26th Feb, Our minibus picked us up around 9.00am for
the journey to Bangkok airport. The night before we’d
met our friend Kasem, who’d kindly fed and watered us yet again! He'd also offered to store some of our heavier outdoor gear for us while we were
in Vietnam. Our flight had been delayed until 3.00pm so
we didn’t reach Hanoi until 4.40pm. On the way to the
hotel we saw a fatal accident and were nearly
involved in the second! A military truck missed our
rear quarter as we cut across the carriageway by
inches - it was really touch and go for a few seconds! I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many
mopeds in my life as I have in Hanoi, there are
literally thousands. The din is incredible as
everybody uses their horns for everything, stopping, starting, turning, crashing etc!!
27th Feb, Had our breakfast (Dragonfruit) and
hit the streets with Taka from Tokyo, a really nice
guy we’d met on the way into Hanoi. We headed for the
backpacker district just north of Hoa Tiem Lake and
booked a room at Stars hotel; being as we’d just been
severly ripped off, plus hassled beyond belief at the
Minh Tu hotel. We walked around the Old quarter then headed
for Hoa Lo prison museum which was great. Taka had to
leave us as he was heading for Sapa that evening, but we continued
round town and visited the Army Museum, Botanical
Gardens and Ho Tay Lake. I reckon it’s taken us 24
hours to get over the genaral shock of Hanoi, but it’s really
grown on us. The beer here is ‘Halida’, must also get one
of those green pith helmets that everybody seems to
wear too!
28th Feb, Got our asses out of the
Minh Tu, robbing sods! They offered to drop the price
to US$10 (from $30!!), once we said we were leaving.
we headed off again and visited the Air Force Museum
south of town - pretty good, if you're into Migs. When we got back central
we booked a 3 day trip to Halong Bay with Kangaroo
Café, we also booked the overnight sleeper to Hue for
the 4th March. We'd realised we probably don’t have the
time or finances for Sapa, bit disappointed – but hey,
that’s life! Anyhow we’ve both made the decision that
we nead some beach time, so heading south seems a
better prospect. We ended the night by popping into the Funky Monkey for a
few beers – this place is getting like our local -
scary!
1st March, Wow, we’ve been travelling
just over a month, it sure has flown, but you know
what they say: Time flies like an arrow – Fruit flies
like a banana – or something like that! We walked to Ho
Chi Minh’s Mausoleum and finally got there after being re-directed about fifty times by the guards, it was totally unecessary, I think they just enjoy red-tape and blowing their whistles. However, Uncle Ho had waited for us and was lying there
on full display, he looks in surprisingly good
condition and not even slightly plastic. Walked over
to Uncle Ho’s house and we we’re both promptly thrown
out for trying to sneak in the back way without
paying. We skulked off and took a look at the One
Pillar Pagoda and The Ho Chi Minh Museum (hurrah - more propaganda). I'd started to
feel really rough. We had to go back to Hotel, where I spent the
rest of evening in bed feeling dizzy and suffering
with violent shakes - bit worrying to be honest. Still;
off to Ha Long tomorrow, so a good nights kip may do
me some good.
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