After booking into our hotel last night, we had supper, then hit the internet for quite a while. It was really, really slow, finally Court gave up, so Court and I went for a quick, brisk walk around Hoan Kiem Lake, twice, for exercise, then back to the internet to see if Dana was still waiting. She was, and the internet was quite a bit faster, so Court did her internet stuff again, and I decided to walk around part of Hanoi and see it at night.
I walked south of the lake, into a big market area. It was night time, so most everyone was close, but I walked around anyway, just looking.
There are tons and tons of motorcycle taxi's waiting for rides. They sit on the sidewalk, on their motorcycle, and say things like, "Excuse me, motorbike." or simply "Motorbike". You simply say no thanks, and it's easy as that. They're lazy, they won't come after you like many of people on the street selling stuff.
As I was walking back, a woman on a motorcycle pulled up to the curb, and asked me if I wanted a ride. I said no thanks, and continued walking. A few seconds later, I look over, and she drives by me, going in my direction, looking back at me, smiling, as she's driving. I think I probably smiled back, and she drove up on the sidewalk, and drove directly at me, and stopped right in front of me, and sticks her hand out, and says she's very pleased to meet me, and wants to know if I want to go to a hotel, she says there are lots of hotels around. I say no thanks, and at this point, she's caressing my arm with her other hand, and she asks me again to go back to her hotel room with her. I said no thanks, I already had a hotel room, and walked away. I know I was grinning from ear to ear at the hilarity of it. She was older, perhaps in her 40's! It was hilarious! I should have asked her how much!
I walked back to the internet place, Court and Dana were still there, so I went up the room to bed.
The internet place we were using was right across the street from our hotel. It was a bar, and they had internet computers in there as well. They advertised rates of 47 dong/minute, but once inside, it was totally on honour system. You're supposed to keep track of how much internet you've used, and put the correct amount in the honest box, they didn't keep tabs on your usage at all. A sign indicated that you were responsible to have correct change...the bar staff were too busy serving beer to make change for you. Another sign said something like:
"You are responsible for putting correct amount in honesty box, or I'll bash your head in." Hahaha, funny!
We got up about 9:00, showered and packed, had breakfast, did internet, then checked out. We stored our bags at the hotel.
We took a cyclo to Ho Chi Minh Complex, to check out the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and museum. All three of us had to squish into the cyclo seat that barely had enough room for two people to sit. Good thing we're all skinny!
Cyclo cost us 30,000 dong.
Ended up the mausoleum and museum are closed on Friday, so we walked through the botannical gardens that are there (only 1000 dong), then we tried to get a cyclo to take us back, but this cyclo driver wouldn't take 3 people in his cyclo, so Court and Dana took cyclo, and I took a motorcycle taxi. We agreed on 10,000 for each of us (so Court and Dana would pay 20,000 to cyclo, and I would pay 10,000 to motorcycle taxi). When he dropped me off, he tried to rip me off. He told me 30,000 dong, for myself, and for the cyclo driver, that he was friends with cyclo driver, and would give 20,000 dong to him. I refused, and told him no, I pay him 10,000, and the girls will pay the cyclo driver 20,000. He did give me my correct change back, after a bit of bickering about it. I walked around, to a bakery that motorcycle taxi drove past, and got a piece of cake, expecting to see Court and Dana in the cyclo coming by, but never saw them, so I walked to the market I had been at last night, it goes for blocks and blocks and blocks, and they sell electronics (both real brand name and cheap Chinese ripoffs), appliances and clothes. Walked around for more than an hour, and bought 4 CD's (for 10,000 dong each...$1CDN each). Then I went to the CIAU Cafe (or however you spell "chow" in that other language), and had a filet mignon and 2 7-ups for 62,000 dong, cheap by Canadian standards, but expensive by SE Asian standards. Then I walked back to the guest house about 6:00, and found Court and Dana there, they were worried sick about me! They couldn't find me for hours, and were scared that something had happened to me. Ends up, they got screwed around by their cyclo driver, who dropped them off outside of the Old Quarter, and told them cyclo drivers were not allowed to go in there (which is a lie), and they got left somewhere totally foreign, outside the Old Quarter, and they didn't know where they were. Took them an hour to find the hotel, then they couldn't find me, which made things worse. They had bought bakery stuff for the bus ride, so I ran to the bakery and got some stuff too, and bought 2 more CD's as well.
The bus guy picked us up about 6:45, and we walked to the bus and got on. Crappy bus, I can't stretch my legs out under the seat in front of me!
The bus finally left about 8:00, after stopping at other guest houses and hotels, then it stopped on the highway south of Hanoi, where everyone that was going to Vientiane had to get off and get on another bus. The bus then stopped at Ninh Binh, a small town and picked up a few more people. The bus was now full
The bus ride was crazy, very busy highway, especially at night, and crazy driving tactics by everyone in Vietnam.
Tried to sleep, but I wasn't really tired, because I had slept so nice the night before.
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