We were woken up by the sound of a radio station tuning into it's frequency. I think the train played it to wake everyone up as we pull into Hanoi train station. I gathered my things, put on my trainers and stepped off the train and out to the exit. I had assumed we would arrive later than expected, as usual but we got in at 05:30, so early! We weren't sure if we were getting picked uo and taken to our hotel but it seemed doubtful so we went outside to ask a taxi how much it would cost to take us to Hang Hom street.
The first taxi driver we approached said it would cost 180,000VD without using a meter (this is one of those scams) so we walked up and asked a different guy who said it would cost 50,000! So, we got in and drove back to our hotel. The meter said it only cost 30,000 but he was adamant that we give him 50,000. I couldn't be arsed to argue over 10,000 although the principle of it is terrible so we paid him and went into the hotel to see if they have any rooms. Ideally we wanted the room we stayed in at the very start, with a balcony but it wasn't available. He had another room similar for $22 but we decided to wait until a $14 was free for us. We would had to wait until 12:00 for the room to be ready so we sat in reception on our ipads for a good amount of time before taking a walk to find a place to get a drink.
We ended up five minutes away sitting outside on tiny plastic chairs with a bottle of the energy drink "samuri". We sat here for a while watching the city wake up. There were women setting up stalls to sell all kinds of meat as well as women selling loads of vegetables and herbs. There were loads of children cycling to school on one of those bikes with a motor and parents chauffeuring their kids on one motorbike.
When we finished, we walked back to the hotel (it was spitting now). I just want to get in the room, shower and get high really. When we got back we still had to wait but after a while we managed to get a room at that time so we grabbed the key and took the lift up. The room was nothing special but it had a window and a decent bathroom as well as the comfiest bed ever. I showered and then rolled a joint for us to smoke.
We were going to go to the mauseleum today to see ho Chih minh's dead body in a glass case but we decided against it. Instead, we chilled out in the room watching discovery channel and i've found my new favourite show: bear grylls. The man is a machine. He is totally unbelievable and would survive any position you put him in. Married though, such a shame. We got hungry after a while and had eaten a fair amount of rice so decided to walk by the lake to KFC, always a pleasure.
I ordered a zinger burger meal and one piece of chicken and daniel had popcorn chicken. I got one piece of chicken to see if it was like the kfc back home and it was. I only ate the crispy coating though, i left pretty much all of the meat and then started on my burger and fries. As we were eating a black man sat down with his food and made conversation with european tourists at another table. He said he was from Nigeria and i thought it was odd as you don't come across many africans who go backpacking.
We retired outside on the balcony for a cigarette and a cone ice cream that tastes like marshmellow. Once i demolished the ice cream we walked back to the hotel. Dan went into a tshirt shop to try and get Seb a lego tshirt but the lego men have the traditional vietbamese hats on, pretty cool. However, they didn't have any kids sizes and 300,000 for a t-shirt isn't cheap.
Once we went back to the hotel we chilled a bit more and watched some tellie. We arranged to meet with Darryl tonight but the plans weren't set in concrete. When i messaged him at around 18:00 he said he was about to have dinner but to let him know where we are later so we decided to head out for something to eat. As soon as we stepped outside it began raining and got heavier so we turned back and decided to go to the food stall literally right next to our hotel. There were no menus so we just signalled "2" and 2 minutes later the woman carried two bowls of chicken Pho to our table.
I didn't eat the chicken as it was too chewy so gave it to Daniel. The broth was more chickeny than herby but it was still very delicious. Once we finished we sat outside the step of our hotel to smoke. As we were smoking we heard thunder and there was crazy lightening in the sky. I honestly haven't seen anything like it. It was so bright and powerful and so scary! We finished our fags and headed back to the room.
We both felt pretty tired so cancelled meeting Darryl which is a shame as he's so nice but we still had to pack as well! We had one last joint and watched some film with paul walker where they travel back in time.