Laurie's World

On the way to Halong Bay with our guide Dai (he said we could call him Dave if we want- but I am going to try to call him by his real name). He asked us a few questions. He wanted to know about dietary restrictions. When Troy booked the tour he told them no seafood or fish for me and no fish for him. Honestly I don’t mean to be rude, but if you saw the water here, you wouldn’t eat things from the sea either. Anyway, some other people in the back of the van said “oh we eat everything” seeming eager to be amenable. Dai said “in Vietnam, don’t ever say you eat everything-Say you eat MOST things or maybe say 90%” hahahaha. This is very funny. Good solid advice.

Then he asked if we had tried Pho. Everyone nodded. He was telling us about the language and that are 6 dialects. So the word pho means noodle soup. Nod, yes. Then he said it you say it again a slightly different way it means street, and if you say it the third way, it means prostitute. The three ways he pronounced sounded exactly the same to my untrained ear. BUT this explains why we had so much trouble explaining to a restaurant in Sa Pa on the first day that we wanted pho. We must have been asking for a street prostitute. We had to open a menu and point to get our message through. Even then it was still “no”; maybe he was disgusted with us by then. In my opinion, if someone that looks like me walks up to you and asks for pho, no matter how i am saying it, they surely MUST know I mean noodle soup? Not “I want to eat on the street with a prostitute?” 🙄

This one was for you mom 😘

When we were in the black Hmong hilltribe village a few days ago, one thing we noticed was all the animals roaming free. Chickens, dogs, ducks, water buffalo, everything. Dong explained a couple things to me about this. First, That they allow all their animals to roam free because they always come home for food. No kidding? Even chicks know their home and will return every night no matter how far they strayed. Secondly and mostly amazing to me is that the KNOW all their animals by how they look. So if a water buffalo or a rooster is in the wrong place, they know by looking at it, it isn’t theirs and they don’t feed it. They can tell the difference between two chickens, like we can tell our dogs and cats apart. This is amazing to me. I think all cows and chickens look alike.

So as we are wandering into the neighboring village to Dong’s we see rows of chickens in cages with grated bases and propped over the drainage canal.

Seems like a very opposed philosophy to what I just observed and was told. I ask Dong about this and she says “Those are Vietnamese chickens brought here by Vietnamese people for sale to kill for food.” She seemed to accept it, but did say it was not how the hilltribes treat their animals. So maybe they use the caged animals to kill and sell to tourists, but keep the free range animals to use for their own consumption? Not sure. Clearly I should have asked more questions, but I was just surprised to see the difference.

Up at 6am not bcz I had to be, but bcz that’s just when I woke up today. Whenever we have a travel day whether it’s early Departure or not, I always sleep a little restless as I guess I worry about missing. Breakfast was tasty as always. It is a very reliable buffet breakfast here. I am going to miss the sweetened condensed milk in my coffee when i leave Vietnam. My waistline probably won’t though 😂😂

We got packed up and got caught up on some communication to back home and were Down at the desk to settle up. I have to say the service at this hotel is like no other. Far and away the best service we have ever had in all our years of travel. Every single staff member is so sweet. They initiate with us all the time, not to sell us something but just to check it with us. I planned to leave a tip for the girl who must run the restaurant. She is literally the sweetest and I want her to come back home with us. After thinking about this for a bit I decided it might be creepy to tell her I want to sneak her into my bag and bring her home with me. So I will just give her some money, hopefully make her day and move along myself. The minimum wage her in Vietnam ranges from $140-$175 a month. I sure hope she makes more than that!!!!! The hotel manager knows us by name, and is very grateful for our positive review on Trip advisor. Apparently his wages are based partly on trip advisor reviews… he deserves all the kudos we have him.

