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"No more discount! I...!"
Arrived in Hanoi this morning. The sleeper bus wasn't that comfortable last night, Chris couldn't sleep and said someone kept farting lol, I thought I smelled something. I wrapped myself up in Chris's hoodie and felt comfortable for most of the time but every time the driver braked I slid forward into the gap by my feet, which put me at an awkward angle.
The bus station we were dropped at seemed to be in the middle of a main road with not much around so we caught a taxi to May Ma street which is in the backpacker area. It had rained all night so the streets were very wet and muddy when we arrived. Chris kept slipping in his flip flops but still refuses to buy a new pair! He's had the same pair for about four years! The streets felt narrow, the pavements were blocked with parked mopeds and plastic restaurants basically street vendors with plastic chairs and tables that look like they were made for children. Their prices are always guaranteed to be cheaper and so far we haven't had a bad meal from them! You can't walk on the pavements so you have to walk in the road. Which I hate, I'm constantly swinging my head left and right checking for mopeds and cars driving down. Chris hates it too, only because I keep catching the back of his heels when I'm walking behind him! Lol he growls and turns back at me.
We didn't want to stay in Hanoi, so we decided to go into some tour shops and get prices for Halong Bay and Sapa to see if we could leave tonight. Turned out all the tours start in the morning so we had no choice.
The first shop we went into seemed really expensive and the assistants didn't really help us, they just gave us the itinerary to read. They showed us the Gold Pearl Cruise which looked really nice in the brochure but it was quite expensive so we left to find another quote from somewhere else. By then we were quite hungry so we had some breakfast in a little restaurant called the Ladybird. It's a good job we went in there! We looked up reviews on the Gold Pearl Cruise and were shocked at some of the comments we read! More than one review complained about physical violence from the staff and rude behaviour from the crew! We knew then that we would need to check reviews on other cruises before booking anything.
We finished our breakfast and walked into one more shop before checking into a hotel on the same road. The assistant was very helpful and came across honest. His prices were a little cheaper and he recommended 'Cristina Cruise' to us. It looked very nice so we were sure we would book with him, but then we spoke to a tour guy from our hotel. He was offering the same cruise for even cheaper! His sales technique was very good and he told us the itinerary in detail. He was very friendly but did have a bad habit of saying "I" in an Ali G style voice at the end of every sentence which was annoying lol. The Halong Bay tour included a one night stay on Cat Ba island in the Sunflower Hotel. Then he sold us a four night three day Sapa tour, travelling on the first class train and it included a home stay in the hills. Happy with the whole package we managed to get him to discount every penny he could, then went to our room to check reviews on the internet.
Reviews looked great except for the hotel in Cat Ba island. So we found a nicer one on Tripadvisor which was on sale on Agoda.com, called the Duc Tuan hotel.
We went back down to see the assistant and got booked up. The total for the two tours came to $550 not including tax but we got the package discounted to $400! The tours have been booked back to back so we will have a couple of days left in Hanoi when we get back. We will be picked up at 8:30am tomorrow to go to Halong Bay, can't wait!!!
We had a lot of clothes that needed washing and it was getting late, we quickly got all our clothes together and looked for somewhere that could get it done by tomorrow morning.
It was impossible, it was already 4pm and the weather was still drizzly. There's no way it could dry over night, which meant our clothes wouldn't be washed for at least a week now, eew!
As it got dark we went back out for dinner. The nearby restaurants were more expensive than the Ladybird so we went back there again. We're glad we did, we had a really nice meal for just a few quid! We will probably eat there again.
So we're back in our room, going to spend the rest of the evening watching a film on the iPad as there's nothing good on tv. This week should be really interesting and a nice change from city life (and watching too much telly).
Charlotte & Chris
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