Hanoi: Prologue

I will start with yesterday.  I flew out of Singapore mostly without incident, but I had an overall feeling of unpreparedness; I had booked two nights in a hostel in the old quarter of Hanoi, but other than that, I had no idea what I am doing.  The plane ride itself was fine; I tried to sleep; there were three seats for two people, which was nice.  It was interesting seeing Vietnam through the plane window; I remember green colors, and red roofs. 

So, we land, and we walk out to a large shuttle bus that takes us to the terminal.  I come out, and I see the window where I have to apply for my Visa; I give them the approval letter, my passport, and the required form, and I give them $45 five minutes later, and my passport has a stamped visa.

I then go through immigration without incident, except for that the guy angrily tosses aside the receipt for the visa when I hand it to him with the passport. 

I also walk through the 'nothing to declare' lane of customs without incident.

So, I get out into the arrivals area, and begin thinking of what I have to do;
I had changed money in Singapore, so I go into a bathroom stall to take some money from the plastic money pouch they gave me, and put it into my wallet.  I go buy a SIM card, and I get a pretty good deal; unlimited data for a month, for about $15, but I will have to top up for more calling minutes. 

There were several ways to get into the city; one was by taxi, and that costs a weterner about $15;
doing that, one has to be weary of scams.  If you tell them the name of your hotel, they will take you to it, pretend to somehow find out that it is actually full, and then take you to a fake hotel of poor quality, and you realize how much of a fool you are when you wake up the next morning. 

I didn't take a cab.

There are also public buses, but I neglected to take those, even though they are the cheapest option.

Instead, I took a minibus run by Vietnam airlines; for 40,000 Dong (~2 USD) they take you to the Vietnam airlines offices in Hanoi, which is only a medium walk away from my hostel.  Taking that didn't go 100% smoothly, though. 

I see the line of minibuses, and I get into the biggest one, which is empty, mostly. I sit there for a while, and I ask the guy (who I already knew spoke English) "so when is this thing leaving?".  He says 'oh, whenever it fills up'. 

"oh, so is it better to get on a smaller one?'
"yeah, sometimes".

So I just sit there waiting for a little while longer, and decide to get off, and onto a smaller one.  I do that, and then the driver says 'why are you going there?' (in broken English; If I used words to mimic the way he sounded, it might come off as racist, so I am just typing in gramatically correct English even though it was broken English in reality).  He continues "same as this one" (the one I was just on).  I ask "oh, so when is it leaving?".  He says "15 minutes".  I grudgingly get back on, and I sit there in indecision, not wanting to be a pushy, grumpy western tourist, but not wanting to wait an hour on a still mostly empty minibus.  Another Western tourist, a woman, gets on, and leaves her pack at the front of the bus.  At this point we don't say anything.   I then see one of the smaller buses leave full of passengers, so I get annoyed and decide to look for the public bus.  So, I get out and look around for a while for the public bus, asking people.  When I look back about seven minutes later, the minubus that I had been on had disappeared!

So, I walk down the terminal, to where the buses were, 'about a kilometer a way'.  I should mention that it was over 100 degrees and humid; far worse than anything I had ever experienced in Singapore.  At some point, I see another large minibus.  The guy is like 'two dollars, Hanoi, want to get on?' and I think 'oh no I am not falling for this again' (somewhat irrational, because if I had been patient before, I could have been gone already) I say, 'when is it leaving?' and he says 'five minutes'.  I think 'yeah right'.  But then I ask someone else 'do you know where the 07 or 17 public busses are?' and he says 'no have'.  So I figuratively say 'fuck it', and get on the second minibus.  Then I notice that the Western tourist lady has switched minibuses, and is now on this one; I guess she got fed up with wasting too.  Then I notice that the Vietnamese businessman who I had originally talked to had done the same thing.  And then I realize that this was the same bus as I was on before, and that it had just driven down the terminal to pick up domestic passengers. I pay by 40K Dong, sit next to the other Western tourist, and we head off.