The taxi that he hotel arranged came to pick us up right as promised at 1 and took us to bus depot. We waited for a 15 or so minutes then a bus came along and the scramble began. There is clearly some pecking order that exists here based on your nationality. Despite the fact that the man said he would go in the order of the list (we were slightly more than halfway down) Clearly Vietnamese people were exempt from this rule. So after they were all on, the pushy people were allowed on next and after that, they deferred to the list. I knew I was getting on the bus, but my preference was not have a bottom berth and/or be near the back of the bus. So as it turns out I am on a top berth in the second row. See how that goes?? 🙄

So I am petrified of this ride home, despite the fact that Mr. Kong at the Freesia told me it would be ok and more importantly that I would be ok. So I choose to focus on the green trees of the hills rather than the oncoming traffic and steep drop off into canyons on the right. When the trees are so close that I could touch them if there was no glass in the window, I do think why the heck are we on this side of the road? We are supposed to be driving on the right side. I suppose it is critical to pass whatever we may come across….I have survived about 55 minutes of this (which I know from coming the other way is the bulk of the scariest part) when we pull over for what I believe to be the obligatory driver pee break. But this pee break is taking way too long, 20 minutes and not only are we not back on the road, but we are backing up into a side street. And then after 10 more minutes, there is a long announcement in Vietnamese followed by a short announcement in English. “The bus is broken, they are bringing us another one”. I KNEW THE ENGINE SOUNDED FUNNY! It thought it was my paranoia…..but clearly not. My non mechanical assessment: i think the transmission was acting up and as long as we were coming down off the mountains, we were Mostly ok with good brakes. But we are more on flat now, therefore not ok. The only redeeming thing about this out stop is I get off the bus and it’s warm. Legitimately warm. Like warm that I have not felt one time on this whole trip. So this gives me hope for better weather…..

So anyway, Just over 90 minutes later (plenty of time for bathrooming and acquiring a snack) another bus comes. Then the crazy scramble begins. Many are now jostling for better seats. I had to get busy with my bag twice to keep back a pushy Chinese lady and an even pushier Asian man (with a face Mask), telling them “NO-there is a line!” Only to get on and have someone put shoes in what I believe to be troy’s seat. I’m like “whose shoes? This is my husband’s seat” and this French lady says “no I need that for my husband!” And then these two nice British dudes chime up on my behalf and say “we were told we had to sit in same seats” ? She was like “oh🙄” and moves the bag of shoes. I look around and see that most people are doing just that as am I. It’s what makes SENSE right. Didn’t occur to me to do otherwise. So then I hear them chatting a few minutes later and they are like “what is WRONG with people?” Why can’t people just follow the rules? I’m a bloke who just follows the rules.” Amen – kindred spirits! So I turn back to them and say “thank you for being a rule follower!” 👍

4:04 pm and we are on our way.
4:20 pm. Driver pulls over and announces it is break time! Uhhhhhhhhh we just had a two hour break. He says 5 minutes. I’ve never seen a roadside break be only 5 minutes.
4:34 back on the road…….
5:54pm-absolutely no idea where we are or how much longer but there is blue sky out there. I’ve not seen blue sky in 19 days…..I bet it’s warm too. Can’t tell from in here. But I’ll know soon enough.
6:48pm. It’s dusk. Cruising along nicely and then some ridiculous multicoloured party lights pop on in the bus. 4 sets the full length of the bus. Bright and obnoxious. What’s happening! Are we there?? Not by my calculations.
6:50-7:21pm rest stop. Be proud of me. Tried some food from a non English speaking Girl. One thing I recognized (sandwich) and one I didn’t. A square thing looked like rice. Got far enough to believe the rice thing had pork inside and the sandwich had chicken. Oddly enough, she fried both for me before putting In bags and telling me “25” (aka 25,000 dong ($1.25 usd) . So the rice thing may or may not have had pork. There was some pink blob in the middle but it had something else the consistency of mashed potatoes (maybe it WAS mashed potatoes) and the sandwich was egg. And I guess eggs come from chicken….so that was totally false.
Fought with a crazy bathroom lady about paying for the bathroom. She did for want me to walk by without paying. She was slapping her clear plastic by and saying “pay pay money money”. And I was saying “I don’t need your paper!” She was insisting. So I Told her “on way out”. Pretty sure I crossed over a pipe inside the washroom and ended up using the man’s toilet. But didn’t realize it until after. My written Vietnamese just isn’t that hood yet. They divide them on the outside by two doors but once instead you have to read the doors ?? So I’m coming out, there she is still yelling at me…I pull out 2,000 dong and give to her. She is still yelling at me and I’m saying “I UNDERSTAND!” Maybe yelling back a little. I walk away and see her still hollering at me. So I go back and she is flapping the bills around and pointing at them. Oh I see I didn’t give her pristine bills. Too bad I say. It’s all I have. Nothing more annoying than having to pay to pee

9:34pm arrived at hotel. It’s really amazing. We got that “suite upgrade” sweeeeeet!! Another really friendly hotel staff reception. Similar to a Freesia. Sooooooo different then the a Dragon Airport hotel where we stayed the first night and I was panicked about Vietnam!!

