Time to slow down...

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Survival of the Fittest

I'm going to try something different with this blog. It's going to be more like my diary than a blog. I've been trying to write in my book as I go along so i copy it to the blog site, which is why I might say 'today I did' twice and be talking about different days.


6th of Dec. Today was my first day on my own as an independent traveller and my last in HK, since I'm flying to Hanoi. I decided to start my trip with a stricter attitude towards spending, so instead of flying from HK to Hanoi, which would have been nice and simple, (but pricey) I chose to fly from mainland China. This saves me a massive $60 (wow, I know but it becomes a lot when you consider a suite in Hanoi is $10/night). Well.....after 2 taxis, 1 trains, loads of walking, 3 customs checks, a mountain of stress, being harassed by a million conmen, I have saved myself $60. Will I keep this attitude? Well I just paid $20 for a chicken sandwich and booked a suite in Hanoi, if tat answers the question!


7th of Dec. I wrote the above sat in the airport, so I was crabby to say the least. I'm now sat on my bed in Hanoi looking out of my window on the 5th floor listening to the beeping of a million scooter horns and chuckling over how they've managed to squeeze so many house (shacks) in. When the hostel's website said the room had great views I didn't think of their must be loads of steps, I thought cool great pics. Well after climbing the 80+ steps to my room for the 8th time today I've learnt another lesson: ask if there's a lift. Apart from hiking up and down the steps, I'm just chilling out today & trying to shake off this cough and saw throat that I've had for a week now. My friends' call it the Avian cough. All jokes apart this sickness has caused me no end of stress going through customs because they have heat sensors and masses of health questionnaires to fill out. In the end I just lied and kept going: watch this space as I start a pandemic of Avian cough.


I'm going to be in Hanoi a couple of days so I'll update this page soon.

Bye for now!

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Photos

Market place
I didn't think it could be done, but this place smelt worse than the Chinese market!