From Luang Prabang we rode a took-took to the airport. It was pretty hot, a little dusty and the occasional truck billowing out the black diesel fumes, so wrapping up the face in the Cambodian head scarf as a precaution was the go, even if I did look pretty stupid. Out of the took-took, at the airport under the blazing sun, with no wind, you sort of try to put the heat out of your mind and head into the terminal. Here we had the usual airport checks and went to wait in the lounge, where briefly, the air conditioning made it feel cool. There were maybe 150 other people in the room, which wasn't much bigger than the terminal in Wynyard, so pretty soon, even with the air conditioner going, we had the beads of sweat rolling down. We had to wait here for about two hours.
However, the monotony was broken when suddenly 3/4 of the room went up and crowded around the window. Military vehicles and army types in uniforms started gathering outside. Then a plane landed, and based on what was written on the plane, I guess, it was the King of Thailand that got out. He walked out with his wife onto a red carpet with the military types providing a guard of honour on both sides of the carpet. They got into a big flash black car on the runway and drove off. After that they lackeys unloaded massive amounts of suitcases. Then they drove off and we were left thinking "that's hav'na, I wonder who that was". Most other people in the terminal were French speakers, so we will never know.
It was really good to get on our plane. We almost had the plane to ourselves, with only about 10 other people on it. The air conditioning was working really well this time and gradually the sweat evaporated and we felt cool again.
A couple of hours later and we were in Hanoi. We had multiple entry visas for Vietnam, so had no hassles or delays getting through. Also, we are getting good at beating the scammers and had arranged for our hotel to pick us up from the airport for free, rather than pay the usual ridiculous fee that seems to be charged to anyone that doesn't look Vietnamese. We were taken to our first hotel in the historic old-quarter of Hanoi.
We spent a couple of nights here waiting for Kim to be called by her contacts in GeoVisions, who were brokering her teaching. Soon we met up with them and had a big night out, and they arranged for a different hotel for us nearby.
The second hotel was to be our new home for the next couple of weeks. Much of the time here we just spent walking around the city and Hoan Kiem Lake. The old quarter looks nice, but is pretty much full of tourists, scammers, too much traffic and crammed impassable footpaths, so you end up having to walk in the traffic. It takes a bit of getting used to being dodged by motorbikes doing maybe 30-40 ks/hour and missed by maybe 15 cms. While it is a good place to visit, it was starting to get a little tiring saying no to almost everyone that wanted to talk to us. While here we went on a 3 day tour to Halong Bay, which is a spectacular area of large vertical islands jutting out of the sea.
Once Kim had her work lined up we found an online broker that found accommodation for us 5 minutes walk from where Kim was working. Here we leased an apartment for 3 months at $125 US per week, which includes blazing fast Internet (compared to my pathetic ADSL 2 back home), housekeeping 3 times per week and washing. It has been great living here and getting to know people and joke with them. More on our street in later posts.
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