Budget: 1200k Dong/$60; Spent: 979k Dong/$47
Patty here.
We had a tough time getting up this morning. We were absolutely exhausted from our hiking/trekking trip yesterday. But up we got. We packed our stuff fairly quickly. Thanks to sending half our stuff home in Hong Kong, both our backpacks are literally half the size now.
Breakfast was an adventure, at least for Jeff. We were in a bit of rush since we needed to catch our bus at 9am. We got to the restaurant at 8am and while I ordered, Jeff went to the hotel to pay our bill. We didn't have enough cash to pay the bill so we were hoping to pay with visa, but no such luck. Jeff apparently had to walk down the main road to an ATM only to find out that BOTH were out of service. He then had to walk back in the other direction to another ATM which was on the other side of the harbour but that one didn't work either. He apparently went to hotel and asked what to do. They of course gave him very vague instructions. So Jeff went in the direction they pointed. Didn't find anything. Then the kid from our hotel who originally gave Jeff the directions came outside and pointed Jeff to the hotel across the street. Jeff went there, but when asked about an ATM, the lady said she knew nothing about an ATM. Fortunately, the guy actually running the hotel came into the picture and got someone with a motorcycle to take Jeff to a Jeweler where he could withdraw money from our credit card. Meanwhile I was back at the restaurant with both meals in front of me curious about the whereabouts of my husband. In reality Jeff wasn't really that far from me. He was going back and forth passed me down the same street I was sitting on.
Jeff ended up paying a 4% charge to use the thing, and his breakfast was getting cold. The whole ordeal took him about 25 minutes. Not bad considering. He finally got back and poor guy rushed through his luke warm meal. At least the coffee was still warm. We quickly paid the bill and rushed upstairs to grab our stuff and give my parents a quick call. We didn't get a chance to talk for long but it was nice seeing them even if it was only for a bit. Paco our chihuahua gave me the cold shoulder again. I think he's mad at me for leaving him... at least that's what I tell myself.
My parents recommended a good movie about tourists in India called "The Exotic Marigold Hotel". Since we'll be there in 2 days we'll have to watch it. My parents were saying that the movie followed several people's journeys in India and that like most people each character in the movie either loved or hated India which was largely impacted by their attitude. The ones who embraced both good and bad experiences loved it. And naturally, the ones who couldn't, were simply miserable. So a good message for us as we prepare for what will be a very interesting experience.
We got to the bus stop at 8:50am and the bus arrived promptly at 9am and off we went.
The trip there was pretty uneventful. Jeff slept most of the way and I had a great time listening to my iPod. I feel like I haven't enjoyed music in forever! I missed it. It got me thinking about lots of things. While travelling it's amazing how free your mind gets. There's so many less distractions. We joke all the time that our lives are so stressful trying to decide where in the world we'll travel to next. Or which restaurant/dish we want to try. It gives you so much time to get in touch with yourself again, and connect with your significant other.
After the bus ride my brain was overflowing with ideas and thoughts about life, people, and this experience. It got me thinking about how Jeff and I had been feeling down about how little we had to offer in our conversations with other travelers. We would always let them do most of the talking. And for a while I think we both were beginning to believe we sucked at telling stories and that didn't have anything interesting to add to the convo and that surely what they had to say was much better. All this negative self talk got us insecure about telling our stories to people. This got me thinking about all the negative comments we make about ourselves in a day. Or how we put ourselves down even about little things. But these little things, build up into larger things. You start telling yourself enough times that you suck at something, you will start believing it and then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. This was one major idea I walked off the bus still thinking about. So I told Jeff I want us to stop ever putting ourselves down, even in our own heads. Not only that, I'm going to start writing down positive qualities about who I am and reading them to myself everyday. Probably sounds hokey to most of you reading this. And I don't blame you. But when it's you experiencing it, it's not. And maybe there's a piece of this you can relate to. We all like to tell ourselves what our limits are. What are weaknesses are. But how very rarely do we pat ourselves on the back for being kind, generous, or polite. And we should.
I feel so lucky to be alive, to have found Jeff, to be experiencing all this with my best friend, to be healthy enough to do so. This experience reminds me everyday to count my blessings. My life was not and is not perfect but I am damn lucky. There's good and bad, beautiful and ugly, sadness and happiness, kindness and rudeness. It's all part of life. If I went home tomorrow, what this experience has taught me is to focus my energy on the good.
Now this is all easier in theory of course but in practice not so much. And right after getting off the bus and thinking about all this, I was very grumpy. And I was visibly annoyed with a taxi driver who would not leave us alone after declining his offer several times to drive us. But, it's a work in progress. We ended up finding two other travelers to split a cab with back to the Old Quarter. We argued with the cab driver for couple moments and the 4 of us worked as a team and didn't back down from fixing the price of the ride at 70k Dong. We won the battle. A local told us that was the going rate, but all the taxi drivers were demanding 100k.
We got into the Old Quarter in 5 minutes and in no time we were back at home in Hanoi Lucky Guesthouse. Peter and Mary greeted us with big smiles, and Mary actually said she missed us so much. She is the sweetest pregnant lady you will ever meet. They made us coffee right away and we had a couple laughs with Peter who we later confirmed is married to Mary. We thought so, but weren't sure. After our coffees, Peter asked us to write a review of Hanoi Lucky Guesthouse on hostelworld. We sat there at their desktop kind of awkwardly evaluating them. I of course gave them 100%, but joked aloud to Peter that it was a horrible experience. I sat there trying to write the review while Jeff had a nice conversation with Peter about Canada and our debt system vs. Vietnam where loans are never given, at least not for the average citizen who wants to buy a home. We got to know Mary and Peter much better after talking to them and it turns out they really are as kind and good-natured as they always seemed. Truly wonderful people.
I think all of us walked away from that conversation smiling like fools. Tuan walked us a few feet down the street to the hotel they put us up in. Turned out a lady staying in the room we booked had gotten very seriously ill, so they allowed her to stay in the room another couple nights. Mary made arrangements for us to stay in a nicer room with a balcony and an enclosed shower all for the same price. Who would have thought an enclosed shower was a feature?! Most bathrooms we've had lately are completely open to the sink and toilet in the room. As you can imagine, everything is soaked in there by the end, and sometimes that includes the toilet paper.
Jeff and I talked for a bit in the room. I was spewing out all the things I was thinking on the bus, and we talked about how we needed to buy a gift for Mary and Peter. They are expecting a baby boy in a month so we figure we'll buy them a gift for the baby. After all this we were hungry.
We went and grabbed Bun Bo at our fave place. We walked around the Old Quarter looking for linen pants for Jeff. First pair he tried on he loved. Unfortunately no luck buying a pair today though. We also went into a jewelery shop and the worker there taught us a lot about pearls. This was very helpful since we bought some yesterday which we were told were real. From what she said, the ones we bought fit the bill. We're thinking we'll maybe go back tomorrow and show her them and see what she says.
Dinner was good we went back to the "vegetarian" place we had dinner at a week ago. I put vegetarian in quotations because most of the stuff on the menu has meat. But on the menu it actually has written as the header "vegetarian beef dishes". What is vegetarian beef? Whatever it is, we ordered it and it really tastes like beef.
That was our day.
Patty
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