Day 22 -Woken up by the Vietnamese Gareth Gates outside our bungalow at 05:30 so there was no chance of us missing our bus to Hanoi. Why the school kids have to walk 400 metres from their own accommodation to have a sing off I have no idea!
Breakfast at the restaurant with an omelette and french bread, ok but not amazing. Finished breakfast at about 07:45 and 'someone' was worried we may miss our 09:00 bus to Hanoi so instead of waiting for a lift at 08:15 to the HQ we started to walk the 1km with our heavy backpacks on. We arrived at HQ only for the woman to say, "oh, you walked with your luggage". "Yep, didn't want to miss the bus!!". We checked out and then sat for 45 minutes before the bus arrived. When we walked over, the driver was no more than 15 years old!! 20 minutes of waiting whilst the driver and mate fed themselves. During this time we had noticed on the side of the bus, Non Quan (village next to where we were) to Hanoi 70,000vnd, 1 day after handing over 150,000 each to the reception at Cuc Phong!! Overall, Cuc Phong was really good but it felt like we were dumped in the forest and left to figure things out ourselves. Oh well, a good experience.
As we set off, thankfully another chap took the wheel and the 15 yr old was just there to load bags etc. The journey to Hanoi was very interesting to say the least. In the next village we must have stopped 10 times to pick people up. Please note this is approximately a 24 seater, I think we maxed out at about 35 with people sitting in the aisle and pretty much on the dashboard. We were stuffed in the corner in the back row. With 35 already on the bus, the youngster was hanging out the door still asking people on the side of the road whether they wanted to go to Hanoi, unbelievable. On route, we were stopped by the police, I guess for being overcrowded. Nothing a bit of corruption won't change as he handed over some cash and we were on our way! As we neared Hanoi, the 'assistant' asked everyone to close their curtains and wondering what was going on I looked out the window as we swept past another police stop point. The driver did pretty well as he hid next to a larger bus as we passed them.
As we arrived at Giap Bat bus station we all got off down the steps into a sea of people asking whether you want a taxi. As they trained their eyes on 'the westerners' there was a bit of a scrum (as they could see a rip off coming) to get us to their taxi. I sent Alice off first!!! As I got off, a bloke grabbed my arm and received a sharp punch to his forearm as I was not in the mood! This place was crazy! A bit of wondering around before we decided to go out of the bus station and look for a taxi ourselves. We flagged a bloke down and showed him the address. Renowned for ripping westerners off I was making it very obvious I was following our route on a map. The only thing we couldn't affect was the rate the meter was going up. 205,000d and 6km later we reached our hotel, well nearly, he dropped us just up the road. I made sure I told him that his meter must be broken and that their must be some sort of gerbil in there. Funnily enough it went straight over his head as did my joke of 200,000 for cash?!!
A bit of a walk down a small street we reached our hotel, The Hanoi Spring II Hotel. A quick check in and we were shown to our room. Air con, wifi, laptop, good shower, safe, all you could want. A quick sit down and e-mail checking after being without in the jungle we went out for a wander around. This place is absolutely crazy, mopeds, cars, people everywhere. A spot of lunch at Pho 24 where we got chatting to an English couple who were going home tonight. We wandered down to the main lake in the centre of the city to have a sit down to take stock. It is like a survival battle to even cross the road. We decided to go and get our tickets for the water puppet theatre as this is one of the things 'we' wanted to do. They were sold out for tomorrow but had some left for the performance in 2 minutes time, bonus! I will let Alice fill the next bit in when she vets my blog entry. Let's just say it was not my sort of thing.
'I thought it was a nice insight into Vietnamese music and culture condensed into 45 mins with puppets on water - what more could you ask for. Chris said he would rather spend 100,000d on cake'.
We had a walk around the Old Quarter but couldn't really look in any shops as it was basically every man for themselves. When you escaped off the road and thought you were safe, a moped would be flying down the pavement you! Back to the hotel to get ready to go out for dinner. Decided not to wander too far and settled on an Italian place, nice to have home comforts for once, calzone (and a massive one at that)!
A small loop around the block to take a bit of the city in at night and if anything it got more overwhelming so we headed back to the hotel to muscle up the strength to tackle it again tomorrow! Without doubt it is the most crazy city we have ever seen. Red lights do not mean red lights, the green man to walk across the road means, you can go across if you want but you may die in the process. Walking pavements are an extra driving lane and if someone is not honking their horn then it must be broken!!