We grabbed the bus and it limped its way to the Vietnam border. This is a long and slow bus ride. Normally I will take the bus to the border, walk across and get onward transport. I had been told that this border could be quite corrupt and difficult though. When we eventually got there everyone was invited to hand over their passports. Then they went through our stuff. Pretty standard stuff so far. Eventually we were called into the office. Everyone was paying the officials. Shit. We had no money. Only we didn't have to pay. Ok. They asked us if we had any Laos money left. We said no. I am not sure if they wanted to do us a favour by exchanging the money or they wanted a bung. The longer I am in Vietnam, the more I think it may have been the former. We had been told by many travellers that Vietnam was a real hassle to travel through and that the people really weren't very nice. We were prepared. The bus stopped for food. Only we were in a small town with no ATM (there does not appear to be one on this side of the border so be careful to carry money to change if you intend to walk across the money). No food for us. We were to get very hungry when our crisps and biscuits ran out. The restaurant guy came out to see if we wanted to eat, but we told him we had no money. On the way the bus passed through some really beautiful scenery. It made me excited, because in any other country so far in South East Asia this would be a major tourist attraction, but not here. That implied that there were a lot of cool places to see here. We had been most excited for Vietnam of all of the mainland South East Asian countries. Our bus broke down about three quarters of the way to Thanh Hoa, but luckily we were up and running after around half an hour. We were going to be late. I wasn't sure if we would make the connection to Hanoi and if it was better to stay the night in Thanh Hoa. It didn't exist in our guidebook, but it must have a hotel. We arrived in town and unsurprisingly there were no other tourists. We were jumped by motorbike taxis the moment we left the bus. We ignored them and were quoted 300,000 for a hotel room. Seemed steep, so we walked into town, grabbing some cash and eventually found a place for 200,000 for the 3 of us. Wow. The quality was obvious from the beginning. In Vietnam you get a lot more for your money than in Laos. Hot water, tv, comfortable beds. All for almost nothing. Lakeview Hotel. We were going to like Vietnam. Yet how were the people? We went out to see the town and got some cheap food (sausage and rice) from an old guy on the street. Super cheap internet (16.5p an hour) and really fast. We kept our trick of going to internet cafes for gaming kids. Still super fast and cheap. Writing in one now that is 10p an hour. The people seemed really nice and being a non touristy town we were getting used to the prices that normal Vietnamese pay. They haven't learnt to rip people off yet. Armed with some average prices we were off to Hanoi the next day.
We went to the local bus station and got a cheap bus to Hanoi. It.....took.....ages. Almost 4 hours. Not sure how that's even possible on highway one. We were then dropped off in one of Hanoi's five hundred bus stations. Of course it was miles to the South. Taxi drivers want loads to use them. I walked the 7km North to the old quarter via the railway station, while Cannelle and Jessica took a local bus for 3,000 (10p) each. My advice is to take the local bus. Locals seem keen to help. Be warned that you must be quiet on the bus though as that's a rule. We had been itching to go to the cinema for ages and having checked in to the really good Titanic Hotel we went off to watch James Bond and the final Twilight. The Bond film is good and Twilight is now finished, thank God. Even Cannelle noticed the marked difference in quality when you watch a Twilight film after anything else. We ate dinner in Pizza Hut as well, which is much better than home. It was a real chilled, home comfort day. We found the people pretty friendly and not too pushy, but we tended to hang out away from the old quarter. I even bought a coke for 8,000 and the woman asked me how I knew that was the price. I said I was in Thanh Hoa. Always good to get some perspective in a non touristy town. We left the cinema at half twelve and walked the ghost streets. We had heard that Hanoi had a curfew at midnight, but the city truly is quite dead late on. We walked Jessica back to her hotel, though we got lost a few times trying to find it.
