Illness and injury in the capital
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2007
1
17
47
Trip End
Nov 2007
Ha Noi, Vietnam
Thursday, June 28, 2007
when we arrived we got into a minivan to the centre and went past the Arc De Triomphe that looked a little out of place. we got dropped as requested by Vietnam Airlines where we went and booked another ticket (yes, i know, but we had always planned this one) to Vientiane in Laos for the 30th (when our visas ran out).
then we found somewhere to stay for $8, cheap we thought (and the room was reasonably poky and noisy so we thought we'd do no better).
we wandered a bit, ate some crab fried rice (shell and all, even a bit of pincer in one bit) and then some ice cream in the weirdest shop ever (nothing is that weird any more though) and we had an early night... after about 6 hours on the internet (we are addicts, it's just wrong).
we took a walking tour of the old quarter the next day and it was interesting to attempt to walk the streets and look at stuff without falling down holes, over people/bikes/cooking stoves/baskets/random things. of course in a small town such as Ha Noi, one can't walk too far without bumping into someone one already knows so it made sense that we bump into Emil and Mikkel again, fresh from their train journey and with a cheaper guesthouse than us (again) we arranged to meet them later on and continued our journey... Ha Noi is weird, there's loads of streets that have shops that all do the same thing, so we have a metal work street (all work done in the street and on the pavement) a spice street and a silk street, oh and my personal favourite, random rubbish toy street. we didn't make it all the way round the tour because we got sidetracked writing photos to DVD (on internet street) so we headed straight from there to meet the boys and get some phood (er, i have no idea why i spelt that in that particularly weird way) Emil having 'the chicken with 5 tastes'
then we tried to find somewhere to drink that was cheap...
...took us a while and we still didn't find anywhere, we went to one place that was playing music very loud (Glen Madeiros... again!) and then to another place that was deathly silent... then a long walk in the rain until we found a shisha pipe bar with extremely loud hip hop and r&b, we felt old. from there we went to a bubble tea place, staffed by topless vietnamese boys... we had a coffee and called it a night after that.
the next day was spent with me feeling very sorry for myself cos i had a cold and it was making me feel miserable, we wandered a bit and then met the boys for drinks and food, i felt magically better after bit and so we started drinking... it was 2000 dong for a pint of beer so i had a few and Aymi drank rather a lot of vodka cos she doesn't do beer (i really wish she did) and that, is that...
until 6 the following morning that is... i went for a wee, then A went for a wee, then she came out passed out, fell into the fan (and broke it) smacked her head off the wall and then laid there hugging the fan while i tried to get her back to conciousness, having experienced this already in france, it was no less terrifying. she came round and it seemed like she'd just bruised her face, i was applying a cold compress and trying to get some water into her (dehydration was the cause) when she felt the side of her head and noticed 'a dent'... what she actually found was a 5cm long gash in her scalp. i commenced panicking and went to wake the blokey on reception up, he called us a taxi and i got A ready to go to hospickal... off we went, me with a stupid temperature, dripping all over the place and A who couldn't stand up properly... joy
the hospital was very nice, they mainly spoke french which was annoying for monolingual old me but the young whippersnapper was ok, she had 3 stitches and was on a drip, had a multitude of tests and the like before i was allowed to go see her again (i sat in the corridor wishing i'd brought my book for about an hour wondering if we would need to extend our visas and delay flights). i had the pleasant task of trying to decide whether we wanted to pay $500 for a private room for the day, or $350 for a shared room... i went for the private one, which was just as well as the visiting times for the other one was 2.30pm -10pm, i didn't want to leave her...
more tests and scans later (oh and 2 meals which they conveniently brought just before wheeling her off for an hour for tests) we were allowed to go home to our sweaty little guesthouse, $1005 lighter and A with a groovy new headband. we didn't meet the boys again that night.
we didn't really see that much of Ha Noi, and i didn't get that much sympathy for being very ill... bah!
