Day 81, 82 & 83 - Hanoi!
Seeing as we stayed in one place for an unprecedented amount of time on this trip (and it was glorious) I'm combining three days into one!
In short: Hanoi is awesome! We're back in a land of food that isn't entirely oily or spicey, and they even have great world cuisines! You've never seen a man nearly brought to tears seeing a supermarket with food and normal bread!!! The place has a great, chilled but productive vibe and is a lot, lot cleaner quieter and more respectful than India, although the smog is still really bad. The hotel we'd booked was really nice, with a large room, awesome bath and shower, great buffet breakfast and friendly staff. Everything we could ask for really and a perfect place to get some planning and sightseeing done. Also, Christmas is a big thing here and there is Christmas music and decorations everywhere which feels quite random!
DAY 81
After a short 3 hour sleep and breakfast, I spent the morning unpacking the bikes and going to the bike shop. I booked them both in to get fully serviced and rebuilt which is awesome- they'll feel like new bikes again! Then I spent the afternoon exploring the local area, mostly its supermarkets if we're honest, and getting my hair cut (one of the best I've had including face and shoulder massage, shave and hair wash for 16 euros) before going to meet Emma at the big aquarium nearby, who'd meanwhile managed to fly from Bangkok and enter the country! The aquarium was in a shopping centre complex owned by the same company who own big ski resorts in Japan (random) and has full Swiss prices! We also raided the supermarket for the many, many weird and wonderful fruits available in this country! We probably should have got an early night, instead we stayed up watching a film on the awesome hotel room cinema setup until the early hours.
Now this is the way to get around! You pull out your phone, order a moped, and 30p and 10mins later you're where you need to be!
The aquarium was good, if lacking some real plants and bigger tanks, but with a great range of healthy animals
The biggest freshwater fish (2m long!) were incredible to see and a real highlight. The camera does not do the sheer size of these things justice!
Look for the monster in the back..
Food spend Day 81: 86.08 euros
Tea consumption Day 81: 11
DAY 82
This was an action-packed one. We headed out shortly after breakfast, dropped off Emma's bike at the shop and then headed to the main town (by 90p taxi of course!).
After being waved away from the government buildings by heavily armed guards trying to see the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, we visited the "Hanoi Hilton" jail which is a museum showing the two sides of the prison's history, with a very negative lens of how the French treated the Vietnamese and a very positive one of how the Vietnamese treated the Americans. It's interesting to see the lens of the country.
Then we had our first egg coffees (awesome - espresso plus custard), returned to the bank to get the card back after it swallowed our card trying to get cash out, went to the famous "Train street" and then got caught up shopping for a long time in the cool arts district! We're both suckers for nice pottery and there were SO. MANY. CHOICES!
Emma is particularly pleased with her new jumper!
Eventually we did make some decisions and went to see the cathedral based on Notre Dam, while eating our viral food stand dinner which we'd stumbled across. To be fair they were very tasty 40p sandwiches! I wondered what gave the cathedral the "knock off" look like the shops and shops of fake outdoor brand products that are obviously cheap knock offs, until I realised it was made of concrete not stone! Then it was into our 3rd (4th?) taxi of the day to a craft beer garden where we were the only customers, but the beer was good and we had a laugh with the staff. The kitchen was closed so we used our new favourite app to order delicious and cheap vegetarian burgers and nachos to soak up some of the alcohol.
Seeing as we were kicked out after last orders at midnight, by the time we made it back to the hotel it was very late, and by the time I'd enjoyed another bath, Emma had glued her pannier decorations on and we'd finished our film it was comically late and we didn't even have a route for the planned leaving the next day...oops!
Food spend Day 82: 32.89 euros
Tea consumption Day 82: 7
DAY 83
We realised very quickly we had far too much to do today to leave and so decided to stay another night. We packed up and checked out then started our planning on the roof with an egg coffee! We relocated to another abode since our hotel was booked out, via the bike shop to receive my beautifully fixed bike and continued our planning, fuelled by bubble teas and delicious Japanese food delivered by a man on a moped in 20mins!
Both of us tried on new helmets in the shop, but we got slightly different memos on the style 😆
And there we stayed for the rest of the day, finding out useful things like "there is a border war between Cambodia and Thailand" and "Laos expects bribes on the border and has armed militia in the North", so that changed our route a fair bit! Tonight's accommodation has a washing machine...and a bedroom each! We were hoping to go climbing but it's got late again, although we're still hoping to manage a beer with a nice English chap (also from Brighton like 70% of the Brits we've met on this trip!) who we bumped into in the bike shop.
Food spend Day 83: 34.38 euros
Tea consumption Day 83: 9