Hà Nội, Việt Nam (again!)

After a long time in a coffee shop waiting for our night train to Hue we went back to Ethnic Travel to get our tickets and bags and be picked up to go to the train station...

... however once at the agency they said they had tried to ring us as our train had been cancelled due to flooding and the typhoon which had hit Hue the day before. Great! For the second time in two weeks a typhoon had buggered up our plans! All the buses were full so our only option was to stay another night and get a night bus the next day. Ethnic Travel were fab though. They booked us on a bus, booked a night in a hotel with transfer from the agency and helped us ring the hotel in Hue to cancel that nights stay. All this and it came to less then the train journey so they gave us some money back!

Saying goodbye and lots of thank yous we were ready for transport to the hotel...by moped! Getting on the back of the bike with both my backpacks on was fun (I had one on the front and my big one on the back) which meant I had to sit further back and could only just hold on. Nick's rider took his front one so he was a little more stable and was able to reach the handrails behind him. No adjustments or helmets we offered, we were just off weaving our way fast through the small maze of streets in the Old Town - it was so much fun! Half way though and our riders split off in different directions which caused us some slight concern, and somehow my rider managed to beat Nick so I did have a few moments of worry that he had fallen off or been taken to a different hotel! The room at the Prince 2 was ok but it was obviously the staff room normally as there were some random pairs of shoes and toiletries in the bathroom but this was just for one night and it was clean enough.

The next morning we had a lazy start leaving our bags with the agency and we walked to the lake again in the lovely sunshine and after looked in a few shops, sending a postcard and stopping for a coffee before our pick up at 17.30 for the night bus.

Ok so this was a little confusing a mini bus picked up a lot of people (more then there were seats for) so we had a 10 minute journey squeezed in with our backpacks. We then were randomly dropped off at the side of the street where a man pointed to a small shop where chaos does not come close to describing it! Here we queued and after a bit of explaining were given a ticket. But when we headed to the big bus with everyone else it was already full and we were turned away - great! Trying to ask if there was another bus we got a kinda nod and decided to wait but we were a little worried we may have missed our bus. Luckily 20 mins later another one turned up and we were able to board. As with everywhere in Viet Nam you have to take your shoes off when entering someone's house or your hotel room, so shoes off and in little carrier bags and after being shouted at for sitting on the wrong bunk we settled in for a long and bumpy night to Hue...