Is that even a word? It rained endlessly today. And I’m not exaggerating. It rained ALL Darn day. So consequently, we did not do anything…..we watched movies in our room., Ate all three meals in the hotel and even had a massage in the hotel… we did go stand on the steps at one point and contemplate walking down the hill for food. But decided NAH……

The massage was a little different….so by our Asian standards, grossly over priced at $13.50, but still seemed reasonable based on NA standards. So we opted for full body massage as it came highly recommended by the desk staff. I’ve said this on occasion over the years, but this girl was strong. Like so strong, I’m sure she could easily have broken my bones with her bare hands. So imagine what that felt like on muscles? At least she stuck to the muscles unlike that massage I had in Laos a couple years ago where she kept going at my shin bones and the bones on the top of my feet. Muscles and bones-very different things.
The two girls, take us into the room and hang out while they basically tell us to get naked. When they see our (my) faces, they concede to letting the underwear stay on. Ok, not totally unheard of. But I’ve never been joined in the room with the masseurs while we were supposed to strip down. Usually they give you a modicum of privacy for this activity. Anyway, they giggled and whispered and talked through the whole thing, which is also not unheard of here, but it always make me wonder if they are making fun of me….

We woke up and it wasn’t pouring rain. Seems like a good day to head out on a trek then eh?

We spoke with Mr Kong at the front desk and he arranged for us to have a car, a driver and an English speaking guide to take us out to see the countryside, a couple waterfalls and then take us to a hilltribe village. We have no idea what all this really means but it sounds good, so we wait 15 or so minutes and a young Vietnamese man and a lady in full hilltribe garb come into the hotel lobby. The shake our hands and tell us their names. The driver-no idea. The guide- I’m going to take a stab at the spelling – Dong. Not like the Vietnamese currency, but more with a soft “g” at the end. And we are on our way, she hands us a couple waters each and we walk out to the car. We start driving up up up to a lookout point that had no lookout as we were encapsulated in clouds and then the Lost waterfall. The story of the name has something to do with couples coming there and then getting lost, or maybe one of them getting lost. Something like that. Dong’s English was pretty good but occasionally some of the finer points would get lost in the translation. There was a long walk to get into the waterfall but it was totally worth it. Very scenic and zen. Not many others – this could very well have something to do with the fact it was now pouring rain. Luckily I have our Seahawks coloured “body condoms” as we now lovingly refer to these disposable ponchos. What a sight….

The walk did give Dong and I a chance to chat and visit. She asked me about kids. I said 3. Girls or boys? I said girls. She said “I have more children that that” wow- it’s a throw down! But she has me whooped. She has 7 children. 15, 12, 9, 7, 4, 1.5, 7 months. First 5 are girls, then boy boy. She told me all about why they need to have children until they have a boy, and how she had the boy and was done, but then oops, four months later she was pregnant again. But it was a boy so all was good. They need boys, bcz boys (and their wives) are who stays and lives with you and cares for you. All her daughters would eventually leave her by 19 or 20 at the latest when they Marry to go be with heir husband’s parents/family. So she will have two sons who will marry and then stay with her always. She lives with her husband’s family and it is her mother inlaw that keeps the 7 kids while she is at work. How different is this. She got married at 19 had a baby by 21. I meant to ask if she got to choose her husband but I forgot. So do the math she is 36 with 7 kids, one who is a couple years from getting married herself. How different lives can be!!

