Budget: 1,200,000 Dong/$60; Spent: 1,880,000 Dong/$94
Jeff here.
Jeff here.
For the first time ever, my fear of missing a plane was actually replaced with a disgruntled acceptance that the plane would be missed. We got started a little late this morning, so that coupled with the fact that we thought we had more time than we actually did, produced quite the predicament. Our flight left at 2:30pm local time, so, it being an international flight and all, you'd think we'd want to be at the airport at least at 12:30pm, which would have meant leaving our hostel around 11:30am. Well, I can tell you that at 11:30am, I was running down the street of Hong Kong carrying a 20 pound plastic bag filled with things we wanted to ship home.
At least we woke up to a hearty breakfast! I don't think I'm saying anything revolutionary when I say that very little will keep Patty and I from a good meal. So while we were eating we probably should have been packing. And while I was running down the streets of Hong Kong like a crazed maniac, we probably should have been on the bus bound for the airport. Well, you live and you learn.
I left Patty to finish packing in our room to take our stuff to the post office because of how late it was getting. I was already freaking out by this point, so I'm sure Patty was happy to see me gone. Anyway, our hostel gave us poor directions again (I think this is the fourth time) so I had to ask people along the way how on earth to get to the post office. Thankfully, people speak English in this blessed town, so that wasn't too much of a problem.
Once I reached the post office, conveniently housed on the 10th floor of a shopping mall, the worker there informed me that I would have to pay in cash, which I did not have....but (!!!) there was an ATM in the basement. I must have stared at him in anger/disbelief for a couple seconds, hopefully he didn't think I was going to attack him. I considered curling up into a little ball in the corner and crying, but then decided to run my butt down 10 flights of escalators. Thankfully, the ATM was not hard to find and it accepted my card. I then ran back up 10 flights of escalators. Did I mention that Hong Kong is pretty much sitting at 100% humidity right now? Yeah, I was soaked. What fun!
So, the guy handed me a box to fit all our stuff in, and I quickly jammed everything inside. The box was a little big so I hope things will be OK. I then paid, and got the hell outta there. I basically sprinted back to the hotel. Thankfully, Patty was ready in the lobby waiting, so we grabbed our stuff and got out of there. The hostel staff recommended we take the airport shuttle bus instead of the subway, so we headed for the nearby stop. Well, I think that was bad advice #5 on our hotel's part. Honestly, we probably could have got to the airport and back by subway in the time it took for that stupid bus to get to the airport.
Under other circumstances, I would really have enjoyed the ride to the airport. The infrastructure that was constructed to get people to that airport is spectacular. A monitor on the bus said it's the longest combined bridge/raised highway in the world, at about 22 km. Some of the bridges we passed over are probably worth more than the city of Winnipeg. Again, under other circumstances...
So, at this point, even Patty is starting to get worried, and she tends to think everything will always be fine. I'm already preparing myself for the likelihood that we would be buying two more tickets to Hanoi at grossly inflated prices. The bus ride went on and on and when we finally could see the airport, it was less than 45 minutes to our flight's departure. We weren't sure which terminal to get off at, but saw some signs for Vietnam Airlines so jumped off at Terminal 1. Thankfully, we guessed correctly. We ran up to the check-in counter, told them where we were going and frantically got our packs ready for transport. When we were leaving the counter, we had 35 minutes to our flight and had to pass through both security and customs. They told us to run.
And run we did. Security wasn't too busy, but still time was ticking. I was in shock that we even had a chance...more than a chance, really. I pretty much went from having no hope at all to knowing that we would be fine in an instant. What a day! We got through security, grabbed all our stuff and went to wait for customs. The lines were pretty long, but not so long that I felt nervous about it. Again, we passed through customs with no problem and started running for our gate. It was quite a run, but we had some moving walkways to help us out. It's actually pretty fun running down those things. Never had an excuse to do that before today!!
It was actually a pretty big let down when we got to our gate and our plane wasn't even boarding yet. I can't believe how out of shape I am, though. My poor heart was not happy with that run. It kinda felt like a little like it was going to explode. Anyway, so we had some time to go looking for some water before boarding.
Just before boarding, we realized that we didn't have the bottoms of my pants. That's an odd sentence, so let me explain. The pants I was wearing are the kind that turn into shorts. While waiting for the bus earlier, I had been sweating so decided to remove the bottoms and we had packed them away in our small backpack. It must have been at security when we removed our laptop from our bag that they got misplaced. Really unfortunate since I just shipped home my other pairs of pants. Now I have only shorts. Sigh.
The plane ride to Hanoi was very enjoyable. The food was excellent and the service was great too. We'll have to fly Vietnam Airlines again!
Anyway, everything was on time and we arrived in Hanoi at 3:30pm local time. There was an hour change in there somewhere. Patty had emailed our hostel and asked them to pick us up (which is a service they provide) and there was a driver waiting for us as we exited with our bags. I can't explain how fantastic it was to not have to worry about getting to our hostel from the airport, especially after the day we had.
The drive took about 45 minutes. When we arrived at our hostel, we were greeted by perhaps the most friendly and kind lady that we've encountered on our trip so far. She speaks a somewhat broken English, but is understandable. We were given free waters and taken up to our private room, which is pretty spacious and very clean.
