Day 51 and 52: Leaving Laos and Arriving in...Vietnam!

Day 51

We are up at the crack of dawn, 6.30am to make sure we are ready for our tuk tuk at 7. We check out with a little confusion of whether we had paid and I think it's the first time anyone has identified us as a couple by Ben's beard and not my hair. A short, bumpy ride later we are in the airport, checked-in and flying. I do love Lao Airlines, they give the best snacks, today is a cheese sandwich which I devour like a pug. Only downside to this flight was an idiot French couple behind us, who shoved Ben's seat when we was leaning on it to sort out the bags at his feet, they didn't even start with an excuse me, just a hard push. So rude!

We touch down in Hanoi, Vietnam and its freezing! Well 16C and drizzling, we are not used to this. We've already got our visas so breeze past the queues and past immigration with only a few comments about how amazing my hair is. Bags collected, we head outside to find the number 17 which should take us to 3 mins from our hotel at a fraction of the price of a taxi. We wait and wait and wait and I accost a young Vietnamese girl who spoke okay but pretty broken English to see if she knew what was going on. Turns out she was waiting for the 17 too and had no idea, like us, where it was. Turns out after her asking a few people, that we are at the wrong stop and to get there, we and 3 other travellers we'd picked up by this point, had to get on a golf cart. I'm not going to lie, I got pretty nervous when it left the airport compound and went on a dual carriage way and it did cross my mind that someone might whizz past and grab our bags but it's all fine and we turn up at a little bus stop, where the 17 was waiting for us.

It takes about an hour to get into the city and I get caught sitting next to a selfie girl again. It's still raining and looks pretty miserable but Vietnam does look very green. The bus stops at Long Bien bus station and a police officer directs us to the road we need and after a short walk in the drizzle, we spot our little hotel. This place is so deluxe compared to what we've been used to, there are hot drinks waiting for us as we arrive and we swiftly get taken to our room which is lovely, with a mini bar, a large shower and a big bed, and the best bit? It's only £6 a night!

I'm still not feeling great so we decide to grab some food from the hotel restaurant but within two bites, I'm dashing down the stairs to the room. I have never been so close to poo-ing myself on a hotel stairs, it's horrible. I go back up again to try and finish my food but within minutes I'm back in the room so we rest up for the rest of the night and watch chick flicks and K-Pop before falling asleep.

Day 52

I feel marginally better today and wake up hungry which is always a good sign. The breakfast here is really good and I have a triple decker cheese sandwich to keep feeding my addiction. I have also started to drink tea as its the only soft drink that's not fizzy that they serve. It's alright when you get past the fact it tastes like bark.

I might be feeling better but now Ben has come down with it but we really want to explore so just hope for the best. It's still drizzling so we dress for the wet and set off for about 30 minutes in the wrong direction, I blame the illness. We retrace our steps and finally get on the right road for the Hanoi Museum of History, well we think it's the right road until a solider with a gun turns us away.

We are only a street out though and finally get to it at 12.30...to find its closed until 2pm, urg! There's a little cafe next door which we hide in till it reopens and eat sweet potato fries. We wander around a strange complex of building which are lovely but not really what we thought we would see, they look about 300 years old and there wasn't much descriptions inside them, we find a bunker used in the Vietnam war but that's about it and it isn't until we are walking back that we realise, we're in the wrong museum! The one we want is behind this one and only a short minute walk away. Now this is more what I was thinking, it's full of planes and tanks salvaged after the "American" war and interesting cabinets inside full of maps and weapons. We potter around here for a bit until we are both feeling knackered and we walk back to the hotel, to try and make ourselves feel a little human again.