Adventures of the Black girls Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow - what a Ride!

Well, we've made it to Vietnam safe and sound, after the 45 minute flight to Hanoi.  We were going to take the 29-hour bus ride from Vientiane, but after hearing many people's horror stories, we opted to spend the extra coin to get here over a day faster. After getting off our flight, and grabbing our luggage, we made it past the harassing taxi drivers and decided to take the $2 bus into the city center, which ended up being longer than our flight from Laos. The bus dropped us off a ways away from the hotel we were hoping to stay at, but it was a nice night for a long walk with our bags. We didn't realize that we would be harassed the entire way there by taxi drivers, guys on motorbikes following us, and tuk tuk drivers trying to give us rides. We finally made it and found a place to stay (we splurged and found a place with AC AND a tv!!) We spent the evening in our room, enjoying both of those!

Today, we had free breakfast in our hotel, and booked our Halong Bay trip for tomorrow, and our busses for the rest of Vietnam.  We grabbed some lunch at a busy local restaurant, where we realized that there is no "Jasmine Special Combo" in Vietnam, and the food here isn't exactly Canadian Vietnamese food!! Kristin spent the afternoon visiting a few of Hanoi's local temples, and the site of Vietnam's first University, the Temple of Literature. 

This evening, we went to a movie in the Vietnamese Cinema (which luckily was in English, just with Vietnamese subtitles).  We faced death in the eye by hopping on the backs of Scooters as a way of getting back to our Hotel... and the drivers here are crazy! The soundtrack of Hanoi would be constant car and motorbike horns.  We're definitely ready to get out of here, and escape what's probably the busiest and craziest city we've been in so far! Hopefully, there will be peace and quiet waiting for us in Halong Bay and CatBa Island. 

Bye for now,

Kristin and Tanis.