The Overnight Train

To get to Sapa, we took the overnight train from Hanoi. This was pretty much a novel experience for me, although I'm sure the novelty will soon wear off, but for this first time I enjoyed the feeling of the tiny cabins, the wooden beds and swaying carriages. I was lucky enough that my talent for sleeping came through for me on the train, the bed was pretty comfortable, the air conditioning high, and I found the rocking and rattling of the train fairly soothing. However despite this, the sleeping wasn't hugely restful, so I was still pretty tired by the time we got off the train.

Last of the Hanoi Adventures.

Just before we left Hanoi, we went to see the Water puppet show, which was a pretty amazing show of music, beautiful puppets, including a huge golden dragon, tiny golden fish, water buffalo, children climbing trees, and even at one stage what I thought might have been amazing dancing hats, although I may have been wrong. There was also a flaming hoop which some of the puppets jumped through, some of the puppets held candles, flames, and sparked jets, or spat, flicked, or swirled the water. I'm not doing a great job of describing the show, and sadly I wasn't able to take very many good pictures, as my inability to take pictures of small things, moving things, and far away things combined spectacularly, but it was a beautiful show, and there was some amazing live Vietnamese music too. Sadly the theatre hadn't really been designed with the taller customer in mind and so my knees were pretty squished, but really as the only draw back, this seemed pretty minor. 

Right before dinner we all decided to have coffee together at City View Cafe, which is so named because it is on the top floor of a huge building next to the lake, giving it both gorgeous views over Hanoi, but also out over the lake and to the temple in the lake and the turtle tower. I had my second ever Vietnamese iced coffee, and we took ridiculously touristy pictures of us posing in front of the lake. We had dinner is a converted traditional town house, which was really lovely, although I'm sure traditionally probably un-airconditioned. 

So many adventures

Yesterday Violet took me out for adventures in Hanoi, we saw the temple of literature, and a really lovely old church and wandered round just being in Hanoi for a bit. We had lunch with Violet's friends and also stopped for iced coffee in a little place and watched the world go by. It was amazing to have such a peaceful day in such a busy city.

In the evening I met my tour group, and they seem like a really solid group of girls, although we're still waiting on the two Mexicans. Our tour leader is really nice and very eager, so I think we'll get along well.

Last night a couple of friends from the group and I met up with Violet and her friends and we did clubbing in Hanoi, take two. We dicided to go out a little earlier to avoid being closed down after two songs, but apparently it wasn't meant to be, and after having been kicked out of a bunch of clubs and bars, we wound up in a place called Dracula playing Jenga while drinking beer called La Rue, like real adults.

This morning we went adventured out in the (light) rain and visited the bank and I purchased for myself a sim card for my phone, the best thing about this is that the provider is called Tomato. I think this is brilliant. Then since the rain had stopped we decided to go visit the one pillar pagoda. The no rain situation lasted about three photographs and then the heavens opened. I have literally never seen anything quite like the amount of rain that was falling, the benches we were sitting on were covered in about 10 minutes.

The hotel staff were very concerned about how wet we were when we got back, but it was definitely worth it for the laughs and I think I managed to take some nice pictures, but I'll keep you updated.

This afternoon we're off to the Water Puppet show, which is a special Hanoi thing I believe, I'm not really sure what it involves, but everyone has been raving so I'm looking forward to it, and then we climb aboard the overnight train to Sapa, for the trecking portion of our adventures.

So many adventures, so little time!

I have arrived!

I actually arrived a couple oof hours ago, but since it is 4am and I am absurdly awake thamks to a bad case of the jet lags, and since I have already done some laundry, tidied my room and repacked my things, I figured now would be a good time to update y'all, particularly since my adventures into vietnamese telly have shown that vietnamese telly isn't all that great at 4am, although i can tell you Liverpool is beating Bolton 3-0.