Then we are back to the car and off to the Silver Waterfall. This is basically a straight up climb, with stairs thankfully. To a waterfall we can’t see the top of, the clouds are so low. But beautiful none the less. These waterfalls are running at full tilt due to the volume of rain over the past month (not to mention the last few days/typhoon weather) .

There is something very powerful about waterfalls-they just never get old….

Back into the car, VERY WET! But still having fun. Off to Dong’s village. We drove for about 30-40 minutes on some roads that would never be open in America. They just wouldn’t allow traffic to pass on them . I use the term “roads” very loosely in fact. Regardless, our driver persevered. Troy said “there’s no way this is his car” probably true. These “roads” here have got to be very hard on a car’s suspension.

So he pulls over and drops us off with Dong. We really don’t know what’s going on, but we follow her. And an entourage of other hilltribe ladies. This makes me nervous. I know exactly what is going down her. They are going to pester me to buy crap I don’t want/need and probably already have. Oh well, I will do my best to dodge. They are persistent however, asking me questions, smiling, showing an interest. Dong stops and tells us stuff as we walk down down down into valley (still raining btw).

We see how they husk rice, cut and dry hemp, weave, grow indigo and dye clothes with it, grind corn, all the different types rice and how they farm that among other things.

We saw a really really drunk hilltribe lady. She was putting on quite the show, she had a group of people all around her including children and she was yelling and slapping herself in the face. Dong said to us she drank too much of the “strong water”. Jeez, I’ll say! Sorry I didn’t have the nerve to take a photo of her, although in hindsight it might have been worth it.

We stopped at a place to eat lunch. They brought us steamed rice, lemongrass chicken, a pork dish, stir fried veggies, watermelon, pops. Pretty good spread.

I hesitate to call it a restaurant, although Dong did. The moment I saw the guy sweeping the tables with the same Broom he used to sweep the floor, and the dog run off with the poop filled diaper from the baby they were changing in the corner I kind of had new rules about what I wanted to call the place. Alas, we had finished eating (mostly) by this point, so it was what it was. Definitely no 30 second rule on dropped food however. Dropped food, gone forever. Threw it over the rail into the river below. (That Dong told us they couldn’t drink because it was filled with “peepee and poopoo”. Direct quote no word of a lie. Like I said- pretty good English.

So funny story about getting pressured into buying something. There were these three ladies-they were relentless. They were hanging out trying to get me to buy stuff while we were waiting for our food. They even said to me, “you buy one thing-we will go away” they know how to hard sell. But I really didn’t want any of their stuff. It looked so old and dirty, like they had been trying to sell it to tourists (with no luck) for 50 years. But they had bracelets, so I said ok, I’ll buy 2. How much? They say 20,000 dong ($1 usd). I’m thinking it is worth one dollar to get them to leave me in peace. So I pick two, pass over the 20,000 dong and as promised, they move on. Then after we eat three CUTE little girls come over-oh no. My weakness…. but they have the same bracelets I just bought. I mostly avoid eye contact as they talk themselves down in price and they get to a spot where they are 2 for 10,000. Arg what?? I just paid 20,000 for two. But it’s only 50 cents. I can live with that. I decide to bail and go to bathroom (which may or may not have been a Wise move given the condition of the place) but either way it got me out of the sticky spot with those cute girls. When I come back Troy is busting a gut laughing. I say “what?” He says the girls talked them selves down to 10 for 10,000 dong. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? He says it was my own fault for not haggling! Good lord…….

Another funny story, one of the hilltribe ladies that I would have sworn was close to 70 years old asked me how old I was. I told her 47. She laughed and said I was older than her. I added her how old she was. She said 46. That’s how tough their life is on them. There was no way she looked 46. I know I don’t really look my age either but wow. I hope my age Image problem is the opposite…..we joked about her being my little sister. (Also she couldn’t have been more than 4’10” tall). She has 5 kids all under 17….

We walked a bunch more to the next village. And all I can think at this point is, I hope we don’t have to walk back up that mountain. As enjoyable as the whole thing was, we had walked several km by this point, most of it in the rain and I had some kind of rash, bug bite or allergic reaction to a plant or something occurring on my right shoulder.

