After a long and painful bus ride up north to the capital city, we spent the first day taking it easy and getting some sleep, since we didn't get any on the "sleeper" bus. Our bus attendant must have been having a bad day, and decided to take it out on the rest of the bus. Before we even left the station he was yelling at some other tourists for eating fruit on the bus, he said because it smelled. We let that slide, no food on the bus seems reasonable. Then after about 30 minutes, he starts yelling back and forth with another local lady on the bus. 4 hours later at about midnight, he is still screaming, and almost getting to the violent point with this lady. Of course most of the bus is full of tourist, who have no idea what they are screaming about, and just want him to shut up, which he didn't. I guess he had enough of this lady, and then decided he was so mad that it would be a good idea to start smoking cigarettes on the bus too. Fruit = too smelly, Chain smoking = Very pleasant....or at least I guess that is what he thought. The worst part was that 2 feet from him was a mother, an infant and its grandfather of about 80. They asked him not to smoke and pointed to the baby, and he responded with an angry wave in the grandfather's face, and went on smoking. Also, I think they were so mad that they didn't stop the entire trip. Which sometimes could be a blessing, since normally the buses stop every hour, and it can get old. Not this time though, 13 hours with no dinner and no bathroom breaks. Did I mention our driver was a maniac too! That's holiday cheer Vietnam style I guess.
Anyway, as I said we slept all day the first day in Hanoi. The second day we just walked around the old quarter where we are staying and saw a few sites and got a couple of bowls of Pho along the way. That night we went around and tried to book our boat tour in Halong Bay for my birthday and New Year's. Holding to our typical fashion we waited until the last minute, and most of the boats we wanted were full. We finally found one, but not as nice as the ones we wanted. Oh well, I have my rod and reel, and as long as it floats I will make due. We signed up for the 3 day, 2 night tour, with 1 night on the boat and one on Cat Ba Island for New Year's Eve.
The next morning we woke up to watch the first full football game I have seen UK vs. Clemson which we got on ESPN-Vietnam. It was nice to see some football and we actually caught a glimpse of Henry Gallivan in the stands. Of course the Cotton Bowl is the same time and day as the Gamecocks game so they are picking that up instead. Guess we will have to bribe another hotel owner to let us use the computer until 5 a.m. again to catch our game.
After the game, we of course got some Pho, and went shopping for a bit. Then we went to the other side of Hanoi and saw the War History and fine arts museum. On our way back to our hotel we were in our 5th wreck of the trip - our Taxi driver ran right into the back of a woman on a moto. Luckily we were at a red light; noone was hurt and there was no damage so we went on our merry way. That was about it for Hanoi. I think we are officially avoiding large cities at all costs. In the morning we head to our boat, for our cruise through Halong Bay!
BTW, new pics up on flickr, and for the first time since September we are caught up on this blog!
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