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Published: October 25th 2007
Well, another busy week under our belt!
As it transpired, we were ACHING from the tubing... far too much swinging, so we decided to get on the road the next day, and make our way to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. We took a minibus with Eitienne, our french Canadian comrade, and two people from his two day boat, from Belgium, Patricke and Monique. We got a place to stay quite quickly, and had a wander round town. We decided we would spend just 2 nights and 1 day in Vientiane, as the size of the city is quite manageable. We got up the next day, organised our Vietnamese visa's with the guesthouse (55 dollars which is more than we hoped but we could get them in 24 hours) and flights to Hanoi (118 dollars). Broke after that!!! We were planning on doing the border overland, but had read and heard that it was a bit hairy, so decided that if we only took one flight in S.E. Asia, this would be it!
We spent the day in Vientiane, seeing the monument Patuxai, a replica of the Arc de Triumphe in France, the National Concert (?i think) Hall, the
temple That Luang - the national symbol of Laos, and the brand new (small) shopping centre. The shopping centre wasn't great, but we had to have a look as it was the ONLY shopping centre in the whole of Laos!! One fantastic bit about it was that it had the 'Marks and Spencers Smell' (you all know what we are talking ) wafting up the escalators!!! We went in search of it, found it, and actually got to EAT it. It was a hot soft waffle type cake filled with chocolate! Another amusing thing was seeing the Laos people trying to use the escalator - obviously a new phenomenon in Laos! they were nervous and clutching their bags and children and holding on for dear life going up and down!
As luck would have it, we stumbled across a poster for a free concert at the french language institute. As it turned out the biggest band in Laos 'The Cell' were playing that evening at a concert against poverty. They were really good, and even did a cover of Zombie by the Cranberries! Paul looked a bit envious when all the Vietnamese kids started moshing, but held back!
We got our plane the next day without incident. Decided to opt out of the Laos airlines option due to their unpublished safety records, and fly with Vietnam Airlines - Paul thought it was absolutely hilarious that our plane was called 'Focker - 70'. We had to pay a departure tax of 10 dollars that we decided to pay in kip as it was better value given the currency conversion rate. And sure typical of these asian countries, it turned out that they didn't give any change when we paid in their own currency! We had, on many occasions in Laos been given chocolate and sweets as change instead of the change itself, but got nothing at all as change in the airport!!!! Typical!!
Got to Vietnam, and thought we'd be clever and get the Vietnam Airlines minibus to Hanoi for $2 each rather than pay $7 in a taxi. Sure of course, when we got to the drop off point, the driver told us all to stay on the bus to get dropped to our hotels, and then the next stop was way out of town, when he announced that if we wanted to be dropped to our
Elaine Vientaines Concert hall
We're far too polite to photograph the monks properly... have to do it on z sly!hotels it was an extra $1 each! Turned out the original drop off point was about 2 mins walk from our hotel, but he had told us it was 20 mins away! Ended up sitting on bus for nearly 40mins extra for privelage of paying the extra dollars!
Got to the hotel we had our eye on on the net, The Ritz, but as we hadn't booked they were full. However, the managers, River and Spring, a couple due their first child in about 1 week, were kind enough to look after us. They organised 2 motorbikes (!!) to bring Paul and Myself and Rucksacks all at once to a guesthouse they used to work in, and offered to pick us up again in the morning to stay in their hotel. The traffic in Hanoi is CRAZY, millions of motorbikes, cyclos, some cars, bicicyles, beeping, breaking red lights, etc, so that was hairy but a lot of fun. Paul has a video that we'll try to link to!!! We stayed in Blue sky guesthouse the first night, which was lovely, and then picked up the next morning and back to The Ritz. The guesthouse is lovely - couldnt recommend
Dinner Vientiane
us and patrique and monique from belgique! it enough. The couple also have been wonderful. Paul ended up talking them out of spending a fortune getting a website built for them, and helped Spring to build their own basic page at minimal cost. Check it out, www.theritzhotelhanoi.com - still under construction!
