Hanoi

11th – 13th December

Our special pre Christmas treat was a flight with Laos Airlines from Vientiane to Hanoi. The alternative bus journey of 24+ hours had a number of horror stories to support it, and we decided that the expense of the flight was worth it. We saw the plane and had second thoughts, however there was no going back by now! We boarded and were faced with the weirdest plane interior that we’ve ever seen. Bright fluorescent seat covers in a blue, green, pink and yellow design – I wish we’d taken a photo! Ady was lucky (or unlucky!) enough to get a window seat. The added feature of this window seat was a view behind the scenes of the plane, as the plastic panel surrounding the window meant Ady could see the metal skin and bolts holding the window in!

Amazingly, We made it to Hannoi and were now a world away from Laos. From the moment we walked through the arrivals doors, we could sense something different. Where in Laos, people had to be woken from slumber to serve you in a shop or bar, here in Vietnam, people were very much in your face, daring you not to buy their wares!

Top Traveller Tip #7 – Make sure you get a ticket for the airport minibus at Hannoi to ensure you are paying the right price. We paid double (50000 dong) what the locals were paying! Pay no more than $2.50!

Within an hour of landing we were in the city centre. After finding a hotel, we strolled around the city centre to get our bearings. It’s impossible to walk 10 feet in Hannoi without someone trying to sell you something or get you onto their moto or into their tuk tuk. The concept of wanting to walk around is alien. Even if we could afford to take tuk tuks everywhere we’d still have a problem in that most of the time we aren’t heading anywhere in particular – try and explain that to a driver! They have an answer for everything and will “show you city for good price” if you want.

Part of our plan for Vietnam was to hire a motorbike for around 10 days and to head into the far north of the country. We were soon aware that this wasn’t going to be an easy task. The rental places we found were not what we expected and the helmets on offer didn’t make us feel comfortable. We’d be riding over 1000kms and with little more than a badly fitting building site hard hat to protect our heads we decided that this bit of our trip wasn’t going to happen.

With little to keep us in Hannoi, apart from the delicious Fanny (see photos) we had to move on. Getting a bus to the next destination should be simple. It isn’t. Firstly we need to explain about the ‘copy culture’ in Vietnam. When a business, for example “Sinh Café Transport” does well, all of a sudden many other businesses open up, and use the same name. In Hannoi there must be over 20 different travel companies calling themselves Sinh Café. This makes it difficult to find a company that isn’t a dodgy operator using someone elses success to give them a reputation!

We decided to go to Cat Ba Island, so we could visit Halong Bay independently instead of joining a tour from Hanoi. There are many ways to get to the island, we found what we believe to be the cheapest and easiest way, the number of locals on the bus normally lets you judge this, and we were certainly in the minority for this journey. Hoang Long sells a Bus-Bus-Boat-Bus ticket to get you from Hannoi to Cat Ba in 3.5 hours, this is what we used.