Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The 28 hour journey to Hanoi
After wondering the streets of Vientiene in Laos for several hours trying to find the 'nicest' bus to do the monster journey on, and after insisting on looking at photos of every bus on this route we finally came to the conclusion that contrary to what we were lead to believe every travel agent/hotel and booking agency offered the exact same bus for this journey.
Now this particular route and border crossing had been nicknamed 'the bus from hell' by other travellers. To which I laughed as I was quite smug that after our night trains and several night buses Chris and I had finally got seats next to each other. The travel agent even offered to pick us up directly from the Vietnamese embassy where we had to collect our passports and visa the same time the bus was scheduled. #winning
So along pulls this mini van ready to take us to the bus station, inside it was one other young man, he seemed really cool, he had been travelling for 11 months, and hadn't flown anywhere, so from the UK he took the euro star, then went through Germany Ect until basically he got China. He was also local to us and was from Worcester Park, he knew loads of information about where we were heading and was trying to help us- although we hadn't asked for his advice, it was quite useful bits of info he was telling us.
Any way after 15 mins of him in the mini van and him telling us he was going to 'Hue' which is about 20 hours south of Hanoi, I said to Chris, God glad he ain't on our bus. Bit over bearing.
We walk up to our bus, which had a wifi sign on the front so I was already feeling good about this, and got taken to our seats.... At the very back of the coach, next to the toilet. The stinking, rotten toilets. Before I could even see where we were seating (because it was impossible to see unless you were down there) I was already fuming.
Without fail every bus, boat, train or ANYTHING we booked we were shoved at the back right next to the toilets, along with all the other foreigners (westerners) and im starting to think it is NOT a coincidence.
We climbed into the cave, and saw there were 3 seats, and I thought aw well atleast the travel agent has sorted us out abit and given me and Chris 3 seats... But no...along marched Dan, DAN... You know that one going 20 hours south of Hanoi, not only on our bus, not only in our air space, but he was placed in our BLOODY BED!
Absolute steam coming out of my ears nows. Chris is trying to calm me down. This Dan's seat is inbetween us. So let me describe to you in more detail. The size of 3 seats all together is about the width of a large single bed. Every other seat on the bus was individual one per a row with an aisle between, air con, light, luggage tray- accept of course for these 3 sandwiched together like sardines, above the engine, with no window, no light, no air con, no head room to sit up... In the cave- with Dan, whom spoke like Wallace from 'Wallace and Gromit' or for all those that watch inbetweeners, he looked, dressed, spoke and acted exactly like Will.
A no it all. Who butted in, our conversations, took our books, Chargers, iPads, and anything else we had to offer to 'borrow' before we could even answer yes or no.
Moaned the entire journey that he had no leg room and Chris had the most leg room, and by 'rights' Chris was in his seat as he should be in the middle.
WELL MATE, BY F*%KING RIGHTS YOUR ON THE WRONG BUS GOING TO THE WRONG CITY SO BY RIGHTS EFF OFF!
Scrawled on the roof of our cave were several words of warning from past people who had been there, I'll quote a couple 'Even batman can't save you now' , 'f*** my life' , 'fear all yee who enter the cave' , 'the cave has you now' , 'get out while you can'
After stressing myself out so much I gave myself a nosebleed and 2 valliums later with earphones in our ears we fell asleep.
We arrived at the Laos/Vietnam border at 4am we had to wait 2 and half hours (doesn't open til 7am) then got pushed out at 6.30am- pouring rain, freezing cold, being shoved around like cattle then got our passport stamped then back on the bus for 1km to another crossing where again we had to have our passports checked then out into the rain, then bags off to get them scanned, although there was a man walking around with a monkey in a cage, then another one with a turkey, oh and the woman with live eel. So I'm wondering what exactly there checking for here. Anyway- a total of 6 and half hours crossing the border.... With my feet soaked through and a packet of biscuits I managed to buy I have never been so happy to crawl back into my cave.
Only another 7 hours... But actually it ended up being another 10 by the time we made it to Hanoi, but it was okay because we had booked a hotel and splurged spending £7 for this room with a bath. Oh how I longed for that bath!
We got in a taxi, and paid 400,000 Vietnamese dong by meter to travel 3km- that's about £15, something tells me that the meter was rigged lol. Our hotel later told us that journey should have cost 30,000 dong which is about 80p. But the standard procedure arriving to a new country is to get ripped off the first day. If Chris and I could have all the money we have wasted and been robbed of this past 7 weeks, we could probably afford another month in Asia haha.
