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I woke up feeling a bit under the weather, so Edd brought me a croissant and coffee and left me in bed; he went and sat on the balcony researching Vietnam. We left at 12.15pm for the airport and the owner dropped us off at 1pm (ish) at departures. We were quite sad to say good bye as we'd had such an amazing time at his guest house and been so well looked after.
We checked into our Laos Air flight and parted with our bags. It was astonishing how much heavier Edd's bag had become in the 5.5 weeks of travelling. I almost wanted to weight myself on their baggage scales, but thought the social impropriety would send Edd reeling. We had 2 hours to kill and walked around the little shops selling Laos tak. We bought a fridge magnet (to add to my collection) and then decided to go through security and passport control; we might as well get it over with and then sit at the boarding gate. I had a small nap on Edd's lap and he played a driving game on his phone for the 1.5 hours we waited.
We then boarded at 2.10pm and waved goodbye to Laos. An Asian man was sitting in one of our seats on the plane next to the window, but we left it as Edd's long legs require an aisle seat so I sat squished between 2 grown men with the affinity to hog both their arm rests. The man next to me migrated so far past his arm rest at one point that I turned to him and asked him if he'd prefer to accommodate both his and my seat in their entirety. He got the message and retracted his bat wings, then taking his shoes off and putting his feet up against the arm rests of the seats in front of us; I wasn't sure which was worse: his migrating wings or his gungy toes.
The flight was just over an hour and we landed in Vietnam: our country for the next 3.5 weeks! It took a short while to get them to connect the airplane to the terminal and we all waited (not so) patiently for them to get sorted. Edd stood up and grabbed his backpack out the hold, nearly getting knocked over by an impatient man using his carry on bag as a bodily weapon. Nobody was moving and Edd turned around and asked him where he was planning on pushing himself to.. Other than Edd climnbing into the overhead locker, there was no where for him to go. In the same breath, the guy with the bat wings and claws where toes once were, started tapping me on the shoulder in ernest and then pushed me out of the way, starting to climb up onto the seats to get past. Again, where he was planning on going was a complete mystery. Edd told him very colourfully to back off, there was no where to go. He gestured to the people moving, at the front of the plane, and then Edd matched his gesture to the people around as that were still stationary. Colourful utterances continued until we disembarked, I hoped this was not a sign of things to come.
We went through passport control relatively quickly as I had already received our visas in London. We made our way throyugh to baggage control and grabbed our backpacks, ready for the next adventure. Edd spotted a phone shop and we stopped to get sim cards. Shop A and shop B were right next to each other; I started with shop B while Edd went to shop A. I then moved to where he was and listened to what the woman had to say about what you got for your purchase. I immediately replied with, 'oh well it's cheaper next door' and she came back with, 'oh ok,' and matched their price. This immediately annoyed me and I gave Edd my phone to sort out the sim cards with the piranhas while I went in search of a snack. Guilty until proven innocent, liars until proven otherwise. This is the motto of South East Asia.
The head piranha suggested we get a taxi for USD 2 instead of the bus as it was 1 hour faster, even though it was more expensive. We were ushered into a mini van by a very small Vietnamese guy who didn't want us putting our bags at the bag of his vehicle. We waited until the mini van was full... almost to breaking point with all of us refusing to allow him to add 3 more people to an already 2 people too many load.
We set off for the old quarter and had a 40 minute journey ahead of us. Bags at our feet, feet resting on top, knees around our ears, this was going to be a fun ride. The driver spent most of his time with his hand firmly on the hooter, for no reason, with no pattern. He weaved recklessly through the traffic and hooted long and loud when people cut him off the way he'd been cutting them off. We were amazed at the new style of buildings: long, slender, towering over the buildings next to them or all stacked together like brightly coloured slices of bread. There were a large number of buildngs that had been left after they'd been built and never painted, who ever was in charge of making them 'pretty on the outside' was either very behind on his to do list, or never got the memo.
We got about half way and the driver announced he was taking us to the bus station. Edd immediately questioned this as we were told we were going to the old quarter. He argued with us and then the whole bus erupted with accusations of him lying; it turned out we were going where he'd said we were going in the first place, but changed the name and because no one knew the joint, we didn't realise. He then directed his anger at Edd, purely because he was sitting the closest and was shouting the loudest. Small man syndrome is an actual disease, no jokes. This little guy went from being helpful getting us on the mini van, to a dude with road rage, to a dragon with a temper issue. I then asked if it was illegal to ask questions in Vietnam as we'd never been here before and didn't necessarily know all the rules. (Yes, Edd and I were both in a mood). He then continued to shout at us to stop talking, which we did, but would then erupt again into a fit of stop-talkings, even though everyone was silent. I managed to kill a mosquito that had bitten me on my neck and threw it on his head. Childish, but worth it.
We arrived at the bus station that had no buses, just airport taxis and got off. We were surrounded by in-your-face taxi drivers that purposfully stood in our way as we were trying to get out of the van, get our bags and off the street. Tempers were running high and they were in the line of fire, I'm still surprised they all left in one piece. We started making our way towards the guest house we'd booked and after 10 minutes, we arrived. We knew we'd booked a room on the 5th floor and there were no elevators, it has stated this on TripAdvisor. It also boasted high quality rooms with immaculate cleaning, blah blah blah.
We made our way up the 10 flights of stairs and were shown to our room: 501. We stepped into squalor; I wouldn't even allow animals to live in the dump we'd inadvertantly booked. The head board for the bed was there purely to cover the layer of mould growing up the wall, the ceiling was caving in, the 'light fittings' were a botch job and there were holes in the wall that had been 'sealed' with strips of sellotape. Edd went around taking pictures and then made his way back down the 10 flights of stairs to enquire about moving. He came back up (after I'd had a cold shower, no hot water) with a key for the room next door. We checked it out and although it was a slight improvement, it remind dire. We immediately missed the minimum requirements of an establishment by British standards. This place wouldn't pass by a long shot, in actual fact, it would be shut and knocked down. Lets try again.
We called down to reception (there was a phone) and Edd spoke to the guy explaining the fact that no where on their website did it say we would be sharing rooms already inhabited by mildew. After a few sterner words were spoken, the guy downstairs agreed to a refund and we left.
We had some dinner before we decided to embark on another trek to find accommodation. We ate locally and with both our phones about to die, decided to head in the general direction of most of the hostels and hotels.
We enquired at a few establishments and then walked into The Rising Dragon. I managed to negotiate a deal for $3 dollars cheaper and we all got on the elevator to check the room out. There was no window in it, but there also wasn't any mould. It was perfect! The new check in guy then said that he'd be able to offer us the Deluxe room at the Premium room rate and took us to the Deluxe room. 'We'll take it!' and we dumped our bags on the floor of what felt like heaven. We went back downstairs to give the check-in guy our passports to copy and then went in search of tonic.
We ended the night watching bad old movies on the only channel that was English, drinking G&T's. We looked forward to our trip improving from our first experiences as we settled into our mould free room.
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