Our first day in Hanoi!

Well, we survived the plane rides from Seattle to Seoul, and the Seoul to Hanoi. Our travel time was a little over 28 hours total from start to finish! We were so excited to get off our plane and go find the big sign with our names on it and go to our hotel with our driver! Needless to say, we kept looking and looking for the driver who was obviously not there. After giving up on him we settled on taking a taxi who we negotiated down to $18US for all three of us. The drive took close to an hour and at this point in the night we decided the driving in Hanoi was quite safe as we drove about 40 miles an hour on the highway to get there. Upon arrival at the hotel tucked deep in the heart of the old French quarters, the front desk looked quite surprised to see us. Somewhere along the way of emailing back and forth, they had forgotten to write down our reservation in their books. Amanda pulled out her iPad to show them proof of all the emails and confirmation. After silence for way too long the lady informed us that she had a room for us at another hotel a few blocks away and would take us there for the night. We all packed into the car and headed that way. We were greeted by a young guy in his boxers and a dress shirt who had clearly been asleep and he led us up four long flights of stairs (54 steps...yes we counted.) The room was everything we were not expecting. We will leave it at that :) not exactly 5 star. Ha! Char quickly decided to jump in the shower to get some of the travel dirt off. When she came out she warned us to be careful not to step in the hole or cracked part. Wouldn't want to fall through! We turned in exhausted and counted the springs digging into our backs. Zzzzzz. Chirp, beep, honk, yap yap yap. Repeat. Nice quiet hotel indeed! Hahahaha! We woke up bright and early to a nice dark room and no light switches turning on. Yes, this would be our luck. After running up and down the many flights of stairs we found the breaker and the wifi code! Things were looking up. We were soon treated by a lady from the first hotel who kindly walked us back to the hotel for a delicious breakfast. She confirmed our reservation for a cruise to Halong Bay the next day and gave us a map of all the local hotspots. We picked our way down filthy streets with vendors selling everything from raw meat to trinkets to silk. Most goods are divided into districts and you pass hundreds of stalls filled with everything you could imagine!


To be continued... We are off to get on a junk boat cruise!