Arriving in Vietnam

The morning of the 30th I had to admit that my boots had given up the ghost, but at least there would be more space in my bag (for Joanne's stuff)! We caught the bus with no incident and made it through the border, only slightly unperturbed by the long wait for our bus on the other side. In fact it wasn't the same bus; apparently a Vietnamese company had taken over.

Where the scamming bus company dropped us (14km from centre)

We had read in many places that a common scam in Vietnam is they drop you miles outside the town, forcing you to pay a taxi fare to get to where you really wanted to go, but we were prepared for this and determined not to get off the bus unti everyone else did. It was important because we knew the directions to walk from the bus station to our hotel. So we arrived in Hanoi and we stopped in the middle of nowhere. "This is the bus stop" they said. So everyone got off. Except us and an English guy, who was even more determined not to fall for this scam. Sure enough the other people, who were mostly Chinese and not Vietnamese, so as likely as us to fall for this scam we thought, started filling taxis and getting out of there. After a few annoyed words, the driver told us there was a bus stop round the corner if we didn't want to get a taxi. Russell the Englishman was still sitting on the bus ("It's a scam, it's a scam"). We gave up and eventually Russell gave up when they started threatening to drive hime back to China. We were determined not to give them the satisfaction (or kickbacks) of us getting a taxi, so we waddled up the road with our big bags.

A bus appeared and we got on it. Russell was soon engaged in a guerilla English lesson with the conductor on the bus. Russell, it turns out, has just finished a job as an English teacher in China, and seemed quite keen to spread his skills about. We determined that we were not on exactly the right bus, but we could change buses or walk at the end. Economic necessity prevailed. No, it was stinginess; the bus was only 3000 dong, but it seemed like a lot. In fact it is about 10p. The very nice, helpful conductor got off the bus at the terminus to walk some of the way, to make sure we were on track. We walked the remaining 1500m to our hotel. We needed the exercise I reasoned. Coincidence meant that Russell was booked into the same hotel as us. When we arrived, though, they had no double rooms, so we had to make to with a suite! Ok, we were now paying a bit more than Pingxiang, but at 14 quid a night, the further-from-Hong-Kong value-for-money rule seemed to be holding, even if the straightforward cheapness rule had broken down. This room was huge. With a big balcony.

When we had first crossed the border my first impression was that Vietnam was a far more agrarian country than China had appeared. Of course we did not really see much of rural China, but technology and industry seemed to be everywhere; the fact that we did not see any rural area, but we travelled quite far says it all. They are building everywhere! The countryside of Vietnam, though, really had people in tradiational conical hats using sythes in the fields. The pace seemed instantly slower, and the architecture far more charming than the modern, utilitarian towers all over (the wee bit we saw of) China. Some of the architecture has a distinctly collonial appearance, and some of it was reminiscent of Cuba, some of it Cape Town. The next thing to hit home was how easy the language was going to be to handle. Although Vietnamese still has the considerable difficulty that it is also a tonal language, this is lessened by the fact it is written with in romanised characters. It used to be written in chinese-based characters but, thankfully, what the catholic missionaries started in the 17th century, the French completed in the 19th century, and it makes it much easier to read street names, menus, or anything; and also much easier to have a stab at the pronunciation.

Bikes parked outside the "peaceful" temple

The third thing that struck me about Vietnam was the constant beeping apparently required by every vehicle on the road. A short beep seems to mean "I'm here, don't swerve", which is executed every time any vehicle passes any other, or a person; the long beep means "I'm coming through, regardless of any rules of the road. Get out of my way!". There were also a lot of motor bikes on the road. When we hit Hanoi the density of bikes approached critical mass. It's as if the entire city is over-run with Mods who have had a wardrobe malfunction, and lost some of their taste in bikes too. It's just like one huge, continuous biker gang that never ends. Also the pavements are all blocked by parked bikes, so you always have to walk in the road.

Russell Christie

Anyway, the first day we did nothing really, since we arrived so late and were knackered from travelling and lugging our huge bags around, so we just sat on our luxurious balcony and had a wee drink and a chat with Russell.

Arriving in Vietnam

Hanoi, Vietnam