Xin Chao!

Well we are now officially in Veitnam – welcome to Hanoi.

I was most surprised when we got here as the pictures one typically sees of Vietnam with someone wearing the cone shaped hat while working in a rice paddy was practically the first thing that we saw once we drove out from the airport. Talk about stereotypes being correct for once. Go to Thailand and no one’s riding an elephant. Go to Russia and no one is walking around with a bottle of vodka practically glued to their hands permanently. Go to Australia and not many people actually sit around in a singlet, shorts, thongs and a cork hat with stubbie in hand… ok so there are quite a few who do that, but what nation doesn’t have a bogan society?

But for once, a stereotype was right. Go figure.

So we drove away from the airport in our luxury car (mum took the sign not to trust dodgy taxi drivers all to seriously and got a taxi through the tourist desk, rather than just walking outside and seeing that there are actually official airport taxi purely so that tourists don’t get gypped). I fell asleep shortly after getting into the car thanks to the fact that I went to bed at 2.30am and had to get up at 3.30am for a 4am departure from our glorious 5 star hotel in order to get to the airport in time.

So a very tired me arrived at the airport only to be pushed and shoved by the mobs of Asians – and no I don’t say that in a racist manour. It is just my belief that Asians have a different perception of what a line is to westerners and they are much more particular about hurrying to get everywhere because in some of their countries if you don’t push and shove, you don’t get anywhere. My biggest problem was how stupid some people can be – and this is not aimed at just Asians, but everyone.

You put your bags through the scanner at the airport naturally. I did so. Walked to the other side, got frisked and waited for my bags. One didn’t come out. Naturally, I started to slightly panic. Then someone suggested checking to see if it had gone through so I walked back to the other side and there was my bag: one strap buckle caught on the edge and hence it wasn’t going anywhere – just causing problems for all the other bags trying to get past. But no one touched the one strap buckle. No one did anything. They all just loaded their bags on only to sit and watch as they struggled to get into the machine because of my bag. When I tried to untangle it, no one would move to let me get to it seeing as they were in too much of a hurry to put their bags on.

So I finally push it through, pretty darn annoyed by this stage, and walk to the other side. The man sitting there asked if everything was ok. I said yes, I had a bag coming through, and pointed to the machine. Then he asked if I was going to cry.

I couldn’t believe it. I actually asked him to repeat it twice because I couldn’t believe that was what he actually said. I wanted to slap him. Or at least say something rude. Somehow though, I don’t think abusing guards anywhere in an airport generally goes down well… it should generally be avoided unless you fancy a short stay in a lovely Asian gaol.

So all of that, combined with a lack of sleep on the plane (those damn seats on Air Asia are ridiculous) made one extremely tired me. That fact was further recognised by the guy at the front desk of our hotel, who commented on it and started talking to me like I was 5 years old. I had to bite my tongue extremely hard to keep from saying something very sarcastic about my age.

But alas we’re here now.

The Ninth story of the Hong Ngoc Hotel in Hanoi – just a small room with a beautiful view. Nothing fancy, but still lovely and a step above staying in a backpackers/guesthouse. We have a couple of hours to kill this afternoon before meeting everyone else in our tour group at 6pm tonight. There are 17 of us altogether. Mum and I have bets going on as to how many Australians there will be seeing as we know how prominent Australians are throughout South East Asia thanks to the close proximity. Last time we did a tour with Kumuka in Thailand the majority were Aussies. This time Mum’s bet that 8 out of the other 15 people in the group will be Australian, and I’d say she’ll probably be almost dead on.

Anyways, instead of continuing to write even more of a novel, I’ll finish this off and go exploring now. Mum tells me that, from what she saw in the car ride, the streets in this area are lovely and very similar to those of France… In other words, they’ll be beautiful but we’re bound to get lost. Should be good. Photos will no doubt be coming soon (if my computer doesn’t die from the overload of excessive photos first).

Tam Biet!

PS. Thanks to the exchange rate, I’m now a millionaire… in Vietnamese Dong anyhow.