Dear Pipsqueaks,
And I thought a 3am wakeup call was the worst part. Boy, was I wrong. After dragging myself out of bed, brushing up and finishing the last bits of packing, we hopped on our pre-booked taxi Mr.Goh - yes, I can always count on him to get me to the airport one way or the other at the most random hours - at 4am to KLIA2.
I'm just not a morning person. This time of the day isn't meant for traveling. So, unless absolutely necessary, I will not take flights before 9am. Seriously too painful to go through the rush at that hour.
So anyway, we reached the airport and went straight to baggage drop. The crazy part was, the only thing I could think about at that point wasn't even food (that's how tired I was). Then, the worst thing happened...
"I need a what to board the plane? A letter of approval for VOA?"
I knew I would need to get VOA (Visa On Arrival), but I didn't know I needed to get a letter of approval FOR VOA. That's just great. At 5am, we're googling mad to see how I can this letter. After some data entry, a fee of usd68, and quick email exchanges, I managed to get that letter in less than 30 minutes - just in time for baggage drop last call at 5.45am. I couldn't thank Ms. Emi at the Vietnam visa office enough to action my letter so quickly. AND the two Air Asia staff on duty to assist with printing of the letter and fast-tracking me to baggage drop.
Done and done. PHEW!
Fast forward, I'm now waiting for my VOA. I must say, this company has great service, but expensive for emergency cases. FYI - if you need a VOA for Vietnam, you'll need to get a letter of approval that normally takes 2 days to process with a normal fee. If you do an emergency case like mine, you may wait a while at the arrival airport and pay a bomb: USD68 for the approval letter, USD45 for visa stamping & USD2 for photos. Just to get to this place cost me USD115. Sigh, oh well. My oversight. To avoid wasting time, you better learn from my mistake and do your VOA application early.
Website (with emergency process through external company): https://vietnamvisa.org/
If only they could hurry it up a little so I can catch some zZZz on our bed before heading out to explore Hanoi...
And I think Taiwanese passports are visa exempted because a whole group of them walked straight past me to the immigration lines. Stupid me, should have brought both of my passports...lesson learned!
Then, we had to just go with the first taxi in line. In actual fact, we really didn't do our research enough to know how much is the jump start rate...so I wasn't confident enough to raise my voice when it started at 171,000 dong. So yes, instead of paying about 430,000 dong, we ended up paying 520,000 (which he actually tried to get 550,000 and I'm like, no. Not going to give you more than the meter! Especially when I already had a strong feeling you're jipping us!!!) Not only that, he lied straight to our faces that the taxi cannot get into the road that our hotel is on, so we had to walk a little. My shiny butt that it couldn't - I even saw a van parked right on the side! Bugger...now that we know which taxi brands are safe (Hanoi Tourist and Mai Linh Taxi), not falling for scams again.
Anyway, so we went for a cup of Hanoi famous 'Egg Coffee' while we waited for our room to be ready at Hanoi Charm Hotel. As soon as we got in, we both took a quick shower and hopped in bed to charge a bit before the nightmarket. Never had I been so happy to see a bed!
(Egg coffee: never been a fan of raw eggs but this is delicious!)
(Love the bedsheets & neat little touches with the pink balloons and cranes! Not to mention fresh fruits and drinking water. Don't take those for granted - I've traveled to quite a lot of places and stayed at many hotels...some don't even provide drinking water. So yes, me happy about that!)
Followed the map provided by our hotel, we walked around the block to find the 'noodle with spring roll' shop. You wouldn't believe the battle at that corner - there seems to be a copy cat shop but both have the same address. So we took the one closest to the corner, not really minding whether it was the REAL one or not. Both are serving the same thing anyway. So, the meal is a self-assembled one where they give you a bowl of soup with pork balls and thinly sliced young papaya, a plate of greens, and a blob of vermicelli, and depending on how much of each you want, you make your own bowls of noodle until you run out of soup. Aside was a plate of spring rolls, which doesn't do my throat any good. Meh, just to try.
(Yes, Jessy is capable of eating street food despite her being super high maintenance at times! Do try their noodle with spring rolls - I'm normally not a fan of deep-fried food, but meh. You gotta try things when you're on holiday!)
(These two shops sell the exact same thing, except the yellow claims the blue is a 'fake'. Really, it's just food. If you have a great recipe, then what's there to worry about? People will decide for themselves. So for that, we went to the first one at the corner - the blue one - instead. We always say, healthy competition is good for the market!)
(Where all the people go for dinner and coffee - right across the Hoan Kiem Lake)
We continued our wandering to find the best price for exchange, finally to change at 2,203,000 dong for USD100 at a free tourist info center across the Hoan Kiem Lake - where all the action happens at night! Now, we're all good - that feeling when you're short on local cash is never easy.
At Highland Coffee by Hoan Kiem Lake, the night scene is just starting to come to life. Yes, silly me - I didn't even notice we were 1hr behind KL time until just now when we were at the tourist info center exchanging money. Meh, so it's only 7:20pm. Loads of time to nightmarket...
(Our second coffee since landing - now thinking back, MAYBE we should've paced our coffee intake...)
We did give the nightmarket a try, but being Taiwanese...I'm hard to impress, haha. Nothing special really, though shaved ice seems to be rather popular. Meh, I better give that a skip on day 1, since I'm also coughing. Hope I'll feel better tomorrow after a long rest tonight!
(Their weekend nightmarket that causes traffic chaos in the area - not something that would make me say, "You have to check it out!", but you can go take a stroll before bed I suppose.)
Tomorrow, a walk around the 3km lake and museum-hopping. Taking it easy in Hanoi.
Peace out!