Sunday 28th June 2009 Hanoi

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Sunday 28th June 2009 Hanoi
Even with a few beers on us we had a crap night sleep. Like the night before the noise of people having conversations in the lobby and their rooms spreads throughout the hotel like they were talking right beside you. Very annoying. It was constant from about 5am so we were a bit wrecked getting up. It wasn’t too early though it being a Sunday like in and all. When we did arise we headed out to try and organize a trip to Halong bay for tomorrow and were looking forward to the prospect of a night away form Hanoi to break it up and possibly get better nights sleep. Priced a few around and eventually found one that sounded good for $58 for 2 days one night, but then we hit an unforeseen obstacle. We had no copy of our Vietnamese visas and with our passports in the Chinese embassy we were stuck doing a one day trip which was a bit annoying. John and Claire were just back from a 2day one and they had a great time, their room turned out a bit of a disaster but said it was good fun. We had a nice lunch in Paris Deli and headed back to the hotel to decide what we wanted to do. Ended up booking a one day trip from our hotel for $32 which would have to do as you kind of have to go to Halong Bay when in Hanoi or even when in Vietnam.

That evening then we arranged to meet back up with all the crew from Hue, Pamela and Chris were in town as well as John and Claire so we all met in Backpackers hostel bar where John was somehow getting his money back from his Halong trip because of his room. Very strange procedure for over here as Hanoi is probably the worst place I have ever been for money hungry rip offs and scams. The taxis are a joke. We haven’t taken one yet but heard lots of stories of them charging $18 for half km drives and dodgy tour rip offs. The worst we were hit with was a ridiculous laundry bill from our hotel which was twice what it should have been but in general you got to keep your eyes open in Hanoi. Anyway we met them all and two other Irish girls, its all about the Irish in Vietnam, and went and got a nice dinner in some frenchy place called Stop café and had a nice few beers and a good bit of craic in a bar then afterwards. Aoife was just after coming straight in form China so we were hitting her for information on there. Then it was time for goodbyes as John and Claire were flying off to Thailand in the morning, they were a great fun couple and we had some good times so we were sorry to see them go.

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