Off to Vietnam

Tuesday 6th March

After our 6.30am checkout this morning, we made our way over to the Sentral Station.  There is an airline checkin counter at the station, so we used that in preference to lining up once we got to the airport.  At the airport we found a café for breakfast (pancakes again!) and mooched around until boarding time.  This time we were on a smaller plane but as we only had a 3 hour flight it wasn’t so bad.

As promised, we were met by a driver to take us to the hotel.  Our first impressions of Hanoi were quite startling.  It appears that the white lines on the road are just a recommended guideline and the way to avoid accidents is to frequently beep the horn.  We soon had a respite from our startling ride, however, as our driver’s car broke down!  He was able to get it going again, only to have it grind to a halt a bit further up the road.  On two occasions, John had to get out to push the car off the road, including from the middle of a crazy-busy roundabout.  While he was doing that I surreptitiously peeped in my handbag to check the insurance papers. We continued in this way until we were getting quite close to our destination, when he finally had to concede that ‘my car is broken’.  He phoned a friend who soon arrived in his Airport Taxi and took us the rest of the way.

Flower Seller in Hanoi

 Our hotel is called the Charming 2 Hotel and is very well named.  The hotel and its lovely staff are all charming.  They apologetically asked us if we’d mind swapping rooms tomorrow, from our King-sized room to a suite!  Well I guess having a suite would be OK!! 

Complementary drink at the Charming II Hotel

Once we’d settled in, we headed out for some exploring.  The traffic is absolutely jaw-dropping!!  It is like a never-ending start of the annual Adelaide Toy Run.  Thousands upon thousands of scooters, taxis and cars are zipping around, beeping their horns and narrowly avoiding bumping into each other.  Crossing the road requires a technique which we started to develop after a few scarey tries.  The idea is to step off the footpath and start walking at a consistent speed in a consistent direction and then the scooter daredevils just make sure they avoid knocking you over.  Not for the faint-hearted!

We're learning how to cross roads like this!

We set out for the Kangaroo Café to pay the deposit for our upcoming tours.  On the way, we were offered a ride on a Cyclo (pedal powered rickshaw).  We asked how much it would be and the man said ‘100’.  We knew it couldn’t be 100 dong as 10,000 dong is about 44 cents, so it had to be 100,000 dong.  When we arrived at our destination, he was suddenly able to say ‘100,000’.  John handed him a 100,000 dong note and the man suddenly decided that it was 100,000 each!  Fortunately John can be a tough cookie when he needs to be so he just refused to pay it.  Once we got to the Kangaroo Café we asked about an appropriate price to pay and they suggested it should have been about 50,000 dong.  Lesson learned!! 

We paid our tour deposits and had a welcome cool drink and rest.  We then found our way to the Hoan Kiem Lake and the nearby Water Puppets Theatre where we purchased tickets for tomorrow night’s performance.  We then strolled around the lake, taking photos, marvelling at the ongoing motor scooter derby, avoiding the locals trying to sell taxi-rides, shoe shines and all manner of other things (except the one with the sweet pastries who we thought deserved our support) and general watching the world go racing by.  It’s really hard to describe the experience, but we’ve shot a few pieces of video footage so we can relive it once we’ve finished having counselling when we get home.

We went back to the Kangaroo Café for dinner which was delightfully delicious – those wonderful fresh vegetables that the Vietnamese combine so well with beautifully flavoured sauces.  I think we took care of our week’s requirements of vitamins in one meal!

Dinner at the Kangaroo Cafe

We then made our way back to where we thought the hotel was and it turned out we were mistaken.  However we were only one street out and a helpful shop assistant pointed in the right direction.  We have learnt that stopping on the footpath looking at a map brings on a load of taxi drivers hoping for a fare, so there is a bit of a technique to finding out where you’re meant to be.

Hoan Kiem Lake

Once we connected to the hotel’s free wi-fi (a service which the KL Hilton couldn’t manage) I was disappointed  to discover that, while not officially banned in Vietnam, Facebook suffers from unexplained ‘technical difficulties’ so I won’t be able to use it while we’re here.  Very annoying as I’ve come to rely on Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends all over the world.  But I guess if that’s the worst thing that happens to us, we doing OK.