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Published: August 20th 2007
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Hanoi is Vietnam’s capital, although smaller in population than the south’s Ho Chi Minh. Hanoi’s streets are narrow and crammed with all sorts of stalls, which consequently made it so difficult for us to navigate. Everywhere looked so similar that we were constantly getting lost. For us, the most wonderful thing about Vietnam is its people. We have been greeted with nothing but warmth and smiles and made to feel so welcome throughout our time in the country. We were therefore a little disappointed by Hanoi’s cooler reception towards us. People endlessly tried to rip us off and one lady refused flatly to serve us. We’re not sure why there was more coldness there; we suppose it maybe down to the fact that there were so many tourists around and city life is always that bit more rushed. Our faith however, was restored when two young people approached us while we sat looking over the big lake in Hanoi. They said they were students learning English and would we converse with them for practice. Dom had a lovely chat with them, whilst Bex was interrupted by a different man who needed help with some English questions. He produced a great booklet
and they spent ages sieving through them. Although excellent practice for being a teacher, it was very difficult to explain an answer when many of the questions weren’t correct. Bex pointed out all the questions that were wrong and was confused by the young couple’s giggles after the man with the booklet had gone. She felt terrible when they explained that he is actually the teacher and those questions were his!
Our time in Hanoi was sadly a bit of a wash out. We had a busy day of sight seeing planned but both our guide book and the many moto drivers, failed to tell us that nothing is open on a Monday! Everywhere we turned up at was closed, which was such a shame as we are so rapidly running out of time. Our one special memory of Hanoi was the Water Puppet Theatre. This puppetry is renowned around the world for its artistic prowess. We watched a fantastic performance of bright colours and delightful Asian singing, whilst traditional tales of Vietnam were told through the puppets that sprang up through the water.
Our attempted boarder crossing into Laos the following day was not only horrendous, but
a little embarrassing to tell as well. In our schemes to save money we avoided the straight trip tourist bus to Vientiane, Laos’ capital, and yet again took a local bus. Our plan was to take the long trip down to Vinh, stay there one night and cross the boarder at Cau Treo, 35km away, the day after. All went according to plan until the bus to Cau Treo stopped in the middle of nowhere and kicked everyone out! No one could speak any English and we can’t speak a word of Vietnamese so we didn’t have a clue what was going on. We managed to decipher through hand gestures that a bridge had collapsed somewhere due to flooding. Everyone else from the bus seemed to disperse leaving us stranded. We weren’t sure if a scam was going on or not, it was so difficult with the language barrier. People passed us from the nearby village (we were on a small graveled road surrounded by flooded fields) and offered us motos and boats for ridiculous amounts such as $200! We weren’t sure if they really knew where we wanted to go, it was all so confusing and we didn’t have
nearly that amount of money on us. We pondered over whether to try to get to the boarder since we’d come this far, or whether to cut our losses and go back to Vinh. We decided to sit on our bags on this lonely road and wait for a miracle! During this time three blokes on a moto approached us with huge grins on their faces. The middle one clutched a large riffle, which alarmed us somewhat! We don’t actually no what they wanted as they didn’t say anything to us, but they seemed more than happy for Dom to take their picture, which was the last thing Bex was thinking about asking! Another bizarre incident was when a local camera crew (presumably covering the bridge collapsing story) stopped as they passed us, reversed and then a camera man filmed us trudging along looking depressed - we like to think we made headline news!
Our miracle came when a posh 4x4 pulled up and offered us a free ride back to Vinh. We took this as a sign to go back and start again, so when they dropped us off, we got a bus all the way back up
to Hanoi and succumbed to the tourist bus leaving the following evening! We were so furious with ourselves for wasting money, but more importantly the best part of three precious days in Laos! At least we made it in the end and with hindsight, we are extremely lucky as things could have been a lot worse!
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Dave & Julie Fisher
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End of tour
Will be sorry when the blogs of your world tour end as they make great reading; have a safe last leg. Leeds have now progressed to minus 9 points!