Day 13: Kanchanburi-Bangkok-Hanoi

Today was a long day. As Mick Thomas wrote, “There’s no point writing postcards on your bad days”, so I’ll try to keep it short.

L and I got almost no sleep last night. The combination of hard bed and threat of sleeping through alarms and missing the 7.20am train kept us restless.

We made it to the train with plenty of time, thanks to a moped taxi with bolted on side seating, but when we boarded we ended up in the car with all the locals. Not a problem in the company, but this car just has two long bench seats with absolutely no padding, as in even less than the other cars. By the time we realised our mistake there were no nearby padded seats, and we didn’t want to look rude by moving away. By the time we got to Thonburi station we had more butt-hurt than sad Star Wars fandom.

Tired and sore, we took the first available “taxi” to the airport. Well, it kinda looked like a taxi, had the right colours, but once inside all of the regular taxi things were absent. As were seatbelts. We’d agreed on a price that was at the higher end of reasonable, but not exhorbitant, so we sat back and went for a drive. To the driver’s credit, he didn’t try to fleece us at the other end.

The one instance we left plenty of time to get through Bangkok traffic, we made good time, getting to the airport before the check-in counter opened. So we had a coffee and waited. Eventually checked in and through security etc with no dramas, we were hungry enough to try the sushi train, which turned out to be more expensive than the “taxi” fare.

Flight to Hanoi was uneventful, though the drive to the hotel was a tad exciting. Hanoi on a Saturday night. The new thing they do is block off a bunch of streets in the old quarter, and turn it into a night market where everyone has loud music, no one knows how to walk, and everything is expensive. After a long day, some minor hassles at check-in (gotta love a hotel that forgets everything in the package they’ve offered, and then gives you the wrong room type because they already sold all the right ones) I was in no mood for noise, crowds, and hustlers, but that’s what I got. Trying to enjoy a bia hoi (10,000VND), which wasn’t bad but possibly not as smooth and easy drinking as the brew in Hoi An, I made the mistake of buying some cold, stale doughnuts off a street seller (60,000VND), and got fleeced on the bowl of soggy, inedible peanuts (in good places these are complementary and not soggy, but here it was 30,000VND). While it’s really only small change ($5-6AUD) it wasn’t the way to end a long day. Maybe it’s day 13-itis, maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but I’m not feeling the Hanoi love tonight.

Hopefully I’ll be more rested, more coping, and Hanoi will chill out a little by tomorrow.