Hanoi here we come...ready or not

Hoi An, Day 56

We've had a very enjoyable two days in Hoi An, but now it is time to move on again. We have a taxi booked (via the Hotel) to take us back to Da Nang airport, which is about a 45-minute drive. We're taking a domestic flight to Hanoi, so it should be fairly straightforward forward, and it is. It was also weird that when R went to get his boarding card sorted (the name thing again), it was so much simpler, and the airline staff member made some alterations on the computer and then just added his additional names onto the card! It did have a stamp on the card, too, so I guess that made it legit!

The flight itself was pretty uneventful, apart from someone a few rows behind us that was spewing up and needed a number of sick bags, including ours (lovely!). Although it was supposed to be 1hr 25mins of a flight, it was more like an hour, which was just as well as R's knees were right against the seats, so even less space than in the previous plane.

We found our way to the Grab pickup point easily enough and ordered our Grab taxi to take us to the hotel. Hanoi airport is about an hour's drive from Hanoi centre. The taxi cost was just under £11. I have no idea what the cost of a taxi from Glasgow to Edinburgh would be, but I'm pretty sure a lot more than £11.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was pretty nuts and probably not made any easier by the fact that it was rush hour by the time we were travelling. I have no idea how people drive in this chaos. Some of the sights that you see are scary. Like people on bikes using one hand to drive and the other to hold a very young child on the bike. Or another one where a woman was riding a bike and had a pretty young child strapped to her via her bag! Not to mention some of the things people transport on their bikes - it's absolutely mental and I usually miss getting a photo as by the time I get my camera out and get over the madness, they have gone out of view.

The Hotel

We booked a Deluxe room in the Hanoi Paradise Centre Hotel and Spa after we saw one of the YouTubers we follow recommend it. It's supposed to be a 4-star hotel but it's definitely not. It's more like a 2-star, but it is well located and it will do for the time we are here.

Dinner at Bun Cha Ta

R is feeling a bit rubbish, and it's not long before he's hungry for food. So we quickly dump our stuff and head out to find something to eat.

We find Bun Cha Ta, which is one of the Michelin places on R's Google Maps list, and we're able to get a table right away. OMG, this was absolutely amazing! R went for the 'Full Bun Cha Ta' and I went for the "Bun Cha Ta" - basically, he got some extra spring rolls, but we actually shared these. However, the dish was amazing - one of the best things that I have ever tasted. The meat had been barbequed, I think, but the broth that you add the noodles and herbs into was just out of this world. I have no idea why it tasted so good, but it was a real highlight of Vietnam and the total bill for this meal with a soft drink and a beer was £8.50!!!

By the time we get back to the hotel, R is knackered and he's feeling lousy again as he's now got a very drippy nose and he's sneezing a lot. It sounds like he has the same 'bug' that I had over New Year. For him, it appears to have been a biphasic event, starting with a sore throat which then eased off and now he's got the cold thingy. We're both convinced that it was the taxi driver from the Da Nang airport, but perhaps I was ok as I'd already had my cold thing over New Year, so I had some immunity this time against it. He also did a covid test and it came up negative, so again very similar to what I had.....or maybe R has been licking windows this time!!! So much for Lady Buddha's assistance, too....

So it's bedtime for Bonzo now.... and here's hoping he's feeling better tomorrow for our first proper look at Hanoi in the daytime.

Again, just for the record - I don't really like travel days as I find them such a faff and waste of time, so another reason why 'fast travel' is not really for us.

Hoi An & Hanoi, Vietnam

14 January 2025