James and Jo’s south east Asia adventure

Sad to leave Hanoi as there were still a few things we wanted to tick off and we enjoyed our time there. Worthy of staying at least a week given the worthwhile excursions available and the abundance of places to eat and drink.

We did toy with the idea of getting up early to view Ho Chi Minh’s body, but as the humble man had expressly wished to be cremated rather than embalmed, we decided to honour him by lying in for a couple of hours instead.

The plane departed an hour late and the guy across the aisle spent some of the flight watching surprisingly lengthy cock-fighting videos.

When we touched down the plane was blasting  The ballad of Ho Chi Minh a real ear worm.

The rain was hammering down as we took the taxi to the hotel, dark clouds made everything look very dreary. 

We checked into Orchids hotel then left in search of some food with the rain unrelenting. We tried to get a table at the popular 4Ps pizza chain but as there was a half hour wait we contented ourselves with 3 banh mi’s between us from the stand outside. These hit the spot and came in at about 3 quid altogether, much nicer than a subway at a fraction of the price.