Hanoi to Chiang Mai, the easy way…

| September 25th, 2008 | Hanoi

At least one part of the journey back to Hanoi from Bac Ha was good, the sleeper train we took was even better than the one we went on when we left Hanoi, still the staff woke everyone up at 4:30 am to be ready for the train arriving at 5ish… After a few days like we had had it was the last thing we needed but still at least we were back in Hanoi, the only thing left to do before we can get back to Thailand was wait for the card at our hotel and seeing as we felt we had seen all of Hanoi that we wanted to see we took a much needed shower and just rested in our room. I checked the package on the internet and it said that it was “out for delivery” as we didn’t expect it until the following day that was great news! I sat outside and waited because I didn’t want to miss it or there be some confusion and it goes back to the depot or something and within an hour a little moped with a man in a TNT shirt pulled up and we were back in the game!!! Thanks again Mandy and Jo!!! No more than 10 minutes later we were strolling around the lake to the air Asia office to book our tickets out of Hanoi to Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai… We got some for the next day and with that had damn good meal, rented a DVD player and had a nice quiet night in. Our flight was at 2pm so by the time we were up and ready, packed and had breakfast it was time to be off, our taxi arrived and we said goodbye to the staff at the hotel who were so friendly and helpful and also to Vietnam. It has been by far the most surprising country we have been to yet, truly amazing, beautiful and if we had more time we would have gladly stayed even longer! But we had our sights set on Northern Thailand and short of a day jet setting about we were nearly there. Hanoi airport was painless and excluding some overweight baggage (Georgie smashed the weight limit in a glorious fashion) and a bit of a wait we were up up and away. Two hours later we were back in Bangers (Bangkok) baby!!! We have been to that airport so many times it feels like a home from home and it was damn good to be back. We had a descent wait again but nothing too bad and while we were waiting we met some mad Spaniards which always helped, also the smoking rooms help alot! We went straight for a Thai curry as soon as we could having been away from proper spicy grub for three months and Georgie had an ulcer that she forgot about which caused her to hop about for a glass of water for a while, and then away we went again. Georgie isn’t the best flier and all the waiting didn’t help matters also the fact that the flights were so short we went up and then down and never really got a chance to relax so by the time we hit the tarmac in Chiangers (Chiang Mai) she was pretty shot to bits, as tense as a nervous mere-cat. We got a taxi into Chiang Mai and tried a guest house which was full before managing to wake the owner of another up, the room is super basic, shared bathroom the lot but it was late and there were no others open so we had to take it and it seemed only to wind Georgie up more but a plate of amazing doughnuts later and the overall laid back Thai atmosphere in contrast to the feisty Vietnamese from whence we had just came all helped Georgie to unwind and no sooner had we laid down we were both soundo…