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Published: October 1st 2007
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Our Flight from Hong Kong was a bit of a strange one as our ticket meant we had a few hours stop over in Bangkok which is about 1 hr passed our destination, then a connecting flight on air asia to Hanoi, Vietnam. As we got on the plane in Hong Kong we were given a news paper which was nice until we read the headline which was all about the plane crash the previous day in Thailand, not far from where we were headed, complete with graphic pictures. Just what you want when getting on a plane! Anyway our flight to Bangkok was fine and although we had a little panic about our bags, lisa's came out when it shouldn't have as they should have been automatically transfered onto our new plane. We managed to get it sorted and after a bumpy ride to Hanoi both our bags turned up fine. Well i say bumpy ride, we thought the pilot was new and it was his first landing, we were a bit worried after reading the paper, it wasn't until we got off the plane that we realised there was a massive thunder storm all around us with the heaviest
rain we have ever seen. We thanked ourselves fo arranging a pickup to take us to our hostel, bags in car, thankfully dry, and off we went. The rain came down in buckets and the roads started to flood, people getting stuck on bikes, falling over, it was manic. We managed to get just around the corner from our hostel to find the crossroads impassable as there was a good 2ft of water. Our driver had other ideas, when 4x4s were turning round he thought his little fiat panada (i think) could make it. Guess what.........it couldn't! We were stuck half way with no power surrounded by water. It started to come in through the doors and our feet were getting wet whilst he calmly tried to get his car started. After many attempts and gradually moving forward each time, we made it through! Checked into out hostel and promptly fell asleep.
We awoke thinking the worst, we wanted to book a boat trip around Halong bay and had envisaged doing so in glorious sunshine, we thought we might just ditch Hanoi and move on to better wether as it would be no fun getting soaked all day. We went down stairs to breakfast with glum faces, looked outside and couldn't believe our eyes. It was realy sunny and not a sign of the rain from the night before.......crazy! We promptly booked a 3 day tour of Halong Bay and set out to see what Hanoi had to offer.
We headed through the busy streets and came accross a guy selling Lonely Planet books. We did infact need a SEA book so we asked him how much and the price was about half the marked price which seemed pretty good until i looked more closely at it. It was a photocopy, pretty good copy but probably wouldn't last 5 mins. I told him i wanted a real one and from nowhere he pulled out a second hand latest edititon real Lonely planet. We haggled a bit and got it for about 7 quid which was a bargain. Before we could pay him however we needed some cash as we had only just arrived in Vietnam so he took us to a cash machine accross this busy junction which looked impossibly impassable, but off he went. We just walked slowly throught the masses of motorbikes and the odd car all moving to miss us. It was crazy but that was a rather real lesson in how to cross the road in Nam. We got 3,000,000Dong out about 100pounds and paid the man his money and off we went to explore the sights.
We spent the afternoon walking around Hanoi's central lake and getting a bite to eat whilst planning our day with our newly purchased travel bible, Loney Planet SEA on a shoestring. We took a walk to see Ho Chi Minh's Moresleum where you can see him embalmed in all his waxy glory. We got there and it was very quiet, a bit too quiet but we guessed we are here out of season. As we got closer to the moresleum, we could see it was closed. We consulted our LP and if we had read a bit further we would have noticed that he takes a holiday for 3 months at this time of year for maintainace in Moscow....Doh. We took a walk to find yet another market, our first it Vietnam, to see what was on offer. The place was bonkers with bikes everywhere dodging people and stalls. The market was rubbish, just like a market back in the Uk mainly selling stuff for locals, so no fake tat for the tourists. We walked around aimlessly for a while as we didn't fancy seeing any of the temples dotted around the outskirts of the town, we are a bit templed out at this moment, and after some food we packed a small bag for our 3 day trip to Halong Bay. We did check the weather forcast before we went to bed...........sunny as sunny could be!
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Dave Deane
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Somewhere familiar
You've reached familiar territory for us. Vietnam is quality. A little crazy - make sure you watch out trying to cross any roads. Make sure you find the cheap beer - 5 pence a pint. Just look for Bia Hoi or fresh beer signs all through Vietnam.