But Alas, our taxi driver was at the next village and was ready to whisk us back to Sa Pa. Thank goodness because the hilltribe ladies that had been following us for two hours were pretty sure I was going to buy something from them. But I managed to duck into the car and avoid eye contact while we pulled away. In all fairness, I did tell them “no” from the very beginning. I think they mostly count on wearing you down…..not me. I’d already splurged on my grossly overpriced bracelets from that other lady.

All is right with the world. After an awesome night’s sleep. (I found an actual English Channel on the tv with a movie) on a very comfortable mattress-We so very rarely get to say this, I slept until 6:30 am. I Got up and was down at breakfast by 7am, drinking Vietnamese coffee and catching up on Facebook. It’s like it’s my vacation time finally. The breakfast here is a pretty impressive buffet with fruit, cereal, juice, lots of Asian foods but a decent western selection too. They make eggs to order and have bacon and ham. They also make “pancakes” which were more like flavourful crepes, with either banana or pineapple. Troy went pineapple, I went banana. Very tasty!!!! Sat on comfortable chairs until 9:15 when I thought I should go get ready to face the world/aka go for a walk and find a massage place. Believe it or not, the sun was doing its best to peek out and we thought we should grab the moment. Based on the weather patterns yesterday, we had no idea how long it would last, if at all.

Comfortable shoes on and rain poncho in my day pack, we set off to explore the town. The gal at the front desk looked at us a little like we were crazy-“you are just going to walk around?” “You don’t want to book a tour?” I assured her we were fine. I did ask her what happens if you book a trekking tour and it pours rain! She said sweetly “you still go”. Good to know….I’ll consider it for tomorrow 😉

We walked a long way out of town into the hills and saw sone beautiful views of the city from up high as well as fields of roses and lilies. The roses fascinated me. As they grow, Each bloom is wrapped in Paper and tied off with a little tie. We are talking millions of rose bushes. Millions…..seems like a lot of work. I guess I just never thought about how this all happens and why. Maybe the paper protects the rose bud from Insects or keeps it tight in a bud until delivered to the consumer? Not sure. Maybe I will look into that.

We made our way back to civilization and thought we should look for food. We ended up over in the part of town that caters more to tourists. Troy had earmarked a couple of eateries and as luck would have it, we found ourselves right in front of one. So in we went and lo and behold, troy was able to order and receive pho. Beef pho to be precise! Thank goodness!! We ordered salad rolls (aka fresh spring rolls) and they were quite tasty. The rice paper wrapper was a little chewy but the flavour was spot on and we enjoyed them! I ordered a Vietnamese chicken sandwich. Also very good. Overpriced as it turns out, but at 72,000 doing ($3.50 usd) still palatable pricing.

Then with our bellies full, a foot massage seemed like the best plan. So for $8 each we went next door and arranged that! Expensive compared to Thailand but similar prices to Cambodia. We were in the $7-$9 range for a 60 minute massage in Cambodia. It was slightly different than footies had elsewhere, but very good! My least favourite part of a foot massage is putting my shoes on at the end. But alas it has to be done. We carried on with our walk for a ways but I had a bug bite on my foot and my wet sandal was rubbing on it causing me to be a tiny bit uncomfortable. So with one toe peeking out of the strap, we decided to turn back and start the trek back to the hotel. We had been out for the better part of 7 hours, so feeling great about our day.

Somehow I’m still the bug bait between the two of us on this trip. Not sure why I get bitten and by what, because I never actually see anything bite me. I usually get a pretty decent reaction to the notes though….I never leave home without my itch stuff 😉

So the rain just won’t quit. I’d say we brought it with us, but apparently we didn’t. The typhoon hit here too on Monday and the town seems all but washed away and the rain just keeps on coming. We are very happy with our hotel. The staff are very very friendly and it sure is comfortable!

