From Sapa to Hanoi on a hard seater

Trip Start Jun 17, 2008
1
6
Trip End Sep 17, 2008


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Flag of Vietnam  ,
Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The overnight train from Lao Cai to Kunming was horrible!! It was dirty and there was no air conditioning so it was hot as hell! We even got screwed over  since we purchased soft seaters but got hard seaters, and paid 200 000 VND instead of the actual price of 108 000 VND ($13 instead of $7). These assholes!

So we get to our hostel and it's damn busy so we were worried about not having a bed. They put us on a waiting list and kept our bags for us while we went out for breakfast.  So we had breakfast beside the river... I had the pho (2 out of 5) then tried to exchange our Chinese RMB to Vietnamese dong but found out that they don't do that here...probably because of political issues.

We then went to Don Xuan Market by taxi. Now this taxi driving chick was funny. She tried to negotiate a ride for 1 USD each from us and we were pushing for 2 USD, so she proposed using the meter. We said okay, so by the time we got to our destination, the meter said 6 km when according to our map it was less than 2km. We argued and she was laughing during the argument so we ended up paying 40 000 VND (less than $3 USD).

The market was full of clothing stores where (like most asian markets) everything was negotiable, but we didn't buy anything.

We went back to the hostel and ended up getting a bed in a 10 bed dorm :(

Went out for lunch and had pizza...it's pretty expensive for pizza here (like 100 000 VND for a 9 incher)

I went to this sketchy gym for 25 000 VND, then had dinner with Josh at a place on a side street. The soup was only 15 000 VND ($1 USD). Awesome price and decent food.
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