Week 6- Vietnam (Hanoi) Day 3

This morning was probably the most tired we have been since starting our travels. We were absolutely shattered yet had to be up for our flight to Hanoi. When we went to check out we asked the man if he had spoken to the tour operator about our complaint the previous night. We weren't too pleased about paying the full amount when they had sold it to us as an English speaking tour yet the guide spoke Vietnamese 95% of the time so we didn't have a clue about any of the places we visited. I wasn't in the best of moods anyway but I ended up having a full on argument with the man on reception who then started shouting at me. Let's just say I was furious, so at 7 in the morning we were stood shouting at each other. We only had 15 minutes until our cab was arriving to take us to the airport so it wasn't resolved and we didn't get a refund, or I would have continued my battle. We just wanted our passports back so we could actually get on the plane!! Our cab arrived before we had eaten our breakfast so we wolfed that down and set off.

Our flight to Hanoi was fine, no delays thank god! I managed to sleep the whole way (even though it was only an hour). While we were waiting for our bags a lad started talking to us who wanted to share a cab. We also bumped into a girl we had met yesterday on our tour so the 4 of us shared a cab to the old quarter. Obviously this made it a lot cheaper!

When we arrived at Kangaroo hostel it wasn't the greatest of places.. It really smelt and we had 8 flights of stairs to climb! That's the last thing we wanted. The rooms themselves didn't seem too bad just very outdated. We managed to change our room to the 4th floor so it wasn't as bad! The staff that worked there were lovely and really helpful. They gave us a map and pointed our some recommendations so we headed off out pretty much straight away to get some food inside us! We walked down to Kiem lake which was really pretty and then along the back streets and finally found a recommended place to eat. We both just had noodles, standard!

We decided to book the Ha Long overnight boat trip through our hostel. It was quite pricey but we had heard so much about it we decided it was worth it! We had also read on trip advisor our hostel was really good value for their tours. We then had a bit of a lazy afternoon (I fell asleep for about 3 hours!!). Gemma had been looking at places to eat in Hanoi, she found an English pub that served pie and mash!! This was a must, we were SO fed up of eating noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner!! The pie and mash certainly did not disappoint, it was incredible! So good we both wanted to lick the plate at the end! It came with purée peas and lots of gravy! Yummy, it's making me hungry thinking back to it!