Hanoi – Downhill
Getting on the night bus from Hue heading for Hanoi we should have known it was too god to be true. For ages we were going great guns. We were having actual fun (unknown on night buses), with the five of us (Doireann, Rich, Elaine, Red and me) laughing away, taking wicked photos of sunsets, and me showing off my party trick (fist in my mouth. Yes, I do have a very big mouth indeed). After a rest stop, we were all stretching out and preparing to get some much needed sleep, at about 1am, when suddenly the bus stopped. Doireann, who was sitting on the backseat, came up to me and told me to move from where I was sprawled over two seats. I refused, naturally.
“Well, there’s about 30 people getting on the bus, and there’s not 30 free seats left on the bus, so either I sit next to you, or twelve other people get in this seat.”
“I don’t care. I have my ipod on so I can’t hear anyone, and my eye mask so I can’t see anyone. They can’t move me if they can’t wake me”.
“Seriously, look.”
I looked. She wasn’t exaggerating. Grudgingly, I sat up, and settled in for a long night of sleeplessness. I was a bit bemused when one of the newly arrived people got on and asked us to move further down the bus, as there were 11 people in their party who all wanted to sit together. I refused, on the grounds that there were 5 of us, who all wanted to sit together, and we were here first. Elsewhere on the bus, a guy who’d had a seat to start off with ended up lying down in the aisle. Six sleepless hours later, we rolled into Hanoi. My eyes felt as if they were going to pop out of my head with tiredness.
We bid a hasty goodbye to Rich, Elaine and Red, who were going off on tours of Halong Bay, and asked the guy in the travel agency where we’d arrived about booking a ticket on the night train to Sapa that evening. He made that sucky-teeth face that you often see being sported by plumbers and mechanics, and told us how very difficult it would be to get a ticket. However, he could arrange a soft-sleeper for us for $23. We’d looked it up in the Lonely Planet and knew it should cost about $11. While I wasn’t averse to paying a dollar or two commision, $12 seemed a little bit excessive. We asked about hard sleeper, and were told it was $19. This was plainly ridiculous, so we got motos down to the train station and booked hard sleepers ourselves for $7. I’d travelled on hard sleepers in China, so reassured Doireann that they were fine. No problem.
There was a problem, though, when we got back to the travel agent’s, where we’d left our bag. Obviously miffed that we hadn’t booked our tickets through him, he decided to get awkward. We asked him if we could take a shower there (they advertise that you can have a free shower if you travel with them). No, he told us, we would have to pay. OK then, what about leaving our bags there? Of course – if we paid $5 each. We could have got a (good) hotel room for that. We went into Western complainer mode, and told them that they’d lost our business for a three-day trip to Halong Bay (a lie, but they don’t have to know that), that I’d be writing to the Lonely Planet about them, and that we’d be putting all about them on the interweb. Now the first two weren’t strictly true, but the last one I can do. If you ever come to Vietnam, don’t travel anywhere with TN Brothers, Camel, or F Tours (all the same company). They are bad and mean people!
We stormed out in as much style as we could muster with our heavy backpacks on, and went straight to another travel agents, ODC, who we’d heard good reports of. The lovely lady there let us leave our bags AND have a shower, before we’d booked anything with her. To thank her, we booked a three day tour of Halong Bay, for the day after we arrived back from Sapa. We arranged to go back later that evening to pick our bags up for the train. We’d be there at 8.45pm – she closed at 9.30pm, all cool.
Feeling distinctly ropey, we spent the rest of the morning sitting in a cafe, recharging our batteries. We then decided to get a massage, to try and un-knot some of the muscles that had been going into spasm overnight. The chances of getting a good – legitimate – massage here in Hanoi are slim to none, so we went to a hotel recommended in the Lonely Planet. And what a waste of money it turned out to be. Very unprofessional – think I could have done a better job myself! Still, I fared better than Doireann, who had the last 10 minutes of her massage getting her hair french-plaited.
We were both feeling rotten by this point – in fact, I nearly keeled over out of exhaustion at one point – so when we passed by a supermarket and headed in for snacks for the train, we were on the verge of hysteria. This wasn’t helped when Doireann asked to see some moisturiser that was in a cabinet, only to be told that the lock had gone out. This was then added to when I upset a display of chocolate bars, to have the assistant come over, knock them out of my hand and sneer at me, “You have enough”. Oops. By this time we were bent double with laughter, so got out while we could.
It was nearly time to collect our bags, so we wandered up to the travel agents, noticing on the way that a big power cut that was affecting much of the Old Quarter. And we shouldn’t have been surprised, from our bad day, to see the travel agents doors firmly shuttered and closed. The day was going from bad to worse. We banged and yelled. And banged and yelled some more. Some people came to help us, and tried calling the number on the sign. No answer. More banging and yelling. The clock ticked by. I started mentally writing Sapa off, which I was gutted about – I was really looking forward to going. After what seemed like hours, with the train departure time getting closer and closer, someone eventually woke up the old lady who lives above the shop. She came down and unlocked the doors, we rushed in and grabbed our bags, and the two of us (me and Doireann, not me and the old lady) threw ourselves onto a passing moto – three on a motorbike plus bags is not an experience I want to repeat, especially as the driver saw it as his duty to get us there as soon as possible, despite me yelling in his ear to slow down, for the love of all that is pure and good and holy.
Still, we got there, with a little bit of time to spare. Looking through the window of the train, though, my heart sank a little bit more. Where the hard sleepers in China had been six bunks with mattresses, these were just wooden boards. There goes a chance of a decent night’s sleep. Still, I would be lying down, and that, after the day I’d had, would be a relief. I climbed up ungracefully, lay down, and didn’t move for the next 10 hours, at which point we rolled into Sapa.
Things could only get better.
Tags: Travel, Vietnam
Suzanne
I’d have thought lying on the hard wooden board for 10 hours would have been just the thing to straighten out all the knots from the nightmare coach journey and massage from hell?
I have also added TN Brothers, Camel, and F Tours to “the list”. Financial ruin is sure to follow.
It was great catching up on msn with you this morning. Look forward to more blogs later and perhaps catching up on Saturday.
Love you lots,
Michael
Hey Suze
You certainly are a jinx for long journeys!
Chocolate mousse sounds deelish – my fave dessert! I always have a mousse au chocolat in France, but somehow managed to spend the whole holiday hunting down the perfect one. When I wanted one the restaurants didn’t do them, or had run out or I was full …. your blog is making me droooool. I NEED A MOUSSE FIX ;op
Speak to you on Saturday
love and hugs
C
x
Suze, I really would like to visit Vietnam one day and, just like your brother, I’ll make sure I avoid TN Brothers, Camel and F Tours. Well, perhaps I won’t avoid them completely. I might just stop by and enquire about their most expensive sight-seeing trips and just before handing over the money/plastic card I’ll inform them I’ve changed my mind because they were very, very mean to my daughter and her friend Doireann.
Sorry about the “hard sleeper”. I guess you can console yourself with the fact that sleeping on a hard surface is supposed to be good for the spine. This may be true but I’d certainly opt for a good night’s sleep on a soft surface.
Love you lots.
Mum