So we've spent some time in Hanoi now, and visited various sites, see pictures below. We went to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum (Hanoi Hilton), Hoan Kiem Lake - The centrepiece of Hanoi - right in the middle of the Old Quarter, and across from the entrance to our hotel, Ngoc Son Pagoda in the middle of the lake over a pretty red bridge, St Joseph's Cathedral - Hanoi's neo-gothic highlight for a bit of religion where we could pretend we were at home for a few minutes (with difficulty due to noise and traffic and beeping outside), Lenin Park - where they all do their aerobics in the morning, and a water puppetry show. Busy, busy we are on these city breaks!!! Lots of culture for us - tis far from lying on beaches for a month and a half we were reared eh!!!
Everything in Hanoi closes at 12midnight, but we met
some ozzies and a scotswoman who invited us out for dinner one night, and introduced us to the underworld of Hanoi; They co-oerced us to drink rice wine that had been stewed in with four different kinds of snakes.. fruity... and also we had had upset tummies for a while before, and the hard shots of alcohol seemed to clear them right up 😊. Also, after dinner, they brought us to a boat on the red river that has a dish-co (v. eighties) that runs all night or until the police close it down. That was a bit of fun, but we were home by 1.30am - getting a bit too used to all these government imposed curfews - we were pooped!
We are just back today from a 3 day, 2 night trip to Halong bay and Cat-Ba island. We booked it with this crowd called Friendship Travel through the hotel. Unfortunately their was a problem with the boat, and we didnt get the lovely brand new Junk we were supposed to get, rather a Heap of Junk - food not great either. The crowd on the boat were a bit dull also, and all went to bed
at 8.30pm!!! But there were only 4 of us doing the 3 day option, so Paul, Myself and two londoners with irish roots, Gary and Tony, hung out and had a right laugh for the 3 days. We went visiting caves, went kayaking twice, slept on boat, drank on deck til ... wait... 12PM!!!! (better than the others and the crew tho - and we had been drinking in the dark since 6pm - specially since the electricity kept going as there was a problem with the generator.
The second day we went to Cat Ba island, where we stayed for the 2nd night. We went trekking there to the highest peak with our guide Vough. Have to say tho, despite the problems with the quality of the trip, we had such a laugh - the two guys were very funny, and sometimes bickered and picked at each other like a married couple (very much heterosexual tho, they were mourning the loss of 5 norwegian beauties for much of the trip that they had spotted kayaking!). Very funny guys, they had us laughing for the whole trip!!
When we came back today, we told River and Spring about
the trip - and they actually called the company and got the managers round, as they felt very strongly that we should have got what we paid for and were troubled themselves that they had recommended the trip. The company explained their was some problem with the actual boat, and refunded us some of the cost!!! (quite impressed by this for vietnam- quite a professional response!!), so actually would still recommend company. Other guests who had gone on this trip had had a perfect time, so we were just unlucky, and had a great laugh anyway.
We are wrapping up in Hanoi today, we ventured to the museum of ethnology today, and tmrw morning we're gonna squeeze in the military museum (for the man-child in paul - he's dying to go), and then a sleeper bus to Hue, should take about 12hrs i'm told!!! And have to bring earplugs and valium for crazy vietnamese bus driving and endless beepings on the roads!!!
Well thats it, we're a bit more cultured now than before with all our sightseeing! 1 more day in Hanoi and then we begin to make our way down the coast for further adventures.
Hope you are all well. Please note the special effort here to improve on the aforementioned lack of capitilisation :P (took me ages and may have interfered with my normal natural flow of wittiness and fantastic storytelling though!!!) ; Also Happy 30th birthday to John (Stacey) - sorry we missed the surprise party - boo! But enjoyed the pic's and glad you all had a good night!!!!
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Mark
non-member comment
capitalisation
Capitalisation adequate. Thanks. That is all.