Trip

8/5/02 Hanoi, Vietnam (Phillip)

Click here for pictures from Vietnam

Check it out; I got to post a journal in a new country before Kel! So we managed to survive the long bus journey. I actually got a decent seat so I wasn't too bad. But about after an hour I heard a familiar voice at the back of the bus yelling at the driver. "We paid good money, turn on the AC! AAAAA-CCCC! Moooonnnneeeeyyy!". Yup, Kelly was both hungry and tired (terrible combo) and was yelling at the driver. Now she was perfectly right, it was unbearably hot back there, but I thought it was funny that on such a big bus that it was Kel!

First impression of Hanoi, it's loud! Seems like people define themselves by honking the horn of their moped! Hundreds of moped's all honking at once, pretty insane. Hanoi is visibly richer than Laos, there's lots of up market European restaurants. We even splashed out for a particularly expensive one yesterday, almost $3! This was a flash place though, violin and piano playing, candles, flowers etc... Totally not what we're used to. Then back to our hotel. Yup, I said hotel, not hostel. Another flash place. I managed to talk the guy down from $10 to $2 a head and after cramming a few extra's in each room (they provided extra beds) we had 2 rooms for the 7 of us.
The room has AC and even satellite TV, total luxury compared to the places we've been staying!

The group currently consists of 4 Americans (Kelly seems to be magnet for US Citizens!), a Dutch, a German and myself. I actually looked into tours this morning and I think I'll just head off on one of those by myself for a while. Should make the decision of which restaurant in less than the current 20 minute debate! :) They're all nice folks so we'll see what happens.

My plan is basically to head north of Hanoi and back here to do all the museum's etc. Then perhaps head south to Hue and onwards (stopping on the way) to Ho Chi Minh. Should be fun, now the question is, why aren't you here doing it with us!?! :)

Posted by Admin at May 7, 2002 09:10 PM