They call him Ho. H to tha izzo
Trip Start
Feb 28, 2008
1
10
18
Trip End
Jul 06, 2008
Hanoi,
Vietnam
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Sorry I have been slack of late with the blog updates. The best week of my trip was swiftly followed by the worst 10 days, during most of which I was ill! I am currently in Lijiang, China, and four blogs behind!
Most of you are probably confused by the blog title, but any Jay Z fans would have got it. This blog is for Hanoi, home and resting place of Ho Chi Minh.
Tuesday 1st April (Cont.)
In Hanoi we consulted the Lonely Planet guide and wandered off to find the City Gate Hotel. When we arrived we found out it was $25 a night so went to find somewhere a bit cheaper. The next place seemed alright at first glance, but after half an hour we realised that the bathroom was filthy, the floors were covered in dirt, there were massive cobwebs on the walls and the sheets were covered with hair and stains. We ended up leaving and going back to the City Gate! In the evening we headed out for food and a couple of beers before heading back at 9.30ish as Kirsty had to get up at 6am because of her flight to Bangkok. The plans of an early night were scuppered though when we realised that there was beer in the fridge in our room! One beer turned into a few and bedtime ended up being about 2.30am!
Wednesday 2nd April
I got up at 6.30 to say goodby to Kirsty. I was pretty gutted to see her go as the last week had been a lot of fun. After she had left I sat around for a while wondering what to do next! It was the first time in Vietnam that I had been by myself. I decided that more sleep would be good. I woke up a few hours later and went downstairs to use the internet only to find out that checkout time for the room was 11am, and it was 10.30 already! After a quick dash upstairs to pack I set out to find a cheaper place to stay. I ended up a couple of hundred metres away at one place which seemed ok. As they needed to clean the room still I headed out to a French cafe around the corner for a late breakfast and to play catch-up writing my diary before heading back. By the time I got back I wasn't feeling very well. I had my jeans and hoody on, but was still cold, and I had a headache and stomach ache. I had a shower and turned on the TV to find that it didn't work and air-con sounded like a jumbo jet was taking off in my room! To make matters worse, there must have been loads of termites or something in the door and frame, because as I was laying down trying to sleep, all I could hear were the little buggers chewing away at it. I decided enough was enough, packed up my things and told them I was leaving. As I had checked in a few of hours previously they tried to get me to pay for a whole night, but I wasn't having any of that so I gave them a couple of dollars and left. I had handed in a massive bag of laundry earlier so I was pretty worried that they might conveniently 'lose' it when I went to collect it, as they were pretty angry when I left! I ended up moving to the Van Xuan Hotel along the road. The room was $18 dollars a night, but it had a TV, air-con, free internet, free breakfast and carpet in the room, so it was well worth it. As soon as I got in the room I fell asleep, waking up four hours later. I still wasn't feeling great but I decided to go and eat anyway. I decided to ring the Mother as well as I hadn't spoken to her since Bangkok. I completely mis-read the price list at the phone place. I thought it said 10,000 dong per minute, so I hung up after 17 minutes thinking that I was going to have to pay about $10, only to be told that the price was 1000 dong p/m, meaning that the whole call only cost 50p!
Thursday 3rd April
I got up at 9.30 to go and claim my free breakfast only to be told by the woman on reception that I was too late Luckily the waitress took pity on me and gave it to me anyway! I wasn't feeling too great but I decided to venture a bit further out than the day before. I walked to Hoan Kiem Lake and sat there for a couple of hours writing in my diary. A few Vietnamese people were facinated by what I was doing and I turned around a couple of times to find that I had a small audience standing behind me! On two occasions a random Vietnamese guy came and sat next to me and started chatting. The first one seemed nice and was chatting away, but after 30 minutes I realised that he was just trying to butter me up so that I would buy some books and postcards which, until that point, he had kept hidden away. He soon left after I told him I did not want to buy anything! I was a bit more wary when the second guy turned up a bit later, but it turns out he was just a nice guy who wanted to chat about English football, specifically his love for Arsenal! After that I headed out for food and coffee. I wasn't really hungry, but after losing about a stone already I thought I'd better force something down. I went for a walk and found the main shopping streets in Hanoi and wandered around there for a bit before heading back to the hotel for a marathon 3.5 hour session updating my travel blogs! I had dinner, spoke to Mum again, and tried to ring Natt (damn answerphones!) before having an early one.
Friday 4th April
I woke up, still not feeling 100%, in time for my free breakfast. I then packed up my stuff and left my backpack at the City Gate Hotel, where I had booked a trekking trip to Sa Pa. As I had been in Hanoi for a few days, but hadn't really seen any of the sights I thought I'd better go out exploring armed with my camera. I got a bit lost before eventually finding the Citadel walls, which I followed to where I wanted to be. After a coffee breaks at a little cafe with tiny plastic chairs I started walking. I was approached by a very persuasive motorbike driver (motorbike number one, so he told me!). He offered to drive me to all of the main sights so that I could take pictures for $2 an hour. I got taken to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, where his embalmed body is kept on display. I couldn't go inside as I had missed the short opening hours which meant that I couldn't go and pay my respects to 'Uncle Ho'. I also had photo's by the Presidential Palace, the Tren Quoc Pagoda and the B-52 memorial, before walking around the Hoa Lo Prison, Chua Quan Su (another pagoda) and the Military Army Museum. I then got the guy to drop me off at a restaurant on a boat that I had seen earlier by the West Lake. By this time I had been on the bike for 2.5 hours. As I got off I handed him 100,000 dong ($6) by the cheeky git said "No, no. 500,000" That is $30!!! I told him where to go and he lowered the price by 50,000 dong each time until he got to 150,000. By this point I was really furious and told him: "Take the 100,000 and f*** off or you'll get nothing"! With that the ugly bastard grabbed the money and sped off. Motorbike driver number one my arse! As I hadn't slept very well on most of the transport in Vietnam so far I decided that the best way to sleep would be to have a few drinks before I got on the night train. Later I got my motorbike lift to the station, which was pretty uncomfortable with my massive backpack on, especially after a few drinks. I got shown to my cabin, which contained two bunk beds, and I had another can or two of beer before trying to sleep. I fell asleep before the train left the station at 9.15pm, waking up 5 hours later desperate for the loo! After a brief wander around the train I went back to sleep, waking up as the train pulled into the station at Lao Cai. Mission successful!!!
I'll try and do another couple of blogs later today or tomorrow. I have to leave now as I only have enough money for exactly 2 hours of internet on me!
Check out my old blogs again as I have added some pictures for you to look at.
Miss you all.
xxxxxx
