Hustle in HANOI: An Introduction

Hanoi, May 12th 2010

This is my 3rd trip to Vietnam. My main destination this time is Sapa. I had to flew through Kuala Lumpur, because Air Asia doesn't have a direct flight Jakarta to Hanoi. Although just a stop over in Kuala Lumpur, it was a great time. You can read my stories about it in my other blog.

I actually don't really like Hanoi, because it is to me noisy and full of motorcycles. Needless to say, almost all of them are Hondas. That makes me forget that I'm actually on a vacation. However, in order to get to Sapa, I have to take a train from Hanoi to Lao Cai. Moreover, my flight from Kuala Lumpur lands on Noi Bai Airport at 8:50 AM and that's the only flight. But the train to Lao Cai leaves at 21:50. So... it won't be a bad idea after all to spend the time touring the places I didn't have the chance to visit when I first came to Hanoi.

I rented a car for the 3rd time from Sunshine Travel. This time it cost 900.000 dongs. The driver couldn't speak English as fluent as Mr. Vu, my driver in Dalat, but still was much, much, better than the first driver I had before. At least he understood when I asked him to turn left, right, stop, and could read the addresses written on my favorit travel guide book, Insight Guide Vietnam.

As usual, I drew my own itinerary. Quite a tight schedule it was. Starting from Noi Bai Airport.

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