We saw a break in the rain and decided to brave a walk about town. We got to the end of the street before it really started coming down. No poncho and no umbrella. Oh well, how long could it last? A while apparently, so we duck into a place for lunch. We are not super experienced at the art of ordering food here. There gave us a menu with no pictures and no prices. Troy orders a coke and the girl hollers something at the top if her lungs and someone hollers back and she writes it fish on an order slip with a price, then shows it up us (35,000 dong or something like that). Ok. Then Troy orders spring rolls, yelling occurs, then she writes down 150,000 dong (that’s ~$7). I am thinking where’s the cheap Vietnamese food?? But it is what it is, so we say ok. Then Troy orders beef pho and she says “NO”. We are confused, isn’t that the national dish? So I order chicken fried rice, yelling back and forth, she writes down 45,000 dong, ok. That is $2.25 usd – seems reasonable. We wait a while and then the fried rice comes. It’s tasty and there’s plenty, then the mountainous platter of spring rolls shows up. Hahaha. We are used to ordering spring rolls and 2 or 3 spring rolls cut into 2 or 3 pieces….. explains the $7. But by the time we make our way through this plate of spring rolls, I might never want another one…..

The good news was that the rain let up while we were eating. The bad news was that it started again before we were able to leave. 😂😂😂. So we made a mad dash back to the hotel so we could dry off, I could change my shoes and we could borrow an umbrella from the hotel.

With a map in hand and an umbrella we headed back out later to explore and presumably find some pho (for troy-I’m not a fan). Believe it or not. The place we stopped at for supper also told us “NO” to pho. WHAT????? Is there a pho shortage? Upside to the place we stopped-a super cute doggie. I had Vietnamese coffee and fried noodles with chicken and troy had ribs and rice.

We tried to stop into the Catholic Church but it was closed, and basically the rain was so ridiculous that it made walking anywhere very challenging. I am going to try to get some pictures, but the public works department here has some serious work to do. Either they have massive problems with their drainage in general or there was an incredible amount of damage done on Monday. I suspect maybe some of both….most sidewalks are huge craters with the drain water running freely down the streets like rivers. It has been raining a lot for the last month, they are in the “rainy season” here apparently! More on this next post….

On the bus….

9:06am

We stopped at shortly after 9 for a 30 minute rest stop. I suppose this is because the rest of the passengers have been in this bus since 7 or 7:30 when it left the city? Regardless I was happy bcz a trip to the bathroom that was not the bus bathroom seemed like a good idea. It was probably a wash after seeing the washrooms in the rest stop, I felt like maybe I could use the bus bathrooms! Plus the toilet paper mafia were there. Lurking. Waiting. Staring. I am prepared though, have my own, so don’t pay. Besides, are they going to make change for my 200,000 dong note? No, they aren’t-she’s not happy, but is a little distracted by the Chinese lady she has forced to dig through her bag for some money. She Seems like a much bigger whale than me.

9:26am…..they turned the bus back on, thank you Buddha! Getting a little stuffy in here. Pretty sure we are sitting at 99% humidity and 80+ degrees. The girl across from me is wondering where the English speaking guys went because she wants them to translate for her inside the rest stop. She wants vegetarian bones? WHAT?? Is that a thing???? I’d say don’t be too picky girl. And good luck. I went in there and found not a single thing with English on it, and jo one that speaks English. I guess that’s why she needs English speaking Vietnamese help.

9:38am the girl and her friend came back on with a steamed bun. No vegetarian bones. She lol’d. Her and her friend are SpEd teachers from New York. So we have some stuff to chat about don’t we!!

12:17
I’ve been awake from my nap for about an hour now. Most terrifying hour of my life. Not sure why anyone thought this was a good idea. Taking a huge Bus through the mountains of Vietnam. Only one serious head on collision avoided as our driver was trying to pass a fuel truck on a corner and boom. There was a truck! All I can think of is I have to do this again in four days to get back. Obviously if you are reading this I made it through safe and sound and it’s all a mute point but I’m seriously considering my options. Maybe I should go back to sleep….

1:17pm
At hotel- it’s amazing!!!!!!! Kissed the ground when I got off that bus and I will worry about the ride back later.
$1 taxi ride to get us from bus station to the Freesia hotel. I would have paid triple just to get us away from the hill tribe girls – the were 20 swarmed all around Troy then I. They made Troy pinky swear he would shop from them later….not sure if he actually legit pinky swore, but they were sure trying….

Troy just told me that he saw on the news there was a typhoon here! Good to know we missed that somehow. We were even in a Hanoi yesterday night!