By this time is was 6:30pm and we were starving so we headed out into Hanoi looking for some grub. We were set on trying street food, so we did. We are staying in a place in Hanoi called the Old Quarter, which is a pretty touristy area. We had only just left our hostel when an older lady approached. It's difficult to explain what happened next, but here's a picture of the result:
It was very easy to find some food. The first place we tried served some kind of fried batter with sprouts and meat, which we then ate inside very thin rice tortillas. The restaurant was quite busy, so we trusted that somewhat. We paid 60,000 Dong between the two of us, which sounds like a lot but that's less than $3. Here's a picture:
We were still hungry so consulted our Lonely Planet book. Turned out there was a recommended restaurant/hole in the wall not far from where we were, so we headed there. This place served various kinds of soups. They were delicious! The soups had meat and noodles in them, and we added some hot sauce. Yum! And paid 85,000 Dong total ($4.25). Here's a pic:
After this we walked around the Old Quarter. There are many shops that we looked through and otherwise just tried dodging the 1000 motorcycles on the road at any given time. Vietnamese traffic is a whole other level of craziness that I've never seen. There are more motorcycles than cars and they're zipping around all over the place. It's madness!
We didn't buy anything from the stores. We weren't sure whether we could barter because there were price tags on most of the items, so we were confused. Turns out we can barter, but we didn't figure this out until we'd already got back to our hostel. We wandered around the streets of Hanoi for a bit and found a nice square overlooking a small lake. We decided to try the infamous Vietnamese beer, which is supposed to be the cheapest in the world, so headed to a nearby pub. It was on the second floor of a building and overlooked the square. Needless to say we weren't getting the cheapest beer in the world from this place, but $1.75 for a beer isn't bad either!
We stayed on the balcony of the pub for some time, talking and people watching. It was nice to finally be able to relax! We decided that we might be able to spend more time in Hanoi than the three days we have booked so far. We'll have to talk to the staff at our hostel tomorrow about extending our stay here.
And that concluded our first night in Vietnam! It was a good start, and I'm really looking forward to spending more time here.
It was actually a pretty big let down when we got to our gate and our plane wasn't even boarding yet. I can't believe how out of shape I am, though. My poor heart was not happy with that run. It kinda felt like a little like it was going to explode. Anyway, so we had some time to go looking for some water before boarding.
Just before boarding, we realized that we didn't have the bottoms of my pants. That's an odd sentence, so let me explain. The pants I was wearing are the kind that turn into shorts. While waiting for the bus earlier, I had been sweating so decided to remove the bottoms and we had packed them away in our small backpack. It must have been at security when we removed our laptop from our bag that they got misplaced. Really unfortunate since I just shipped home my other pairs of pants. Now I have only shorts. Sigh.
The plane ride to Hanoi was very enjoyable. The food was excellent and the service was great too. We'll have to fly Vietnam Airlines again!
Anyway, everything was on time and we arrived in Hanoi at 3:30pm local time. There was an hour change in there somewhere. Patty had emailed our hostel and asked them to pick us up (which is a service they provide) and there was a driver waiting for us as we exited with our bags. I can't explain how fantastic it was to not have to worry about getting to our hostel from the airport, especially after the day we had.
The drive took about 45 minutes. When we arrived at our hostel, we were greeted by perhaps the most friendly and kind lady that we've encountered on our trip so far. She speaks a somewhat broken English, but is understandable. We were given free waters and taken up to our private room, which is pretty spacious and very clean.
By this time is was 6:30pm and we were starving so we headed out into Hanoi looking for some grub. We were set on trying street food, so we did. We are staying in a place in Hanoi called the Old Quarter, which is a pretty touristy area. We had only just left our hostel when an older lady approached. It's difficult to explain what happened next, but here's a picture of the result:
It was very easy to find some food. The first place we tried served some kind of fried batter with sprouts and meat, which we then ate inside very thin rice tortillas. The restaurant was quite busy, so we trusted that somewhat. We paid 60,000 Dong between the two of us, which sounds like a lot but that's less than $3. Here's a picture:
We were still hungry so consulted our Lonely Planet book. Turned out there was a recommended restaurant/hole in the wall not far from where we were, so we headed there. This place served various kinds of soups. They were delicious! The soups had meat and noodles in them, and we added some hot sauce. Yum! And paid 85,000 Dong total ($4.25). Here's a pic:
After this we walked around the Old Quarter. There are many shops that we looked through and otherwise just tried dodging the 1000 motorcycles on the road at any given time. Vietnamese traffic is a whole other level of craziness that I've never seen. There are more motorcycles than cars and they're zipping around all over the place. It's madness!
We didn't buy anything from the stores. We weren't sure whether we could barter because there were price tags on most of the items, so we were confused. Turns out we can barter, but we didn't figure this out until we'd already got back to our hostel. We wandered around the streets of Hanoi for a bit and found a nice square overlooking a small lake. We decided to try the infamous Vietnamese beer, which is supposed to be the cheapest in the world, so headed to a nearby pub. It was on the second floor of a building and overlooked the square. Needless to say we weren't getting the cheapest beer in the world from this place, but $1.75 for a beer isn't bad either!
We stayed on the balcony of the pub for some time, talking and people watching. It was nice to finally be able to relax! We decided that we might be able to spend more time in Hanoi than the three days we have booked so far. We'll have to talk to the staff at our hostel tomorrow about extending our stay here.
And that concluded our first night in Vietnam! It was a good start, and I'm really looking forward to spending more time here.
No comments:
Post a Comment