Hanoi

Noisey night, between the street outside and the family in the kitchen inside, the creature that landed not so quietly on the fire escape outside my window and the horns that started at 4, I eventually put in the ear plugs and slept through till almost 8.

A day of house keeping. I did a load of washing, and jumped on a Grab bike and went out to an enormous shopping centre to buy a camp mattress. Found a Starbucks, got my nails done and a hair wash and dry.

The chat back and forth through GT, was something like … worst hair cut ever recently, your hair is natural right?, yes, too lazy to dye it and curls are out of control. That got a laugh!

Back on a Grab to the Homestay, and found the correct place to get on the train to Hue in a few days, and a tailor across the road to fix the zip on my pants 30000 dng, less than a packet of m&ms.

Faffed about and a late lunch, and then got a message that the cruise tomorrow had been cancelled! Bastidos! Bloody dodgy - Trip Advisor used to be good, now they’re rubbish.

So started scrambling for something to fill a few days, with no luck and time. So jumped on another Grab to collect my ticket for the Water Puppets.

Hooked up with an English mum and son, who were also picking up their tickets and ended up wandering off for a quick snack and a beer and accidentally found a brilliant restaurant over looking the lake.

Water puppets were great, and very clever. Show went for an hour. We wandered out into a very quiet street, maybe closed now in preparation for New Year. As I walked home I went past where I fell up the step, definitely only one step…so god knows what I did.

Walked home and then found dinner up the street - best meal so far. My own little bbq plate and all the things to go on it. Fantastic - for 150,000 dng.

I think I’m sorted for tomorrow, I’ve booked a resort at Cat Ba island and will arrange a day cruise or something when I get there.

Now just have to get there, with a phone that won’t charge because there’s water in it - or so it says!!
It’s 10:45 & 20’Read more