A & S: Good Morning Vietnam! On to Hanoi

We discovered that due to Laos' awesome infrastructure, a bus to Cambodia would take nearly 3 days. Yikes. A bus to Hanoi would take 36 hours, and every review online was ghastly. Usually, Austin and I are not frightened by reviewers who are made of weaker sauce that we, but this time we gave in and bought a flight! Shocking, I know. How lovely it was to be waited on hand and foot by Vietnam Airlines for 45 minutes! It is a pretty classy airline for the record.

There is a 40 cent bus that takes you from the airport to the old quarter, the area where all the hostels are. This bus would leave promptly at 10 p.m., and our flight landed at 9:15, leaving us no time to clear customs, get visas ($40 each), etc. We booked it! Anything to save a buck, right?

We easily found the $2 bus, but Austin was not satisfied. At 9:57, he was still running around the rainy parking lot, determined to find it. His efforts were rewarded! We grabbed nearby tourists and sprinted to the 40 cent bus, barely making it on before it rattled off. What a deal! The 40 minute ride was a blast chatting with an Australian family, and we got in trouble with the ticket collector guy for being too noisy. Please. Asians are just silent on transportation, and the bus was making more than enough noise to cover our giggles. It felt like first grade!

In comparison with the rest of SE Asia during this time of year, Hanoi is FREEZING. Rainy, misty, and cool, it was a nice switch, but trench foot developed quickly. We finally succumbed to buying real shoes, well fake Converse. Austin fought tooth and nail and got the guy down to $6 per pair. I was pleased, but Austin still says he knows the dude would have gone lower...hehe

It is easy to buy shoes in Hanoi but good luck buying socks! We went shoe store to shoe store only to find that the cheapest socks cost as much as our new shoes! Ya right! It took 36 hours to find some cheap socks. A favorite moment was when a lady tried to sell us a crappy pair of socks for $3, saying "But look! Made in Vietnam!" to which we replied, "EXACTLY! We'll give you 25 cents."

Hanoi is a beautiful city, at least the old quarter area. It has tons of french influence and is a real city, complete with KFC. There is a lake, French opera house, Gucci, cathedral, Vietnam war museums, and more. This city was one of Austin's favorites.

dirty feet, clean flight, rockin leg room!

Lake of the Restored Sword

France? No. Hanoi!

Amusing signs and propaganda at the Women's Museum

Propaganda posters! So good!

Freezing and cool buildings

Notre Dame de Vietnam

Our Vietnam cultural experience: the water puppet show! The puppeteers are behind the curtain, and the stage is flooded with water. The puppets act out traditional stories and are accompanied by musicians. They had some neat effects, fireworks, mist, etc., and video cameras constantly scanned the crowd. Creepy! A must-do for Vietnam, but not the most interesting thing ever.