me first, so I felt ever so slightly smug (how selfish!). The cabin staff were the most beautifully dressed of any I've seen on my travels so far. This was Thai Airlines and they were all in traditional dress; long skirts and tailored little jackets, all very colourful and ALL different. As someone who hates uniforms of any kind this was lovely to see.

I spent the 10 1/2 hour flight watching a couple of films - 'Desperate' (or am I just imagining the title as it was pretty depressing - the one with George Clooney with a wife in a coma?) and 'It's Time' (fab analogy of super rich vs the rest of us proles, where instead of money time is the commodity and death the consequence if yours runs down to zero, with the super rich inflating the 'time cost' of everything so the proles can never win even though there is enough time for everyone if they all shared! Riot eventually ensues!!! Sound familiar?

I failed to sleep for the entire flight so by the time we landed at Bangkok I didn't really feel like the 2-mile hike entailed in getting to the Hanoi departure lounge! After another flight, much shorter this time, we touch down in Hanoi to a Misty Good Morning Vietnam - or is it afternoon? - or evening? My body can't work it out. The clock actually says 9.30am! But really it's 3.30am to me!

After picking the wrong queue (over officious immigration guy) and my luggage not appearing (slight panic until it's finally discovered - off the carousel, not put back by someone who took it off by mistake grrr!) I pick up my hotel transfer taxi and head off into the chaotic traffic of Hanoi. Memories of Nepal and India flooded back as we swerved in and out, overtaking, undertaking, milimetres from the nearest vehicle, constant honking of horns, impossible teetering loads on mopeds (whole families with boxes, bags, a massive crate of floor tiles, even a massive gas canister!) and loads of people wearing smog masks.

As I sleepily take in the sights as we screech by, I notice one difference here, they must not have the seemingly ubiquitous house completion tax that creates such tattiness around the world. Here they have completed roofs, completed houses, no bits of metal wire, concrete reinforcements clawing their way upwards like rusty fingers scratching the sky. I see a guy having his hair cut outside on the pavement by the side of the dual carriage way and flower sellers on bicycles and of course so many near misses with lorries, mopeds etc that I finally decide to close my weiry eyes until we pull up at the hotel.

It turns out my room mate turned up the day before so I blunder on in and Aussie Jodie and I get to know each other before I finally have to collapse into bed for some much needed sleep.

No photos yet as I can't access the USB bit of the computer in the hotel. So will have to try later at a different wonderful wonder webby place 😊

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