Day 62 of The Big Adventure according to Sarah. 
We awoke to the shouts of ‘Ninh Binh’, which was the stop before ours. Denise was heading there and had said it was about 100km from Hanoi. Seeing as I was already awake I decided to stay up and watch the world go by until we arrived. It was very grey and gloomy outside and I hoped Hanoi had better weather.

We arrived into Hanoi at around 6.30am (bang on time, which is very suspicious considering they left 2 hours late) and got a taxi to our hostel, Brothers Inn. 

We arrived and they gave us each a welcome drink and a little welcome talk. Very nice. 

We had been hoping we’d be able to check in straight away and go upstairs for a snooze but no such luck. They said check in was at 2pm, which gave us 7 hours to kill. 

An American man called Matt had sneakily joined our welcome talk and it turned out he had been on our nightbus too. We got chatting and decided the best thing for us all would be to go and have a delicious breakfast. 

So we did some tripadvising and found somehwere with great reviews so off we headed into the streets of Hanoi. 

The cafe had 2 floors and a nice balcony over looking the cathedral so we sat there. 

Freya had a fat boy full English, Parker and I had fresh fruit and muesli with yoghurt and Matt had a beef pho (rogue for such an early hour we thought). 

We sat and chatted and saw a bit of a cafuffle going on down by the cathedral. Many minibuses pulled up and people spiller out all wearing white bandanas around their heads. Then a brass band started playing an upbeat tune and a coffin was carried inside, and so we deducted it must have been a funeral. 
We realised we still had a lot of time to kill and that we should make good use of it by going on a walking tour to get a feel for the city. Megan and Yasmin had recommended the walking tour put on by Hanoi Rocks (the hostel they’d stayed in) and so we googled how to get there and went on our way. 

We sat in the lobby and waited for a group to accumulate… But it never did. 
After 10 minutes I went up to the desk and asked if the walking tour went from here. They said yes, they were just waiting for more people to come down. 

More people never came down. 

Matt went to the bathroom and the tour guides came over to say that there weren’t enough people to run the walking tour. We told them our friend was in the toilet at which point they said fiiine they’d run it. 

There was the four of us and one person who was actually staying at Hanoi Rocks. 

The tour guides made it very clear they did not want to be there and basically we just followed them around town for an hour or so.

They took us to a nice lake with a bridge and a temple so we stopped for a photo op. 

Then they took us to the oldest cafe in Hanoi and made us try the specialty: egg coffee. Sounds disgusting but it was actually such a delight. It was essentially coffee flavoured meringue. YUM. 

Then they took us to a huge idiot markets selling every different material under the sun. They left us to walk around on our own for a while and then they said they’d meet us back at the hostel. Worst. Walking. Tour. Ever.

So we started walking back to our hostel at which point a rather awkward conversation ensued with the one member of our group who was actually staying at Hanoi Rocks when he realised we were going the wrong way. 

Anyway we got back to our hostel at around 12 and our rooms still weren’t ready for us to check in. So Parker and Matt played cards, Freya sat and had a coffee and I went and used the communal shower. 

Thankfully by the time I’d finished our rooms were ready so we got straight into bed and had a nice long nap. 

When Parkers alarm went off I had no idea where we were, what day it was or what was going on. Safe to say, that nap was 100% needed. 

We went downstairs and met Matt and headed to a highly recommended testy stand nearby. 

It was canteen style and full of locals. Turns out you didn’t actually get a choice of dish and pretty much as soon as you sit down a bowl of beef noodles are placed in front of you. Luckily we were all more than happy with that and they were absolutely delicious. Freya declared it the best meal she’d had so far in Vnam – a bold statement. 

We were all thoroughly satisfied by the end. 

It was still pretty early so we wandered around and went for a drink near the lake. 

Then we had another little wander and came across a ‘traveller cafe’ which was full of locals. Bizarre. 

We stayed for a few drinks here and got chatting to the waiter who, it turns out, used to run a nail salon in Chesham of all places! 

We were all gobsmacked for a minute and couldn’t quite comprehend just how small the world was. 

We had a few more drinks and by this time we realised everyone else had left. We asked the waiter where was good to go next and he recommended a place called 1900. So off we set in that general direction. 

After about 20minutes we realised no one was directing us and we were wandering aimlessly. So I doubled checked google maps and set us back on the right track. 

As we walked a random Vietnamese man who was passing us told us our voices were very annoying and when we said sorry he replied ‘no, I’m sorry for you’. 

Bizarre. 

We all looked at each other and no one quite knew what to say but by that time we was gone. So we continued our journey. 

When we got the the street it was on, there was a huge crowd of people walking in the opposite direction to us. And as we got closer it became more and more apparent that it was closing time. JoFo had warned us that bars and clubs close at midnight and you have to go on bar crawls to avoid the police. 

We carried on walking, when, what appeared to be a closed shop, with its barrier rolled down and no lights on, rolled it’s barrier up and a man ushered us inside. 

It was all rather secretive and exciting.

Everyone was smoking inside and it was a cross between a dingy pub and a cheesy nightclub. Very strange. 

We stayed for a few drinks here before deciding it was time for bed and heading home.