In the morning we went to Hanoi railway station to sort out the train for Sapa on the Sunday night. The first woman was a bitch and would only sell us tickets for a soft sleeper at around 600,000. Ridiculous. As there was noone at the info desk I went on myself and scrolled through the different trains. Much easier to do in Vietnamese than Laotian or Thai due to them using our alphabet. In the end we found someone nicer and she sold us soft seating for around 220,000. So much cheaper. Almost every tourist seemed to be going for a sleeper. You should be able to get them for 480,000 or so at the train station, with all travel agencies and hotels wanting a 50% mark up. We went to the temple on the lake in the old quarter. It was really nice and we enjoyed the change in architectural style. We then did the LP old quarter tour. It was nice, but I am not a markets man. The merchant's house is cool though and worth the small entrance fee. We went to a ridiculous internet place where none of the computers worked and the keybords seemed to be melted. She epent ages setting stuff up randomly and in the end nothing worked. We just left. All the hotels wanted 30,000 an hour. Insane. Eventually we found a place for 10,000 an hour (which is still the most expensive we have had in Vietnam). Spurs drew with Lazio and Redknapp was back with QPR. Cannelle chatted with her sister and then we went out for a couchsurfing dinner. We went to a street grill. The food was really good, but everyone had to pay 100,000 which is very steep, but then again meat is very expensive here. There seemed a cool bunch down one end of the table and the only cool person we had was a girl from the Phillippines who had to leave early. Shame. At least we got her details to see her in the Phillippines. The others were mostly morons. We had a fat woman from the States who seemed determined to scare Cannelle about Papua New Guinea, a weird American Romney fan and not much else. Then on the way to the bar I got stuck with a depressive Belgian who entertained me with his stories of how his card was stolen and so he couldn't stay places and had to keep travelling back and forth with help from money people lent him. It caused him a lot of headaches. Then he told me he was now using his second card in Vietnam. I asked why he hadn't used the second card before, but he said he hadn't wanted to take a risk. Of course. So much better to ruin your holiday. Moron. Eventually he left, but I had had enough. Couchsurfing meetings are rarely as good as the hosting/staying experience. I should know this by now. There was even the Israeli guy who tried to hit on Cannelle. He had hit on her in Laos as well and had told us how he had gone all the way to the border of Vietnam before he realised that he needed to get a visa in advance. South East Asia has a lot of stupid travellers. I meet so many people who say its better to travel without a guidebook. Tell it to that guy as he wasted 4 days going back and forth. I don't understand why you wouldn't have one. You can always choose not to use it if you don't want to, but why cut off your avenues. Cannelle and I grabbed an ice cream and went to sit by the cathedral. Its a very pretty building and we were liking Hanoi.
We were supposed to meet Jessica near her hotel in the morning, but we had had problems with the laundry and would be late. There were some fuckwit Aussies and English in our hostel (one had 'I am a cunt' written on his arm in pen. Well at least he is self aware). Lots of people are rude to the people in Vietnam, so I am not so surprised that they get fed up. We got to the arch half an hour late and Jessica wasn't there. Then an Austrian girl informed us that Jessica was too sick to meet us. So we set off for the day. Cannelle wanted to see Jessica later, but I persuaded her that there would be no point unless she got sicker as she just needed a rest. We went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum to see Uncle Ho himself. Cannelle was scared to visit, but I had seen Lenin and I told her it was ok. The palace is overrated in my opinion, though Cannelle liked it. There were loads of girls in traditional dresses around town and we weren't really sure why. A girl on the train to Sapa told us that it was for graduation and everyone rents the dresses, because they are too expensive to buy. We went to the big lake (which is underwhelming) and found Loteria (a Japanese McDonalds a like that we eat in quite often). After we went to the Fine Arts Museum, which is really cool and worth a visit. Cannelle really liked it, even though she doesn't usually like art museums. Afterwards we went to the Temple of Literature, which is very beautiful and well worth the visit. The beauty of Vietnam is that everything costs 1 Euro or less to visit and so you visit more places, because if it turns out to be crap it doesn't matter. That's exactly what happened with the History Museum, which was super shit propaganda and not even funny like the Cuban history museum. It was the only waste of money and I am a big history lover. Its just photos though and no actual history. We went to the post office to send Babou her christmas present. That took some effort and the woman was quite useless. So far the only annoying people in Vietnam were all working in some kind of bureaucratic official position. We went to the cinematheque in the evening. Its a really cool old school cinema. You have to visit, even if its just to see the building. We watched Rebecca, which was the first time I had seen a Hitchcock and it was really good. After the fat American bitch's tirade on PPNG, we decided to do more research.
Our last day in Hanoi. We were starting to slow down the pace now as we liked the city. I needed to buy some shoes as mine were almost dead. Getting a size 48 in South East Asia is almost impossible. If I don't have more luck in Singapore I will be in the shit. We went looking for a raincoat and rucksack for Cannelle and shoes for me. We failed on everything except the rucksack that is a cheap knock off and we are not sure how long it will last. It has already started to fall apart a few times. We watched Lawless at the cinema, which was not bad. It was a lazy day. Jessica was still sick, but she was going to join us for the train that evening. An Aussie from CS asked us if we could do him a favour and take his bag up to Sapa on the bus. Only we were going by train and my shoulder was too broken to carry anything else. I told him his girlfriend needed to get the bag to the train station. He didn't. We got chatting with some English guys in the railway station. They were paying a mental amount to go to Sapa, but both worked in finance so it wasn't a problem. Eventually the time came for the train. We wandered out and found our seats. We were off to Sapa and the North. It was going to be winter at last. Hanoi is a cool city, but Cannelle still prefers Bangkok as its more modern. Hanoi grows on you though. We even found an excellent little Japanese pudding place and ate at the really cool Gecko restaurant if you get the chance.
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