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Published: November 23rd 2008
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Time for a new update! Me and Krista have decided to head off on another holiday together - this time to explore Vietnam and Cambodia (and a mini-visit to Thailand with a few days in Bangkok at the end).
We started with an extremely long journey to Hanoi...the cheapest deal we could find was with Finnair and so we thought a few hours in Helsinki would be fun,do a quick tour of the city in 8 hours before flying on to Asia. With our booking in August we hadn't really thought about the cold and dark weather in Scandinavia in mid-November,so when we were actually there it was a bit gloomy and after our stroll we were keen to fly on to what we hoped would be warm and sunny Asia (so far pretty warm but not yet very sunny....). Upside was that all the walking through Helsinki had made us quite tired, so we pretty much slept the entire way to Bangkok.
In Bangkok we had a brief stop before flying to Hanoi. Unfortunately Krista had an allergic reaction to her antibiotics during our flight which was a little scary, she got all red and had trouble breathing.
The crew on the flight didn't really seem to know what to do either,they were very sweet,asking 'is your friend OK?',and offering some candy and wet tissues. kind, but not exactly helpful. (I guess AirAsia don't have emergency health care as a priority in their training..?)
In Hanoi Krista was about to faint so they had a wheelchair take her to first aid. We had an airport pick-up from our hostel (thankfully!!) and he spoke good English, which was great, as the doctor
didn't. He didn't know what Amomoxiciline (sp?) was either, and just made Krista lie down in a bed. Then he called someone, measured her blood pressure...and looked pretty clueless. The guy from the hostel said he was calling someone to ask advice, but he already had a needle ready!! We figured that that was our cue to leave!! Luckily the swelling went down and Krista started feeling a little bit better on the way to the hotel. A bit of a scary start to our trip!
The next morning Krista was a lot better and we had a good breakfast at our hostel (Little Hanoi Hostel in old town) and we had a stroll around
the lake. First we familiarised ourselves with the traffic in Hanoi...quite something else!!! You don't wait until there is no traffic because there ALWAYS is traffic. You go halfway, or wait until some motorbikes, bikes, cars pass and then walk to the other side of the road. It is weird to walk onto the road when there are so many cars coming at you - just assuming they will avoid you. They also honk all the time (just to announce that they are coming, it's 'polite' i guess). None of them go in a straight line either so it is pretty crazy!!
We went to a little temple in the middle of the Hoan Kiem lake and after walking for a few hours we had a fruit shake in a cafe. We also visited the Temple of Literature, a nice temple right in the middle of Hanoi. That evening we had dinner with our friends Paul and Ellen from Holland, who have been travelling South to North through Cambodia and Vietnam (and also North Thailand and Laos). We had a lovely Vietnamese meal in a street that I can only describe as the metal-cutting street (each street in Hanoi
seems to have a specialty/theme,i.e. the mattrass street, the lanterns street, the clothing street, etc) Our restaurant was not in the nicest of streets as the sound of cutting metal wasn't the greatest background noise. Super food though.
The next day we had arranged a boat trip in Halong Bay, about 3 and a half hours drive from the city. We were picked up early and once we were in Halong it was very apparent we weren't the only ones. Tons of big boats were ready to take large tour groups into the bay. It was kind of overcast but once our boat went out we saw some amazing rock structures. We were really impressed by the small floating village in between the rocks, our guide told us the people live there and make a living by fishing and then selling the fish in the village. They even have a floating school....quite a bizarre idea. We then had a delicious lunch with squid, catfish, spring rolls (of course!!) rice, lots of vegetables....all very filling but I could keep eating all day 😊
After lunch we stopped at some caves which had clearly been very set up for the
tourists with colourful lighting to show the different stalagmites and stalagtites, but it was rather entertaining as our Vietnamese guide Tuyen kept making jokes (at least I'm assuming they were jokes)...like "yes this rock (using a little laser light to point them out) is like the powerful woman, the power of the woman, what you think it is? (starts giggling) yes, its like a large breast!" and then there would be a slight silence, so we thought it was better to keep laughing at her comments. Quite cute. After a while it was clear that every rock in the cave looked like an animal or a person: a man's face, a naked woman's body, a dancing lion, a sleeping dog etc etc......
After enjoying a beer on the boat deck we went back to the harbour and headed back to Hanoi. We only had a little time to pack our bag for our next trip, to Sa Pa that evening. We had a guy take us to the station, we didn't realise this was 2 hours before the train left! This was so we could "relax" at the station.....hmm i would have preferred a dinner and a little more
time to freshen up, but alright. We tried to find some dinner at the station but our search for "noodles", "hot food" only led to the vendors pointing out their best cigarettes and Sprite so we decided to go for the plain baguettes. The "tour guide" (this is how he introduced himself, i think it was his ambition to be one) who brought us to the station seemed to take his job VERY seriously....his English wasn't great but he made a good effort. He sat with the 6 of us and checked our tickets several times, then we headed for the platform (about an hour before departure) and then informed us there was a problemwith the electricity, that was why we couldn't get on yet. He was extremely apologetic, even though none of us were at all bothered, we had plenty of time! He made some phone calls, and then ran off, promising he would be back within 5 minutes. The electricity problem was quickly solved and we could get on the train. We decided to wait for our loyal "tour guide" though...who came running soon after. All sweaty he said, "OK now....you can show ticket". This was already made
quite clear by the conductor, but it was very sweet,
We got onto our 'business class' sleeper train (definitely looked better than the 6 beds-a-cabin hard sleeper) and met our bunk mates - two chinese people who didn't speak a word of English. It was a quiet trip and we managed to sleep alright even though it was pretty bumpy and squeeky (they do not oil the parts connecting the trains). The next morning we got in around 6 and were picked up by our next tour guide. We had a bus trip of about an hour to Sa Pa with very winding roads, but as we were so sleepy we didn't see much (it was also pretty foggy so not much to be seen..). More about our trip to Sa Pa next!
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Jenny
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Krista!
Good lord, is she alright? I'm no doctor but it sounds to me like she went into, or went almost into, anaphylactic shock, which COULD have been fatal. Again, I'm not a doctor, but I have had this reaction a few times, and when I have doctors have given me an antihistamine, like Benadryl. If you see some somewhere I'd recommend stocking up on it, just in case it happens again. Unless she reacts badly to Benadryl, but it's usually used as like a cold medicine. How scary! I'm so excited for you guys, though, that you're on this awesome trip! You're so inspirational the way you just up and go to cool places. I wish I was closer to all these cool places and not a half a world away. :) When you're done with this trip, come back to Boston and visit again. :D xoxo! Jenny