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Published: August 30th 2008
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Yet another storm last night but not the worst we have had by far.... or perhaps I am just getting used to them! We had breakfast at the same bakery, not to make you jealous but we had a huge plate of cakes for only a pound! We only had a short amount of time and so headed back to the room to watch the remainder of a film (oh yes we got a tv included in that 5 pound a night room!). We caught a tuk tuk to the airport and boarded our flight to Hanoi with no problems. The flight departed as expected at 1400hrs and would arrive at 1520hrs. The other option, a 24hr bus journey (which means atleast 30hrs) made the flight well worth the money!
Arrival in Vietnam was as expected at 1520hrs and we breezed through immigration with our pre-organised Visas! We picked up our bags and read in our guide book that we needed to catch a minibus to Hanoi centre, some 30km away. When we got outside an airport worker directed us to a bus to the centre for only 25p each and so we decided on this option instead. However once we were on the bus we realised that this may have been a bad idea. The bus quickly fills with Vietnamese people and we realised we are on a local bus; not very tourist friendly! We know the name of our guesthouse and where it is on a map but have no idea what route the bus takes or how long it will take to get to where we need to end up. On top of this, we won't recognise when we are where we need to get off!
Quickly the bus gets rammed with people and we realised that even if we want to get off, we can't, there is no way we can lug our huge bags through this sea of people! We time 45minutes, the time stated by the guidebook to get to the city centre and get a little scared. After this time a Vietnamese guy steps onto the bus and thankfully talks english, asking where we are from and where we are going! Seeing this as an opportunity we show him our map and where we need to go. Although his english is broken and has quite an accent he emphasizes that he knows the area and where the bus stops. He also says he knows a taxi guy who is waiting the other end of the bus route who can take us where we need to go! (Excellent but it is now obvious he got on the bus, working for a taxi company, looking for lost and helpless tourists! Oh well, a good effort I suppose!).
All of a sudden the bus stops and everyone piles off, this is where the bus terminates and so we exit the bus into a sea of taxi,moto and cyclo drivers all shouting and tugging on your arm. We follow the guy we met on the bus to a 'cheap cheap for you sir' taxi. After whipping out our map we attract many more drivers all quoting different prices (atleast this means we don't have to haggle!). We get in a taxi with the original guy for a price that as soon as the door shuts is bumped up! Not impressed Dom states that he will leave the taxi for that price and so we get the original price anyway! We wind through a hectic city, narrow streets and busy roads. Horns are going off left right and centre. We arrive at what is apparently the guesthouse and a guy runs up to the car, opens the door and welcomes us. The name he states for the guesthouse is correct but the name does not appear on the shop front! Paranoid that everyone is against you and that everyone is out to get your money Dom gets into a small argument with the taxi driver, tout and hotel staff. After realising that the taxi driver has shown us where we were incorrectly on a map we get asked for our booking name.....we have no booking, whoops! No worries, we were promptly shifted onto another guesthouse 5 mins away owned by the same family. The hotel bloke jumps in the car with us and takes us there, paying for our taxi! We finally get to the hotel and are shown 2 rooms. We opt for the cheaper, higher room which at first glance seems fine. We have a bathroom and an extra single bed, tv, air con, fan, everything. We dump our bags and he takes us back downstairs to discuss tours.
The hotel staff speak good english, especially the guy looking after us. Everything seems so rushed, so money grabbing but we discuss the options for our excursion to Ha Long Bay. We go for a slightly expensive (30 pounds each) 2 day tour on what is stated and appears to be a rather luxurious boat. Activities, lunch, dinner, breakfast and lunch are all included in the tour so it seems a reasonable price actually. We then head back to the room to freshen up before going to find some food.
On returning to the room there is a rat dropping on the floor, odd smells, a small hole in the bathroom ceiling, no running water, a large hole in the bedroom ceiling covered by a poster and a shutter on the outside of the door with a padlock on it making it pretty easy for us to be locked in. Dom also notices the tv shows an eerie black picture and there is a hidden room connecting to our bathroom by a slideable piece of slate...scary!
After setting up the mozzy net and settling into sleep Dom decides to lock our bathroom door with a retractable lock (to prevent intruders from the secret room and rats from the ceiling) and locks the shutter on the outside of the door so it cannot be used to lock us in! He then sits up reading my book for a few hours before also decided to go the sleep. There are loads of weird noises in this room, mostly scurrying, we will not stay in it again!
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mum
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just waded through the latest entries. some of the journeys sound v scary. i don't like the sound of your room in Hanoi. I wouldn't have been able to sleep. New photos are excellent. love Mum. [R's]