So my flights were safe and relatively uneventful, although sadly the presence of more babies than I have ever seen in one place before somewhat hampered my napping effort,which meant that by the time I got to vietnam I was very hungry and very tired and I somehow got caught by the oldest trick in the book and wound up paying through the nose for my taxi into Hanoi. But the important thing is that I got to my hotel safely, although I can't speak for the safety of my fellow road users since my driver seemed particularly crazy even by vietnamese standards.

Once checked in it wasn't long before el Violet located me and after we had snacked on the free bananas in my room, we ventured out into Hanoi for somthing more substantial. Violet is actually a God-send since she is very good at crossing roads, finding places to eat, conversing in Vietnamese with waters and the like, and generally being an excellent host. The upshot of which is that I had a lovely dinner, wandered round Hanoi, and had several drinks without getting lost or having to order anything for myself.

Yesterday it was some kind of national holiday and when we went to see one of the lakes in Hanoi, which I currently can't remember the name of , we found a whole bunch of concerts including a Vietnamese opera singer and some trained monkeys. You know, as you do. We went out for drinks with some of Violet's friends, including some oddly sweet Vietnamese beer, which we drank sitting on plastic stools in the middle of the street. We also went to a more convential bar, and then to a night club where we danced to all of two songs before it got shut down by the police, this marked both my first party which has been shut down by anyone, and also my first contact wit the communist police.

Following this excitement Violet and I climbed onto one of the motorcycle taxis which seem pretty ubiquitus and I felt very legitimate, particularly as Violet haggled with the driver in very efficient sounding Vietnamese, although consiering my grasp of the vietnamese language which is s close to none as to be negligible, you probably shouldn't trust my judgemnt. I got to bed before 12.30, and had a remarkably refreshing 2 hour nap. All of which brings us back, full circle, to the situation where I am awake at 4am with nothing to do, but I think I'll try the sleeping thing agan now and see how I get on...

p.s. sorry about any typos; I blame the kindle thing, and the lack of sleep thing...

Ready to rock and roll

My insurance is sorted. My doctor has signed to say I can go. My liver is in tippy tip top condition. I have currency. I have addresses and phone numbers for when I get there. I have EVERYTHING I could ever need in any conceivable situation while away in Vietnam, because I am a scout with a penchant for overpacking. All my bags are packed (well, my big bag and my day bag, which is all my bags.) At this point it would be fair to point out to my loyal readers, that I actually will be adding things to my bag until the second I leave for the airport; I have a serious packing neurosis. But all in all I think I am ready to go. 27 hours until lift off!

Excitement

I feel like the word excitement is a bit of a strange one, because there isn't really any way of describing the levels of excitement. It's not like when you're cold and you can be a bit chilly, or down right freezing. But realistically is that how excitement works? I mean if you're Rebecca Black and you're singing about Friday, you might be "so excited" (we're looking forward to the weekend), but it's not really the same as when you're me and you're blogging about going on holiday to Vietnam in two weeks is it? I mean the very nature of weekends is that they occur once a week, where as holidays to Vietnam, well they don't grow on trees you know. However, being excited about your holiday to Vietnam, is probably not the same level of excitement as you would get if you were my friend SJ and gearing up for your wedding, because, well, that's pretty much a once in a lifetime thing, and therefore infinitely more exciting than Fridays, and probably a whole lot more exciting that going on holiday, even one as exciting as mine. In short. The English language is insufficient. Also, congratulations SJ. (And Elodie, and Jane, and anyone else reading my blog who just got married, or is going to...)


(Also, I'm pretty excited about Vietnam in two weeks, just not as excited as I would be if I were getting married tomorrow.)

I was so wrong!

So it turned out I did not have everthing I could ever need for vietnam, today I bought the kindle version of the lonely planet guide to vietnam. And its brlliant! iI founnd out about the lake in Tra Vinh, and about all the other things there are to do and see there, and i physically could not be more excited to go! This is whole new levels of excitement, even for me!

Also i just wrote this on the kindle. I don't think you'll be getting long kindle posts guys, this takes forever!