After our horrible journey we checked into our nice hotel (again so cheap - £6 each a night!) and decided to crash and begin a fresh day in the morning.
Hanoi is a busy bustly city with mopeds and cars and tuk tuks flying about everywhere!! Our first attempt of crossing the road was very funny as the only way to cross is to slowly edge out, dodging the mopeds and you end up in the middle of the crazy busy road, making your way to the other side! We enjoyed Hanoi. It isn't much to look at, infact quite grey and cold and dirty but quite good fun.
We had an hour tuk tuk ride around the city for £2.50 each which was nice and got to see alot of the place this way, making our way around the lake in the middle and coming across some statues and shops. We booked to see a water puppet show which we heard you must do whilst here as its something that has been going on for 1000 years. We wasn't sure what to expect but were pleasantly suprised! Just puppets dancing around on the water, telling the story of how the Vietnamese people came about, with singing and music played on weird instruments I've never seen before.
We found a KFC which we were very happy about, actually our first fast food stop since we've been away :)
The manageress in our hotel was verrry annoying! She came across as trying to be helpful but became a pest. Literally the second we would walk through the door she kept asking us where we were going tomorrow, which we kept replying 'we dont know yet', she kept on and on and said 'when u decide I book for you'. She called our room a couple of times and starred at us while we ate our breakfast which was weird, then when we finally told her what train we wanted to book she tried to con us of an extra $40 each! Unfortunately for her we are a bit smarter than that and had found out online how much the tickets were really meant to cost and suprise suprise she managed to match that price in the end. She then conned us with our laundry charging us $5 per kilo when the average place here charges $.50 per kilo! We let her know we werent happy and she then acted all childish and started walking past us, ignoring us..strange!
Anyway we headed out in the evening for our first Vietnamese dinner which was really nice! Chicken noodles and a ginger chicken dish with chocolate pancakes for dessert-yum! We then went to Hanoi Backpackers to meet some of our ozzy mates we had met in Laos and had a good old drink up! The backpackers was rammed with travellers playing drinking games and every so often the bell would go and free shots were passed around the whole bar, so it wasn't long until we were feeling merry! By 12 o, clock here in Hanoi its the law for everything to shut up! but the guy running the hostel got us all on a bar crawl where you go from bar to bar 'illegally', have a drink and dance, until the whistle goes and the police have entered! Then everyone scarpers and goes to find another secret little spot. It's madness, there were literally 50-60 people walking about the streets, waiting outside a bar and some guy comes out, lifts up his shutters and sneaks u all in where theres a party going on inside, only problem is you're never in one place long until the police find you and after a while got a bit tedious so we headed back to the hostel to chill in their lounge and called it a night at 4. A fun experience though and had a right laugh with Pablo the Spanish guy who couldn't stop talking about quitting smoking, Joe and Will the ozzies and a few other people we met along the way.
Our last day in Hanoi we were pretty tired and a bit hungover but had another stroll around the city, stocked up on food and got ready for our overnight train journey to Danang. We are heading down south for the sun now!! The train journey was 14 hours, but fine as it was overnight..the only problem was the people sharing our 4 berth cabin with us and sat on top bunk had the worst smelling feet in the world!! it honestly was vile and mortified me most of the night haha!! but we got through it and arrived in Danang at 11am today. The sun was shining, and we headed down to the beach which really made us feel like we were in California or something, not what I expected from Vietnam at all!
Getting lunch was a bit of a mission as all the food places were seafood only which I obviously hate! but we found somewhere eventually and got a bit of time laying in the sun.
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