We spent the night on our sleeping bus; Anja and I. It continued to be a bumpy ride, not helped by the bus still having trouble with starting; it was like a steam train with very little fuel, huffing and puffing and giving up several times, before suddenly spurting and being on the go again! At around 4am, I woke up to us being stopped. My eyes were still shut, and I heard the engine starting. This went on for a while, and I though ah! We're off, and whatever the problem had been, has been fixed... however, five minutes later, I realised we were still stoodstill and hadn't actually set off yet!
Shortly after, we huffed and puffed, and we spurting back and forth, forward and back. Someone decided to pop to the on-bus toilet, and I giggled, imagining him trying to aim into the toilet, and sure enough, we spurted off, and I imagined the guy going flying around the toilet!
We seemed to stall shortly after, and remained waiting for a while, until another bus pulled up, and we were told we had to get off. The bus man was rather rude about it, mearly saying "off, now!"
The second bus wasn't as comfortable; fortunatly Anja and I managed to get two seats each, although they reclined, they we're a bit squashed, especially if the person in front reclined there seat. There were a couple of rather cute two year olds who were, on the whole, behaving themselves, although every so often we'd hear crying.
I continued sleeping, until around 9am. I was woken by the sound of some kind of loud Vietnamese comedy on the TV which was annoying. We passed through a very beautiful river, with limestone features. I thought we were nearly at Hanoi. Unfortunatly, after a short 'male only' toilet stop, we still had two hours to go. Anja and I rather needed the toilet, but the shovanistic grumpy bus driver refused to stop at a petrol station for the females to use the loo. The males were quite happy to just pile out the bus and just stand in a row of about 10 of them all urinating. It's a bit random!
I was feeling rather irritated by the driver not letting us out for the toilet. Even though I was not desperate for the toilet, I hadn't been since our dinner stop the previous night at around 8.30pm. Making it 15 hours with a full bladder; not good for ones health!!
We finally arrived in the outskirts of Hanoi, at around 12.30pm. We then were yet again ordered 'off, now!' in a very demanding, rude voice. I really wanted to punch the guy, although I unfortunatly was able to restrain myself. I looked after the bags, getting slightly frustrated by the 'honda om' drivers offering me a lift repetatively, whilst Anja went to the toilet. Then we headed off by taxi to get to the old town to find accomodation. The taxi man sighed rather rudely when we politely insisted that he used his metre, so we wouldn't get ripped off. He then attempted to short-change us to give himself a tip; which we weren't having; especially as he'd asked if he could take us to a favourite hotel somewhere!
We popped into a few hotels, which were too expensive, before settling on one for $18 for the two of us, inclusive of breakfast and free internet. They also offered various services such as booking trips, getting a Cambodian visa, and looking after our bags whilst we visit Halong Bay.
The room was nice, and it even came with free fruit, although it was slightly unripe. We jumped into the shower, which was extremely pleasurable. We booked through the hotel a 3 day, 2 night trip to Halong Bay, and I got my Cambodian Visa sorted out.
Then it was off to find food! We got sorted with lunch, a delicious salad sandwich and lemon juice, which was in a cafe hidden up some rather scary steps! It was very pleasant and absolutely delicious after not eating in so long.
We then got a cyclo to the lake, where we had a look at a church, the lake and tried to avoid being killed by the absolutely manic traffic. The heat and the traffic seems to be just crazy here! Whilst sitting on the side of the lake, a really cute little girl, only 8 years old, came up and tried to sell us a fan. The fans were quite nice, although neither of us needed them, and we were pretty sure any money we gave her, she'd have to give to her mum. She stood fanning us for a while, and spoke quite good English. She'd been learning in school, as well as learning the usual trading phrases from her mum. I really wanted to kidnap her, although that would have been rather impractical. So whilst Anja kept the girl entertained, I ran across the road and popped into a local shop, to buy the little girl a notebook, pen and a lolly. It was quite cheap, and we'd really enjoyed the little girls company, and her fanning us. She looked a bit bermused with the present, although smiled and said she liked it, and kept on reading the rather techncial mathematical equations on the back. She ran off to try to sell more fans and looked quite chuffed with her presents, and kept hold of them.
I then bought a NorthFace minirucksack, so that I can take it to Halong Bay with me, and as my larger hand luggage, as my huge rucksack is overflowing! I vow not to buy anymore from now on! (Unless I just HAVE to!!) There were quite a few shops just selling rucksacks; I managed to barter the cost down a little. Some people were doubting whether the rucksacks were fakes or not, although I'm pretty sure they can't be as I'm pretty sure Vietnam just happens to make them, like Cambodia makes Billabong, Nike and various other 'top brands', hence why a lot of local kids where all this 'designer gear'.
Anja's flipflops had broken the day before, but unfortunatly we couldn't find any she liked, even though there was a whole street dedicated to just selling shoes!
We got a taxi back up the street, where we popped back into the hotel, had some of Anja's watermelon, and had a drink in a cafe, before heading down the street again in a cyclo, to go to the cinema. We watched a film called The Gamble, which was a bit random, and not particularly good. The music didn't fit very well with what was happening. During the film, Anja dropped her mug of beer, with a spectacular 'crash!' When we left the cinema, we mentioned the glass to the bartenders and they said 'your welcome, your welcome!' which was quite nice of them!
Next up was dinner; Anja sat in a street maket eating a beef and noodle soup whilst I just had a drink, and then we went into a coffee shop which we'd been eyeing up previously, and I had a rather tasty pizza. The stalls on the street were rather curious! They had raw beef, and a personal mini stove, so you could add however much of your personal beef to the pot yourself, and cook it in the way you liked too. Unfortunatly these stalls were purely carvinorous. The seats that locals sit on are smaller than baby chairs, some are just little stools barely off the ground! It looks rather random!
We made our way back to the hotel and spent quite a while on the internet.
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