Off to explore and eat I suppose. Not sure what I think I’m going to eat exactly, but I see the hotel has affordable western food if need be.

How to get to Sapa…..

Not at all prepared for this leg of the journey. We are here in Hanoi with no way to get to Sapa. It’s 11pm and we are trying to figure this out. The guy at the desk says to just come down at 7am. Hmmmmm. Not sure how this works but feeling like it might need to be prebooked? It is a 5.5 hour bus ride after all. Well trust the process I say. We set the alarm for 6am and settle in for the meager night’s sleep. But sleeps when you set an alarm are never as good as when you don’t have that anxiety over missing the alarm. Last night was no exception. But either way we were up at 6am, down in reception at 6:08am and asking about a bus to Sapa. The guy at the desk indicates he will look into it/make a few calls. Once again not seeing English as a strength here yet.

“Breakfast?!”- “yes” – “sit please”. Out comes two plates of fruit, one watermelon, the other dragon fruit. “Coffee or tea?” – “yes one coffee one tea” out comes two white coffee. What if I didn’t like white coffee (I happen to- but what if I didn’t?) and no tea for troy, but I guess I got two whites coffees 😉then two more plates each with two fried eggs and warm bread. Hmmmmm. I guess they have a “set menu” 😂😂

The desk guy comes over and says bus to Sapa coming at 7:30am 600,000 dong for 2 person (~$36usd). Sounds reasonable enough. Starting to question the quality of the ride though as the online busses we saw were $25 USD each?? I guess we will see. It’s not like we have a tonne of choices at this point.

So as we nibble our way through the breakfast, Troy says “do you have the roomkey?” I say “no, don’t you?” Uh oh…….so now I have to try I explain to the desk that we locked our key in the room. A couple phone calls later, and after waiting a few minutes someone else comes to get us. Our room is on the 3rd floor but he presses 7. Assuming we are looking for house housekeeping. Indeed we are, after he hollers down the halls for her, we go to 5th floor, same thing. Keep in mind it is about 6:30am at this point, so likely people still sleeping?? He gives up, takes us to 3rd fooor and says wait. He comes back a few minutes last with a pop bottle full of keys. And I mean a lot of keys. And he needs to try each one…….

Ya, we are those people……

Pretty sure he had to go through all of them until he found the key for 301. Why they aren’t labeled I’ll never know. That makes too much sense? We get in the room and then can’t find our key…..,I’m like seriously! Where could it have gone! It was a very basic room and we had been in it for less than 7 hours total. It was under something, but did cause some momentary panic!

So we are feeling bullish on most things now, we pack up, haul our stuff back down to lobby and start the wait. I paid my 600,000 dong at the desk and then we sat down. At 7:45 I asked the girl at the desk for an update. She said 10 more minutes. At 8:15 I was starting to get nervous again. At 8:25am there was a lot if gesturing etc. Our bus was here. So indeed we are on our way. First time in a sleeper bus…..

Oh my Buddha. What a gong show getting to Vietnam was this year. Yesterday was quite a blur. Once we got into our Ark at noon (we should have actually had one to get out of Kampot) we started the trek back to Phnom Penh. There was so much rain in the streets the driver had to turn around and try another way out of town. He also had to stop and pay the Kampot “taxi mafia”. He randomly stopped the car and started talking to sone guys on the side of the toad, and I was like “wait-what? You aren’t really planning on picking up more people???” (This happens a LOT here) then someone runs over and he hands him a few bills, through a crack in the window (it is pouring after all), rolls up his window and carries on. I’ve got nothing to lose so I ask “why did you have to pay?” He explained that someone owns Kampot taxi rights and if taxis pick up people in Kampot then they have to pay them to leave with the passengers. They can bring people-no charge-but pay to leave with them. They have cameras on all three ruses out of town. He said that you can drive out and nothing will lol happen but that “the next day-they will come”. Doesn’t that sound ominous???? He seemed happy enough to pay 😳

