Vietnam & Laos in 23 days

After a very long trip of around 16 hours, landing in Ho Chi Minh layover of around 2 hours, we arrived at Hanoi. We took a taxi to the hostel for around 20USD which consisted partly of an electric car trip which was going at max 15km/h and then we met the taxi guy who took us to the hostel. On our way the taxi driver told us that over the weekend there is an area closed for cars and bikes and is pedestrian. On the way he took us to the HSBC ATM where we withdrawn 12.5mVND which results to around 110EUR each. We arrived at the Chien Hostel and ended paying him 550,000VND plus a 50,000,VND tip, which was around 30EUR. More than we expected but fuck it.

We were just informed that we missed the free 30 min beer by some few minutes. We check in our room 601 where we were greeted by a very bad smell of feet. We placed our bags, showered and went out to explore Ha Noi. During the weekend there were late night markets in the pedestrian zone which at that time (11.30pm) were closing down. We walked around, ate some chicken/pork skewers and then tried to find a place to eat. A persistent guy tried to make us eat at his place and he ended up convincing us. We ate bbq beef where we had to cook it ourselves on the portable gas lit stove. The food was delicious and bit spicy. Roderick, Clayton and Kurt had to do some push ups next to the shrine due to our pushup challenge as they said one of the banned words.

We paid up and walked back slowly to our hostel, passing by the nice lake and observing the great reflections of the lit building in front of us on the water.

When we arrived at the hostel, the shutters were closed so we tried to find a way to get in from around. We noticed that there was somebody in the hostel reception so we knocked and they opened. We went to our room and the other people sleeping in our dorm shushed us to be quiet.

We had a good night sleep getting ready for Day 2.Read more