From Laos to Nam has won the prize for the worst bus journey EVER! Our VIP sleeper bus turned out to be a not so VIP local bus. This would be fine for a couple of hours, but when posed with the threat of 24 hours in this steamy hot little tin can we weren't particularly impressed!
The anger got worse as 24 hours turned into 30. 30 hours of gail force winds as the guy infront insisted on having the window open and filling our faces with dust, constant breaks to wee at the side of the road, people sitting on the floor, the most annoying ringtones in the world left unanswered until the last second when they would shout 'HALO' at the tops of their voices and then proceed to have a Dom Jolly style conversation for the whole world, let alone the whole bus to hear. Phew rant over.The one good thing to happen amongst this mayhem was that we met our family that would accompany us on our day trips around Hanoi. Bonded over the horrors of the local bus and free beer not much can break it now.
Touch down in Hanoi, Vietnam, the home of the most ridiculous moped filled roads I have ever seen. There is only one way to approach them and that is to shut you eyes and walk at the traffic head on, allowing the countless mopeds and bicycles to swerve round you. On one occassion our road crossing skills were admired by on lookers and followed up with a round of applause. That was a proud travelling moment right there. Eventually, when I'm brave enough to plug my camera into one of Asia's fine computers I have an amazing video of us attempting to cross which is the only way I can accurately show the manic nature of this city.
The moment that we achieved our clap for crossing was just before we spent a joyous hour watching the water puppets, a traditional Vietnamese recreation and a pretty big mistake to go and see. I felt pretty sorry for Toby and Thijs who we dragged with us to watch an hour of crazy puppets splashing about to the tuneful tones of Vietnamese singing. It was interesting to see but I think any longer than an hour may have resulted in me cutting my wrists to end the pain. Thankfully we'd had a couple of beers while waiting for the show which probably helped to numb the blow.
Having being donned 'the organised type' a mirical description for the pair of us as we normally wait for other people to tell us what we should be seeing, the boys also joined us for a family outing to the prison. This was before the water puppet catastrophe, so they still had a bit of faith in us.
Anyway the prison is worth a visit. It's where they kept the American P.O.W after their planes went down near the city and also where hundreds of Vietnamese accused of war crimes had been held before that. There was a stark contrast made between the treatment of the Americans and that of the Vietnamese before them. According to the videos (I'm not sure how accurate they really are) the Americans lived in relative luxury, (being allowed to celebrate Christmas etc.) in a place where Vietnamese had been savagely tortured and murdered - we even saw the guilloteen. While I don't doubt the horrors of the prison before it was used for the American P.O.W, I do think that there may have been a fair amount of propaganda involved when reporting on the Americans situation.
So that side of the family outing was pretty good, followed up with some street food, free beer (courtesy of central backpackers) and Mickey Finn (can you believe we found Mickey Finn in Vietnam!?) it turned out to be a good day, ending in a drunken game of two truths and a lie (aka Tobys confessions)which was very amusing!
Unfortunately, the boys decided to wuss out of the last nights festivities and chose sleep over Lighthouse, the only club in Hanoi open past 1ish. It's in the middle of nowhere but is where you need to go if your on a hunt for backpackers, or creepy footballers. Unfortunately we found the latter and ended up getting mobbed by Vietnams football league. In fairness we got some free drinks but quickly realised that they were a little bit scary, sooo our ravey night out turned into a sandwhich and hasty retreat back to the hostel!
So go to Hanoi! It wins the prize for best place to visit in Vietnam, particularly as it acts as a spring board to the beautiful Halong Bay which gets a blog all of it's own...
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