We arrived safely at Phnom Penh airport around 2:30pm and our check in counter for our 5:40pm flight was not open yet. We hung out for a bit and when it opened, we were first in line. So far so good. Dumped our ONE bag – yes I’m still getting it all in one bag -all 18 kilos! Off to acquire some Burger King or equally sub par Asian fast food. Well Burger King in the international departures terminal had a special. A chicken burger and a beef burger, fries and pops for $16.50. What a steal 🙄!! It’s like they knew what we would order…..we are a house divided on burger choice (always one chicken, one beef). As it turns out, my chicken burger was unexpectedly good, Troy’s beef burger – meh…..tried to think what made it good, could we duplicate at George’s?? And in what we are learning is true Asian airport fashion, there was also a Dairy Queen. So one blizzard and dipped cone later-we were boarding our flight to Hanoi 30 minutes early. When does that EVER happen??

First time in a while we encountered unknown food items on our airline meal. Always happy to pass on these things, but the bun, pineapple and dragon fruit were good. The unidentified “meat” and bright orange items- passed. We were only given one boarding pass despite this flight going through Vientiane, Laos. So assumed we would be “staying on the plane” for the 45 minute layover. As it turns out….no. We had to claim our items and get off the plane. They had us go down a dingy hall to another waiting area, hang out for 30 minutes or so then trace our steps back and get back on the same plane, same seats. 🤔

The second 50 minute leg of this journey passed quickly and before we knew it, we were landing in Hanoi. I’d booked one night at a hotel very close to the airport so that we could just go straight to Sapa the next day. We had gotten a preapproval letter for our Vietnamese visas so we’re optimistic that the process would go smoothly. For the most part it did and with our passports, visas and luggage in hand we head out to find the transportation to the airport hotel (that said it had a free shuttle). I started with the information desk. Oddly enough and especially with her very limited english, this girl assured me she has no idea what a hotel shuttle is, a bus, a van, nothing. Maybe never even heard of a hotel. How us this a helpful information desk. So I go over to the area where all the drivers hold up signs with people’s names on them. This is where we connect with shuttle drivers in Bangkok. Some seemingly helpful guy spends a bunch of time looking at my phone where I’m showing hotel name and address, then he takes us outside and says it will be $10 USD. Now it’s important to note that I could not only see the hotel from the airport runway, but could see it from the sidewalk outside the airport. It wasn’t more than a km away maximum. We say “no” and I’m determined to find this area where shuttle busses gather. I continue to ask around….another driver tells me to walk, one tells me to “go that way (gestures) and get a Tuk Tuk – it will be $1usd per person”, someone else says go to pillar #7 there are vans there. We try all these things, nada. I’m almost ready to just pay the $10. (#HIGHWAYROBBERY). Then I see a couple across the way that look like they speak English and are clearly waiting for something. They are Australian – it’s a mom visiting her son who lives here. He advises against walking, says there are no Tuk tuks and that $10 is wrong wrong. He’s suggesting Uber, but likely no one will pick up the job because it’s so short. He called hotel for me. And they did not answer. He was going to take public bus back to city after dropping mom off at airport, but didn’t know the routes well enough to advise on that. So we just decide to suck it up and negotiate with taxi driver. I firmly believe they actually don’t want to take us because it is so CLOSE. they want the big fat fare to the city. So we get in when we are told it will be metered. Not flat rate. No meter comes on and the guy is holding up one finger, we interpret this as $1. The ride is indeed less than 3 minutes and we get out and I try to give him $1 and he laughs and gives it back to me. Shaking his head and examining it. So it’s either not enough or he doesn’t like the quality of the bill. I trade it out for another, still head shaking and a lot of “no no”. He holds up 5 fingers- by now the two hotel guys are there. They are all talking a lot and gesturing and laughing. But I’m thinking we are going to have a problem….. so I give him two and he wants more, I give him three and then that’s it. He still examining and showing the bills to the other two guys. I rush I knew what the big deal is about the bills here. Same problem in Cambodia. If they have a wrinkle, rough edge or hid forbid a rip, they won’t accept. I’m like “these are actual usd from America!’, they don’t care. But 2/3 of these bills were mint condition, maybe too nice??? Anyway, I started to walk away from him. And he let us go…it was super awkward and I was pretty annoyed by the whole experience. I miss my Thailand where I know what the heck is going on…..