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Arriving into Hanoi on a sleeper bus at 6am Is not good as, as soon as you step off the bus you are hounded by taxi drivers and people trying to sell you their Brothers, son in laws, sisters, fathers 'Very very nice' hotel. Of course we ignored all of them and got a taxi to Matts friends Bar. Also called a Matt he is also from Stowmarket and has been living in Vietnam, Hanoi for 3 years now with his Candian wife. His bar is called La Pub so we set about getting a taxi there. A little taxi driver ushered us over to his taxi to which I would like to say looked like a frog. A green Dawoo Matiz was never going to fit us four and all of luggage but my god was this little Vietnamese going to make sure he kept our custom. He proceed to put all out bags in the boot, back seat, front seat, dash board, parcel shelf (if a Matiz even has one) he then stood back and you could see the cogs turning with him think 'ok, now there is no room for the passangers' so out it all came again, in the rain and wet. We were all tired and narky at this point and when he tried putting a bag on the roof I head Rach say 'This is bloody rediculous hes never going to fit it all in and us! we need a bigger taxi!" I totally agreed and went to pick up my bag and as expected from previous incidents like this he grabbed my bag off me and again like previous incidents I had to wressle with this man over my own bag, In the end he wouldnt let go so I simply fell in a heap onto my bag, draped over the top of it like a model on a Chaise lounge. Yeah right, I just through myself onto my bag saying "no one is going anywhere with my bag unless I say so!!!" It was at this point the little man go, knowing full well he couldnt lift my weight aswell but trust me if he could have done I would have ben packing in the boot quicker than I could have said "can I have that people carrier over their please?!". In the end we let him strap the bags to the roof and off we went in the Frog to Le Pub.
On arrival we were greeted by Matts friend Matt and dumped our bags there whilst we went in search for a good hotel. We found a nice cheap one called Hanoi Sprit Hotel we checked in and went for lunch. That night we had a few drinks in Le Pub and had a relitively early night ready for a big one the following evening.
The following day we went for a wonder around the local markets and shops, had some lunch and went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner and drinks at Le Pub. At middnight Le Pub shut and us along with Matts friend Matt and two of his friends went to after hours bar called the Red Lounge. In Hanoi no clubs or pubs are aloud open after 12pm so after this time its on a who you know not what you know basis. The pubs shut but some just pull the shutters down, lock the doors and pay off the policemen. But sometimes the policemen wont be paid off and raid the bar, blowing their whistles, this night was one of them nights. at around 1am a policeman came in, walked around, looked at everyone and sat in the corner waiting to pick him time a few minutes later more police came rushing in and then the whistles started so we all made a swift exit onto the next bar (behind shutters) called Roots. We walked down a dark alley way and Matt stopped us all outside what looked like a locked up garage, did a special knock and after alot of bolds and chains clanking a little Vietnamese man poped his head out from a little hatch to see who it was, all was well and he let us in to a pitch black room/motorbike shed and ushered through a door, which lead up some stairs (to which you could hear no music or voices, nothing that denoted a night club or bar anyway) we went through another set of doors and all of a sudden life became normal again with lots of people, load music and dancing. A very wierd experiance to say the least. We stayed in there until around 3am and then left to make our way back to the hotel. We crept out of the club as we did enter and the doors were locked and bolted behind us. It was at this point we realised it was absolutly hammering down but we didnt realise that this would be a out of season monsoon the would kill 27 people the following day.
Dreanched and slightly unsure of where our hotel was, even though we did know it was only about 2 minutes walk away we were abslutly lost, all these small, ally ways and walk ways in Vietnam are exactly the same. We wandered around for about 15 mins then got a taxi back to the Hotel.
The following morning we were woken up about 10am by the cleaners checking to see if our room was flooded.Luckily it wasnt but it wouldnt be long as the hallway outside was swimming with water. I went to check on Rach & Matt and see if they were drowning in their room but they were ok too. Charlotte, Rach and Myself left Matt dying with a hangove in bed and went for breakfast.
At 5pm with the still terrential rain that was all day we set off for the Station to catch our train to Beijing. Having said our goodbyes I jumped into a taxi to grab it from others as not many were running due to the rain and we made a slow, wet drive to the station. Driving through Hanoi to the station we realised we were in the middle of some serious rain! People wading though up past their knees, cars stopped in the middle of the road filled with water and people sheltering from the monsoon in their houses whilst the water lapped up at their door steps. We got to the station and ran our bags under cover. We checked in, waited 5 minutes and got onto the sleeper train bound for Bejing which would take us 2 days from Hanoi, over the land border of China called Dang Dong.
Good Night Vietnam
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