Saturday, February 15, 2025

We slept reasonably well with the family in Lat Krabang. The cat is also back in the house in the morning, but the animal always wants to go for a walk.

Today we leave for Vietnam for a period of two weeks. We fly at 15:00 and therefore want to be at Suvarnabhumi Airport around 12:00. After coffee with breakfast and a shower, we pack our two small suitcases and one of the two trolleys. We are allowed to take 20 kg of hold luggage and 7 kg of hand luggage per person. The scales at Moue are rather fickle, but we conclude that we remain within the permitted weight. At a quarter past eleven we drive away with Moue and Kaeng, we are much too early at the airport.

We have to wait a while before we can check in, the counter doesn't seem to be open yet for our flight to Hanoi. When we ask a little later we can check in, and it turns out we only have 25 kg of hold luggage.
We do some shopping, make-up and drinks, we eat something and then we take a train to the new S-terminal.

Boarding is a bit messy, everything and everyone mixed up and therefore a traffic jam in the plane. We are sitting in row 4, and almost every seat behind that seems to be completely full. The row in front of us is empty and we ask a steward if we can sit there, it is allowed, but one of his colleagues does not think so, it is decided in our favor. A little later we understand the problem, we now have more legroom and we would have to pay extra for that.
The flight is quiet, an hour and 45 minutes. The landing in Hanoi is less quiet, the plane hits the runway very hard. The weather is not good, gloomy, a bit misty and chilly, less than 25°C. We are taken to the arrival hall by bus, passport control goes quite smoothly and the luggage also appears quickly on the belt.

In the arrival hall we withdraw 2,000,000 VND, about 80 Euro. We will be met in the arrival hall by people with a sign 333Travel, but we don't see anyone. We walk around a bit, also look outside, and after about 10 minutes someone arrives, it is busy on the road, apologies.
It turns out to be our guide, Nguyen The Vi, for the next 8 days, accompanied by the driver, Thanh. They take us to our hotel in almost an hour, The Chi Hotel, we don't see that much of Hanoi because it is almost dark. The guide, Vi, tells us all about the neighborhood where the hotel is located but that doesn't really stick.
The hotel is located in the middle of the old center of Hanoi, the area is busy and a bit chaotic, shops and restaurants everywhere, narrow streets. The hotel looks neat, the reception is friendly and efficient, we have a spacious room on the seventh floor.
After unpacking, we go outside to look for something to eat. We have a map, but we turn it upside down, of course we walk a bit the wrong way. Eventually we find something where we want to eat, Laca 47. It is a fairly busy place, there are many groups, the menu is in Vietnamese and English, but we can't figure it out very well. We order Vietnamese sausage, tasty and lots of it, and a hotpot, also lots of it and also tasty but with bad meat. We pay by credit card, almost 1,000,000 VND, about 37 Euro, and walk to the hotel. It is chilly, the air conditioning is on the lowest setting, and we get warm in a comfortable bed.

Written on: 2025-02-16

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