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Published: November 21st 2009
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My bucket cocktail :) So Thursday we finally made our way out Yangshou after spending over a week not doing an awful lot there!! We got a bus to Nanning, city closest to Vietnam where we were leaving by bus friday morning. We arrived late in the evening, so just booked into our hostel, bought our bus tickets for the morning and had an early night.
Our bus left Nanning at 7.30am Friday morning!!! So early for us! The journey was fine, a few hours to the border, border crossing was fine, then a few more hours and we were in Hanoi in North Vietnam. Weather is pretty much the same as its been in China for the past week (should improve in a few days though 😊 Bit annoying as the bus that brought us to Hanoi drove right through the city and dropped us about 12km outside of the city, then some woman come on and (speak english) asking who needs accommodation and how she can help us get a taxi...all seemed a bit iffy to us, we've read loads about scams, and people working together with taxi's and hotels to get commission. Anyway, she seemed ok in the end, after we
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View of our street from our balcony hostel told we had already booked a hostel she didnt seem that interested in us, group us together depedning on where we were all going and then Ste and I jumped ina taxi with 2 other guys who were staying near us. We had to bartar with the taxi driver, he offered us a price of 200,000 vietnamese dong, about 6.50, but the lady has already told it should be more like 100,000 dong, in the end we got him for 120,000, 30,000 for each of us, which is like a pound, so not bad for 12km taxi ride!!
Hanoi doesn't seem like that great a city, pretty crazy, bikes and scooters everywhere, constant horns going, and just loads of crazy little streets rammed with traffic. After settling into the hostel and catching up with some stuff on the internet, namely facebook after it being banned for the past month in China, we finally ventured out into the danger zone of bikes and chaos and find a cheap little restaurant to eat, fried rice for 1 pound and noodles for just over a pound. Very nice. Beer in the restaurant was like 40p. We later tried to buy some beer
from the shop and it cost more than the restaurant!! Found a cheap small bottle of vodka from the shop for 1 pound, finally cheap vodka again 😊 We decided to go round near this lake area with things are a little bit nicer looking, lots of restaurants and bars. Well we decided to go in one that lonely planet reccommended, was a crazy little bar with a balcony overlooking the river, but it was a right little trippy place playing loads of electro techno music. Mad. Beer was 1 pound for a bottle and I got a bucket, which was more like a pint sized plastic tub of vodka and orange for 2 pound 😊 Was funny when we left the bar, the barman was really friendly thanked us for coming and poured out 2 free shots of vodka (anyone would think we were back in Russia!!) then poured a shot for himself as he put the bottle down it slipped and smashed over the bar!! Two expensive free shots for us. Then just to top it off Ste knocked over his shot!! NIghtmare, felt sorry for these guys who were just trying to impress us and it probably
ended up costing them a fortune!!
Saturday morning we decided to start planning a bit about what we wanted to do as we didn''t want to end up hanging around in Hanoi for too long. We wanted to head to Halong Bay just south east of the city, you can make you own way but the best thing to do is book tours to take you around the area on boats. Was so difficult deciding what to do and whether to book a trip or do it ourselves which would work out more difficult but alot cheaper. Well we met another 2 english lads Rob and Ross who helped us decide and we booked a trip along with them leaving tomorrow!! Cost 50pound each for 2 nights, staying 1 night on the boat and 1 night in a nice hotel. And we get taken around for 3 days around Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island....cant wait!! We also booked this bus ticket for 22 pound, basically runs along the main tourist route for Vietnam and you can get on and off the busses along the way, so figured we would save ourself a few pennies there.
So after
agreeing and finally booking the tour and paying something stupid like 4 million vietnamese dong (only about 135 pound, the currency here is stupid) Rob and Ross stuck around with us for the day for a bit of sight seeing. The city is pretty crazy all around and their aren't that many sights to see, but had a nice walk around and saw a few temples etc. Visited the prison that was used here that was pretty interesting as it was where the american pilots were imprisoned during the war so that was quite interesting, but yeah a really nice afternoon. Rob and Ross had just both been around South Thailand and its Islands, sounds amazing where they went...hope our money lasts long enough to let us spend some nice time soaking up the sun for a few weeks on Thailands beaches.
We headed back to the hostel and later went to eat. Difficult to find some cheap places to eat round here, they seem to have really local places with everyone sitting out on the street on little plastic chairs, its completely filthy and nothing is in english, or you can go to a nice restaurant around the
lake, but a lot of their prices are in dollars and it works out a bit more than what we wanted to pay. Luckily we found a little local places that had a couple of dishes in English, for just over a 1 pound, so very good. After dinner we got a huge group of people from the hostel and headed to this little area where everyone sits outside on the little plastic chairs again and they sell beer for 10p for a glass somewhere between a half pint and a pint...bargain!!! Except my beer drinking has not been good recently, managed to stomach 1 glass but couldnt stand the taste after, although Ste enjoyed the 10p beers. Come back for a relatively early night as we have an early start tomorrow...8am, too early for us.
Cant wait for the trip, hope its all ok and will write about it afterwards. Will be nice to get out this crazy dirty city and see some of Vietnam.
Lots of love,
Layla & Ste xxx
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Lara
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Just read mum the blog, god can you imagine if ellis was there him and ste on 10p beers! Crazy! Hope you enjoy your boat trip love you lots mums sends her love xxxx