Hanoi Hotels
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Vietnam
Entry 14 of 69 | show all | print this entry |
After getting through border control we are directed to taxis who say that they will take us to Hanoi, we decline and ask them totake us tot he nearest town where the train goes from. We arrive in a small town and find the ticket office is closed after wandering about the station we find a guard who lets us in so we can get tickets, we are rather worried at the time as the train goes at 2 and it's already five minutes to 2 and each ticket has to be hand written and signed. We get them before the train arrives and sit down to wait - it's only then we realise that Vietnam is an hour behind China so we've got ages to wait. Whilst we're sat there there isa load of Vietnamese people carrying large parcels all wrapped up in cellophane. One woman put her parcels near us and we can see that hers contain bras so we guess that they are heading to the markets in Hanoi. When the train arrives we get on board - not quite as nice as the Chinese ones - plain wooden benches and grills on the windows but it's not too bad. It takes ages to pack on all the parcels but soon we're off - going along just a bit faster than walking pace and one of the guys we're with tells us it takes about 5 hours to get to Hanoi - about 150km away, We find out why it takes quite so long as at every station we go to more parcels are packed on to the train and the time passes very slowly!
Over 5 hours later we actually arrive in Hanoi, we'd rung a hostel an hour before that had been recommended by someone on the Intrepid tour we went on, so we got straight in a taxi to the hostel. The hostel is really nice, all the dorm rooms are ensuite and the aussie guys that run it are incredibly helpful. We go and get some dinner at a nice restaurant nearby before having a fairly early night ready for the next day.
In the morning we get our free breakfast before heading out into Hanoi. We go towards the lake in the centre of the old city which is not very peaceful with motorbikes zooming all around it. We cross a bridge to the middle of the lake where there's a small Buddhist temple with a stuffed giant turtle which looks rather fake to us! We then walk further into the old city through narrow streets packed with motorbikes, we find the easiest way to cross the road is just to walk slowly acrosss and hope that they all miss you! We go to some small markets and the White Horse Temple which is another small temple before heading towards the Temple of Literature.
The temple of Literature is split up into five sections, the fifth section is made up of a temple to Confucius and one of the other sections has a load of inscribed tablets standing on the back of tortoises. Coming out of the Temple of Literature we headed to Koto for lunch. Amy had reccomended that we go there. It stands for Know One Teach One and is a project set up by some Australians where they train up Vietnamese street kids and give them skills that they can then take on to jobs elsewhere to help them improve their lives. The food was really good and the Pineapple, Peach and mint drink was amazing!
Afterwards we went to Hanoi's Prison which was really interesting reading about the lives of the political prisoners that were kept there by the French during the war. There was also a section dedicated to how the Vietnamese treated the American pilots they captured aswell. Afterwards we went in search of icecream and found some wierd chocolatey/coconuty half ice lollie thing which was good and headed back to the hostel.
Getting back to our room we met three Irish guys that had just arrived, they're really friendly and tell us about a bar they've been given a flier for which has free food and beer allnight. I'm a bit dubious as it sounds too good to be true but as we haven't heard from the Swedes who we were meant to be meeting for dinner we decide to go with them to check it out along with another girl from our room. The place is actually giving away free beer to celebrate it's one year anniversary (although the only food is some dodgy looking snack type things) we make the most of the free drink and have a great time getting to know the others before we move onto drinking games. A few drinking games and quite a few beers later me and Liv decide to call it a night as we have to get up for a tour tomorrow and haven't yet packed.
On the way back to the hostel we find some food and also bump into the Swedes who are in a dvd shop stocking up on more films to take home. They're also going on a tour tomorrow so we presume we'll bump into them there so we say goodnight and go home. When we've finished packing MJ one of the Irish guys comes home after drinking a little too much free beer! We talk abit more with him before crawling into bed ready for tomorrow.
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