I woke up at 3.30am and could hear a rooster crowing somewhere in the distance; and I woke up again 2 hours later, while traffic noise was increasing, and decided to get up at that point, washed myself, had my rather peculiar breakfast of cake and garlic bread (leftovers in my bag), brushed my teeth, and went downstairs at 7.40am and handed my key in. The guide of the group I was in on this trip was sat down there prodding his phone, a coach that said ‘Tram An Thinh’ on it was outside, and 1 of the men came down 10 minutes later, was asked if he’d had a good night, he said ‘yeah, we went to a decent place again’ and got his phone out; a girl whose name I thought began with J came down and got her phone out; and at 8.05am, a woman who I assume was a staff member came over and said to me ‘excuse me, are you going for a massage today?’ – which startled me a bit, I said no, and she said ‘ok, sorry madam’ (all in an extremely Chinese accent). We were told what would be happening today and tomorrow (which I think included new people – and I forgot the rest); E was sat halfway down the bus chewing her fingernails in between continuing to talk a lot and say ‘like’ 6 -→ 7 times a sentence, and C was sat behind me coughing a lot.
A huge area of half built house type buildings that were all very very brightly coloured that we passed at 8.30am had a big sign saying ‘Coco stakes – the worlds entertainment destination’ at the front; My Khe beach was on the right 15 minutes later, and we passed a ‘the giodidang shop’ (whatever that is)(and then we passed another one about half a mile up the road – it sells phones and tablets); 30000 dong was paid to get through a toll gate 10 minutes after that, and we got to the airport at 8.55am. While checking in, N began wondering where he might’ve put his Swiss army knife (he’d found it before checking out of the hotel), and we were chatting about general airport security; I couldn’t spot where the rest of them had gone after going through and spent about 10 minutes sat there until I did spot them at a coffee place, went over, sat down until 9.40am, and then went down to the boarding gate with him and D. There were a couple of souvenir shops down there – also selling the usual packeted food – but I did see some small packets of wasabi coated green peas, dried plums, and dried mango pieces; and I sat down with the rest of the group 5 minutes later, by which point everyone was finding N’s passport photo very amusing, our guide was prodding his phone again, and a man next to him who was doing that as well was also constantly moving his legs around and looked desperate for the toilet, and D and P were talking about something that – from what I overheard – sounded like ‘bubble tea’. We got on the little bus that takes you to the plane at 10am, and several of the Chinese people also on this little bus had surgical mouth covers on; it was absolutely boiling when we got off this bus 5 minutes later, and I was sat in between C and the girl whose name I had now confirmed began with J – until everyone realised that there were loads of spare seats and therefore the 3 of us got our own row. Everyone was given a random ‘refreshing tissue’ (i.e. a wet wipe) by 1 of the cabin crew, had to watch the typical ‘safety demonstration’ (shown on the little TV screens that fold down from the ceiling) – which had peculiar music (presumably meant to be cheerful) throughout it, then adverts were shown for ‘Iona – a must see show in Hanoi’, and some sort of substance in a can (that I thought was beer). We took off at 10.35am; I attempted to photograph some of the stuff below us…
…and further from the city there were patches of woodland in between patches of what looked like fields of farmland (multi coloured square-ish shapes) – and then things got mountainous and dark green with some squiggly (what I would assume were) roads. The ground was visible throughout the flight, we were told we were commencing our descent at 11.10am, E had her tablet out and appeared to be doing a crossword on it, and at 11.20am, things got rather bumpy; and I noticed that ‘BUỒNG VỆ SINH LAVATORY’ was on the toilet door (as well as ‘đẩy’ – and that’s Vietnamese for ‘push’). I saw quite a few large lakes, we passed over a huge wiggly river, there were houses right up to the edge of the airport runway, and we landed at 11.30am, and were told that the temperature was 31°C. It was definitely hot, we were driven to a terminal, E and M were cuddling by a luggage conveyor, and outside, the humidity was – once again – spectacular; we stood there waiting for a bus, and another group member was eating Ritz mini crackers. We were on this bus by 12.20pm, our guide told us he’d be taking us to a backpacking area of the city tonight, said something about Dong coffee, and about condensed milk, an opera house, a palace, and something about Vietnamese girls wearing ponchos.
We got to Hong Hac Boutique Hotel at 12.45pm; in the lobby 3 minutes later everyone was transfixed by their phones, we were given room key cards, and I went and tried to sort myself out, got muddled up and ended up being late again. When I got down, we all went off to a place for lunch: people at my end of the table ordered milkshakes; when they’d arrived they were talking about things I forgot because I was told I’d been bitten a lot, and rain started at 1.55pm – and 5 minutes later it was absolutely pouring, and people on motorbikes wearing waterproof ponchos were whizzing past the window. People around the table were talking about where their offices/places they work in were located, C began eating/sucking a piece of lime that had come with 1 of the meals, and it continued to pour while we ate, paid, and walked down the street to a museum of the remnants of the Vietnamese war (1954->1975) – and it was still raining when we made it there.
Me and my notepad... 