We get dropped to our hotel, looks lovely, and the really nice man checks is in and informs us that Infact there's no room at this hotel, the one we booked specifically because it had a bath, and so a member of staff from the 'sister hotel' which actually had 'hostel' in the title not hotel at all was coming to take us to our 'new' and supposedly 'better' room. You can imagine my face at this moment. Once we got to the hostel, we walked in and the Staff I've got to say, were the nicest most friendliest people we had met, so helpful with everything, but unfortunately they couldn't install a bath suite into our brand new bath room, I think perhaps as it had all just been renovated perhaps they just needed to update there website, the shower here however was the nicest we have had, the bed was so comfortable and we had sky on our flat screen TV.
That evening after that journey i decided that being a vegetarian was too hard, so I ate duck. And it was delicious. After our meal we went to the night market, and hand on my heart I can say all the clothes sold here were so incredibly revolting I was happy to get back and go to bed.
The next morning I was sorry to say goodbye as it really wasn't personal... But I needed my bloody bath. After a search we found a hotel 2 blocks away and looked at the room before booking. Praise the Lord. This room was HUGE. Bigger tv, wonderful desk so I could work on my scrap book and a large new bathroom including a bath tub! And was a bargain at £12 a night - although this was above our daily £10 a night budget we were happy to pay a bit more, and £2 May not seem like it's crippling our bank balance but that's a meal for 2 here so it definitely was a splurge!
We swiftly checked in and went out for the day.
I love Hanoi, the city is bustling and doesn't rely solely on tourism as Bangkok did. The motorbike rules the roost here. Thousands of them. I would say 100 bikes to one car. Crossing the road was a task in itself, Infact it petrified me, and Chris dragged me by my arm from street to street. We stayed in the old quarter of the city. The streets were really small and reminded me ALOT of the west end in London. Bustling.
One thing I really loved about Hanoi was the organisation of the roads. Each road was named after what was sold down it. Obviously we didn't know what any of the road signs meant but all it would take was two or three shops in to know what road you were on.
Ladder street
Door handle lane
Jewellery Avenue
Shoe road
Coffee shop street
Children's toys and crèche roundabout
Computer shop lane
Florist rise
The list is endless, I was fascinated just walking around and looking at all the roads and what they sold.
We headed for the Hoa Lo Prison. A prison built by the French colonists in Vietnam for political prisoners during the revolution. Although the majority of the prison was demolished in the 1990's there was still about 10% of it standing and converted into a museum.
10% doesn't sound like a lot, but believe me, it was enough to get a feel for this place. The rooms they were all kept in chained to one another were still there with wax models of the men in the chains. I think what the French tried to do here back fired as holding all these politicians in one place only made it easier for them all to sit there and plan. They would hold meetings and remained patriotic and determined the whole time. There was even women who were kept in there own quarters with there babies aswel, and although I think some of it may be slightly exaggerated the place did look horrific.
For those politicians they saw as dangerous they kept them in the death row cells, where they would sleep, pee and eat in a cell in utter darkness before they were beheaded.
Despite the prison being built using the French's finest locks, over 100 men during this time managed to escape via the suers.
Later on the prison was used in the Vietnam war where american prisoners of war were kept here and it was sarcastically nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton, there were picture of the men kept here, playing cards and smoking and they did actually look like they were enjoying them selves ha. Quite a contrast, but again I have a feeling this may have been exaggerated.
Hanoi was cold, and cloudy and wet, we had arrived in there winter, so they all are in hats a gloves in 16 degrees and I'm bombing around in linen trousers and a light cardigan- although my clothing wasn't ideal, as inside the hotel was colder then outside I do feel that the Vietnamese may have a shock if ever they visit the UK , which at the time had snow on the floor.
Looking forward to my bath we searched for bubble bath for 40 mins. After which we got back to our home about 6pm, and low and behold the plug didn't work, and after running hot water for 20 mins and it seaping back down the drain gradually, I was left with about 2 inches of hot water and now cold water coming out of the tap.
I had a small tantrum.
It took Chris 20 times to boil the kettle, the entire 400 ml bottle of bubble bath and a hair spray lid instead of a plug and finally I got my beloved bath!
We watched pretty woman and for the first time in our whole trip felt at home.
The next day we went to the Thang Long Water puppet theatre. Puppets that dance on water was invented in the 11th century by farmers in northern Vietnam during the wet season when the rice fields were flooded. It was a very strange show, but extremely entertaining, some of the original puppets were used from when the water puppets came to Hanoi over 100 years ago, and although no english was spoken, it was clear during the 14 acts what was happening. We found it hysterical although others around us didn't seem to enjoy it as much.
That evening we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant, something Manuella had mentioned to us before so we thought we would try it. It was a roof top restaurant, and basically you order a pile of meat, various different cuts and weights and you have a bbq built into your table and a waitress comes and cooks it in front of you. The Koreans however, the experts cooked for themselves. The food was delicious and great to try something new.
That evening I opted not to have a bath, considering it took Chris over an hour to run the bath I thought best not even ask.
The next morning we checked out and awaited our bus to take us to Cat Ba.
#chribella
- comments