Hanoi's pretty cool, I tell you, everywhere else is just nowhere. Although that could just be because getting here's been a long trip, it made me flip. Really long. No longer than that. I left you in Hoi An, whinging about the incompetence of travel agents. Well said travel agent proved their incompetence, which resulted in me trekking back to first Nha Trang (with the hope of intercepting Casey there on her way north) then Saigon (where i intercepted Casey).
So that was twenty-four hours of bus rides.
Then I got the train. Managed to get ripped off by a travel agent again (my
own fault, I chose to eat my first meal rather than go to the station to get my own ticket), travel agent charged me for a soft sleeper and gave me a hard sleeper. For those of you who don't know, a hard sleeper is a wooden shelf and a pillow. It wasn't all bad, 'though, I got to share my cabin with a Vietnamese family and their chickens. I'd been a bit jealous of other travellers sharing enclosed spaces with livestock but now I've ticked that box. Twenty-nine hours and one Reunification Railway later I was in Hanoi, three hours early ("whoop" you might think, but you'd be wrong 4.30 is a rubbish time to arrive anywhere).
Went to Mo Chi Minh's Mausoleum. I didn't go in because a. I wasn't dressed appropriately and b. Uncle Ho was on holiday. Went to the Temple of Literature instead. More tortoises with doctorates there than most places.
Hanoi doesn't rock as much as it could as I still can't get a Russian Visa. And I hold the City responsible. Still, I didn't want to go to Russia anyway. It'll be really cold. Trans-Siberian, Schmans-Schmiberian. Who wants to spend three weeks on an icy train, hey? Hey?
I've got to get myself an ice cold beer.
________
Kudos to anyone who spots what I did for my own amusement in this post. Answers on a postcard marked "I'm Way too Geeky" or "I Can Read too Much into a Two-word Title".
So that was twenty-four hours of bus rides.
Then I got the train. Managed to get ripped off by a travel agent again (my
own fault, I chose to eat my first meal rather than go to the station to get my own ticket), travel agent charged me for a soft sleeper and gave me a hard sleeper. For those of you who don't know, a hard sleeper is a wooden shelf and a pillow. It wasn't all bad, 'though, I got to share my cabin with a Vietnamese family and their chickens. I'd been a bit jealous of other travellers sharing enclosed spaces with livestock but now I've ticked that box. Twenty-nine hours and one Reunification Railway later I was in Hanoi, three hours early ("whoop" you might think, but you'd be wrong 4.30 is a rubbish time to arrive anywhere).
Went to Mo Chi Minh's Mausoleum. I didn't go in because a. I wasn't dressed appropriately and b. Uncle Ho was on holiday. Went to the Temple of Literature instead. More tortoises with doctorates there than most places.
Hanoi doesn't rock as much as it could as I still can't get a Russian Visa. And I hold the City responsible. Still, I didn't want to go to Russia anyway. It'll be really cold. Trans-Siberian, Schmans-Schmiberian. Who wants to spend three weeks on an icy train, hey? Hey?
I've got to get myself an ice cold beer.
________
Kudos to anyone who spots what I did for my own amusement in this post. Answers on a postcard marked "I'm Way too Geeky" or "I Can Read too Much into a Two-word Title".
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