oh my goodness, the last couple of days have been, well, a bit of a rough ride. Ilse and I were ready to depart from Hanoi as we were starting to feel a bit uncomfortable in our guesthouse--think staff of 4 guys sleeping in the lobby all day i their boxers and slight vibes of resentment drifting our way bc we didn't book our tour to halong bay through them for twice the cost. I will now relay the last two days as a series of short anecdotes:
Wednesday:
6:30 wake up (ouch that felt early)
7:30 explain to staff that we'd like to use the internet which is not working at all, the guy says "yea yea ok i fix" and then leaves the building
8:00 hotel tries to overcharge us for the room, we correct them
8:15 ask for complimentary breakfast (included in last night's stay), the guy yawns, stretches and goes back to sleep on the couch
9:00 begin to wonder waht happened to our bus which is an hour late, ask to use the phone for a local call and the guys says it'll be 10,000 dong per minute--no way--we find a nice man accross the street who offers to call, we find out the tour has forgotten us
9:05 nice man's partner comes over to demand we pay for the phone call
9:06 we refuse
9:15 get in the cab sent by friendship travel agency
10:00 cab driver misses a turn and proceeds to reverse against oncoming interstate traffic as we bite our nails
10:05 we get on a crowded bus full of confused people who have been waiting at the side of the road for 40 minutes for no apparent reason
1:00 sit through an uncomfortable lunch on the boat with a table of french speakers who seem to be having a lovely conversation
2:00 stop for a look at a once beautiful cave which has since been completely ruined by multicolored artificial lighting--the place looked like a discoteque
3:00 pay 40.000 dong for a 15 min boat ride in a smaller boat that didn't show us much new
4:00 arrive at cat ba island and wait almost an hour for the bus
5:00 get on the jampacked bus and wait another 20 min for the shirtless bus driver to decide we should probably get goin
5:20 pray the bus will make it up this hill and the next
5:40 arrive at hotel on Cat Ba which is near nothing and could have easily been gotten to by boat
8:00 after dinner harrassed by 5 moto drivers to go to town, one offered a very low price (very low-1000 dong) and proceeded to take us 25 meters down the road and back
8:01 the moto drivers had a good laugh
8:15 arrive in town and battle the slowest internet connection of all time
8:45 search for a regular cup 'o joe with out condensed milk, its tough to find
9:45 bombarded by 6 or 7 moto drivers clearly in cahoots and continually blocking our way or grabbing our wrists to get our business (not the best strategy)
10:00 arrive at hotel, thank goodness
Thursday:
7:30 wake up
8:00 go down to check out and have breakfast and realize we left the key in the room
8:15 after looking high and low in the room, i play charades with the cleaning lady to see if she picked it up
8:20 I determine I am not the best charades player
8:25 i go down to the front desk distraught and the manager talks to the cleaning lady who does in fact have the key
8:45 ask for more jelly to go with my bread and hotel server says no
9:00 back on the bus and thenlater on the boat and go back to Halong City without kayaking or swimming both of which were on the adgenda
1:00 bus to Hanoi is crowded and hot and the AC is not really working but the guide will not let us open the windows
2:00 bus has trouble starting after tanking up and half the passengers have to get out and push
2:15 we take a vote and everyone wants the windows open so we do
4:30 arrive in Hanoi, bus drops us 4 blocks away from the agreed upon location and yells at us in Vietnamese when we protest
5:30 I stand out in the rain to try and feel cleaner
5:32 it stops raining-great
6:00 we go to the trave office to pick up the 6:00 bus
7:30 the bus finally comes--it's nice
7:45 the bus drops us at the real bus to Ninh Binh--they've got us on a sleeper bus for only a two hour ride but instead of two little beds they have us jammed into one
9:00 as we are sitting uncomfortably on our narrow platform sandwiched between two couples on their narrow platforms (picture a big family bed in the back of the bus with short dividers), the pop song "Noma Noma" comes blaring over the radio and we have an exasperated laugh
11:00 finally reach our destination after stopping for a half hour 15 min before we got off
11:05 pay a little extra ($12 instead of 6) for a room in the nicest hotel we've stayed in yet
11:45 agree that that shower we just had was priceless
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Sorry, hit post by accident. Here's the whole thing:
Two big things stood out just now:
Your itemized, timestamped list tells me that you have not yet transitioned to "SE Asia" time. People are late here; that's how they live. It's frustrating when you're traveling, it's worse when you're working, but if you just relax, embrace it as a part of life, and use those minutes waiting as an opportunity to meet the people around you, I think you may really come to embrace it. Remember, you're in Vietnam! How cool is that!
Embrace the sweetened, condensed milk. It will be your savior.
hey, the list just shows that traveling through vietnam isn't a walk on the beach. though its been rough at times, we look back and laugh. there are always a few bumps in the road... we just seem to have a lot. its what happens when you try to do things the way the locals do. i'd say we've embraced the culture as much as possible.
sounds to me like you are getting the full 'nam experience :) the dirt washes off but the memories will be forever (cheesy but true!)
Post a Comment