Arriving in Hanoi
Trip Start
Nov 03, 2004
1
2
10
Trip End
Nov 17, 2004
Hanoi, Vietnam
Thursday, November 4, 2004
Todd was his usual social self and tried to befriend everyone - people next to him on the plane, standing in line beside him for 20 secs, regardless of whether that person understood him or not. He also practised every Vietnamese word he knew - all before reaching Hanoi. Marina meanwhile chose to sleep (boring!). p.s. why didn't anyone tell us the signs would all be in Vietnamese!!?? The movies are worth a brief mention - 2 Vietnamese films (all the dubbed voices were by the one person) which had a strange common theme of wives humiliating their husbands in slap-stick style.
Woke up this morning, overwhelmed, wondering if things would get better. We decided to treat ourselves and unwind at a luxury day spa - Zen Spa. (see the pics!) Also figured that it may be the only time we could afford it. Three hours later we emerged refreshed and ready for Vietnam! p.s. the highlights were the foot treatments - a scrub, massage, mud cover and wrapped in banana leaves. We didn't mind so much when the women jumped on our backs because they were so light but their tough fingers knew how to work our joints!
The rest of the day was spent wandering through alley ways, dodging traffic, window shopping and converting AUD-USD-VND-AUD-USD- to confusion! or is that confucious?!
Note: Vietnamese drivers have their horn ON more than off! And everyone drives in the overtaking lane so if you want to overtake you must use your horn, highbeams, etc (anything you can think of!) to make the car/truck/bike in front of you move over.
Stay tuned and chat soon! Thanks for all your emails - we are reading them but haven't had the chance to respond yet.
Love Todd and Marina
