The second phase of the trip was over, and for our third trip we planned to explore the north of Vietnam. After waking up in the morning, we got a quick breakfast and immediately prepared to leave. We called up a Grab taxi and immediately headed to the airport. The airport was quite far from the main part of the city we were staying at, so I used the last car ride in Bangkok as an opportunity to take some last minute pictures of the city. As we moved, I saw a lot of huge and seemingly important buildings that I didn’t see beforehand, and just like every other city, spending a few days in Bangkok doesn’t really give you the full experience. You’re inevitably going to miss something in this endless labyrinth of stories.
We eventually got dropped off at the airport where we sat and still had a few hours before the flight. Checking in didn’t take too long and before I knew it we were all set and clear for moving back to Vietnam. The city?
Hanoi. The Capital of the country.
But before we get to the flight, we needed to have lunch. We walked around a bit and found a restaurant selling Hainanese rice dishes that we all inhaled before going to a nearby restroom to unload and prepare for the flight from Bangkok to Hanoi. We waited at the gate for a little longer, and by mid afternoon we were ready to take off. A little heads up: The Bangkok to Hanoi flight is the last flight that I recorded in the trip. There were three more flights I still have to write about, but I was unable to record because I wasn’t at the window or was simply too lazy. Not revealing them for now (No spoilers!)
Another interesting thing that I totally didn’t think about a million times before writing this: if you stretch things out, I’ve already been to four out of the five communist countries. Here’s how I “did” it:
- North Korea – Okay, no, I haven’t been to Pyongyang, I’m not that crazy. However, I have been to Seoul (during my last trip to Vietnam in 2015) in South Korea. North Korea claims South Korea as part of their own territory, which means in their eyes, I visited North Korea when I visited Seoul. This is a really big stretch, but it’s fun to manipulate things in that way.
- China – I haven’t really been to China either, but I have been to Taiwan, which China claims as their own territory (We discussed going to Taiwan earlier, remember?) This is actually a fairly credible claim, to say I’ve been to China, since very few countries recognize Taiwan as its own sovereign nation. Not even the US, which is really funny because that kind of gives the impression that the US is actively sponsoring a rebellion of China– yeah, it’s crazy. Oh, and later on in the trip there are some interesting China related things that happen… no spoilers though.
- Vietnam – This one’s not being questioned.
- Laos – When I flew from Bangkok to Hanoi, I technically also flew over Laotian airspace, which is basically part of the Laotian country itself, it’s just not on the ground.
- Cuba – Still need to get there… my mom won’t let me go…
Okay, now that that rant is over with, let’s get back to the discussion of the Bangkok to Hanoi flight. I took a few pictures of the Thai countryside. Or Laotian. Or North Vietnamese— I don’t know. At first, most of the terrain below the plane was very flat, but it was becoming increasingly mountainous, and that was kind of the sign that I interpreted as the fact that we were probably in Laos by now. We approached Vietnam. I’m not exactly sure when we reached and crossed into Viet Airspace since there’s really no way to tell when you’re above ground, but we eventually did and pretty soon I was seeing the grand skyline of Hanoi below me. We flew right over it and headed straight for the airport. We moved past it again… (Yep, they don’t usually put airstrips right in the middle of great metropolitan centers, unfortunately) and landed on the ground in another airport about an hour away from the main part of the city.
We went inside and the first thing I asked for as we walked through the airport was: Can I get a SIM Card? Oh, Casey asked for it, too. Our parents just gave me the old SIM Card I had earlier on back when we were still in the South while Casey got a SIM Card of his own, to his great happiness. He’d been spending the past ten or so days asking for SIM Cards and he could not be happier knowing that he finally got what he’d been asking for and annoyed everyone to get.
With everything taken care of, we decided to head to the hotel in the Old Quarter of Hanoi and checked in there. Casey and I were both hyped because Mia and Koia were already there and we were excited to start hanging out with them. While we were hanging out in Saigon and Thailand, the two of them had been busy with school stuff. They’d just flown up to Hanoi in a delayed flight earlier that morning, and it was going to be our first interaction in about ten days. We went into the center of the city and crossed a bridge over the main river which the city is based around, called the “Red River”. After a little more picture-taking, we finally made it to the hotel, which would be our sort of “Base of Operations” for the next few days.
We checked into our hotel and went up to see what the room was like. Just like any Southeast Asian hotel room, it was huge, spacious, and accommodating. When we’d first arrived at this hotel, I was under the assumption the rooms would be rather small since the hotel didn’t seem to be very big. I was totally wrong.
For comparison, The Phuket hotel room was two stories, completed with a jacuzzi, two TVs on each floor, a restroom, a dining area, couches, and beds (And not to mention the amazing view). The Bangkok hotel was two rooms, each with hugely spacious main bedroom. Aside from that were these bathrooms that were bigger than the bathrooms I had at home filled with very large areas for showering and massive bedrooms in which you could chill in and be entertained forever.
The Hanoi room as just as impressive as those two. We got two separate hotel rooms, once again, each one very large and spacious and had two beds. For the first time in the entire trip, I didn’t have to share a bed with anyone. It also included two TVs and a bathroom which had huge showers and this massive mirror.
Casey and I immediately went to a lower floor to say hi to Mia and Koia as soon as we plopped our stuff down. Coming with us on our expedition to the North were those two, their dad (Mom couldn’t come), and our maternal grandparents (we shared the same maternal grandparents) were all eager to start. Koia and Mia quickly greeted us and we talked for a while until we decided to leave the hotel to go find dinner. We all walked on the street for a few minutes and quickly found a place to eat, where we all ordered food and sat down on the side of the road to consume it. As we did, I talked with Koia and Mia, trading anecdotes from our lives in America versus their own lives in Vietnam. We explained our social standings in our school (in which I’m not very well known) and eventually went on walking up and down the street, continuing to discuss dating our age among other topics.
After this, we went to a local ice cream place to buy some ice cream and cool ourselves on the millionth hot night of the vacation. After inhaling the ice cream, we decided to buy one of those tuk tuks (Not really a tuk tuk, more of just a ride that you could take) and rode around the famous Hoan Kiem Lake which we’d visit again later, as well as the island in the middle. We checked out the famous island in the middle and (SPOILER CENSORED), and I’ll write a bit more about it later on.
Afterwards, we decided to go back to our hotel and we ended up chilling there for the rest of the night. We watched YouTube, talked about life… the real exploring starts tomorrow, in the next part… be ready.