Brisbane to Hanoi (8366km)

Finally, after months of planning and saving and more planning, our journey has begun.

We departed Brisbane airport at 11.55pm on Monday 19/04/16 flying Singapore airlines to Hanoi via Singapore.
Initially there was some concern raised by Singapore airlines staff at Brisbane airport regarding whether or not Vietnamese immigration would actually allow us in to the country as we do not have an onward flight out of Vietnam booked (as we plan to take the bus into Cambodia).
Given the significant difference in price between plane and bus fares from Ho Chi Minh to Phnomh Penh we ultimately decided to take the risk.

In the end both of our flights went very smoothly and we had no issues with immigration in entering Vietnam. Although the immigration officer at first did not seem convinced that Matt was actually Australian!

We took a taxi from the airport to the Old Quarter of Hanoi and checked into our hotel about 1.30pm on Tuesday. The hotel was basic but clean and comfortable with friendly helpful staff and excellent value for money. The location of the hotel was one of its strong points as we were able to walk to all of the key sights around the Old Quarter without difficulty.

At least, it wasn’t too difficult once we got the hang of crossing the street (i.e. diving out into the oncoming traffic of cars and scooters and having faith in the fact that the drivers will stop and/or swerve out of the way). It didn’t take us long to pick it up.
We spent our first afternoon walking around the Old Quarter just soaking up the atmosphere (which was incidentally very hazy due to the layer of smog over the city) and trying some of the local food (some good some not so good and some unidentifiable ‘meat’).

On Wednesday we made the decision to book train tickets to Da Nang on Thursday and then head to Hoi An. We walked to the train station and purchased our tickets from English speaking staff at the station with ease, I hope it will be this simple to buy train tickets everywhere we go. The only issue was that, due to our late booking, we could only get two upper berths in a soft sleeper carriage on a very old train (SE19). We didn’t have much choice though and we figured that two upper berths in a soft sleeper would still be much better than a hard sleeper cabin.

We took a long walk around the Hoan Kiem Lake before having the best pizza of our lives at a Japanese restaurant (Pizza 4Ps) in the Old Quarter for dinner.
On Thursday we checked out at 12pm and then visited the Ngoc Son temple and the Vietnamese National History Museum which we really enjoyed.

We boarded our train at Hanoi and departed at 8.10pm. Two Japanese businessmen had the lower berths in our cabin and did not seem to speak any English. Although we made ourselves comfortable enough we decided that in future we will endeavour to get lower berths on the train as it is more convenient and you can see more out of the window than on the upper berths.

As usual I had some trouble getting to sleep while Matt fell asleep instantly. But I did manage to get a decent night’s sleep and then in the morning we watched the scenery go by.

We saw mostly agricultural villages and rice paddies, but then between Hue and Da Nang the train traversed a mountain range skirting along the coastline which provided us with some stunning views.

Photos:
Matt on the balcony of our hotel room in Hanoi; Our room (201) at Hanoi Holiday Gold Hotel; Hoan Kiem Lake; Hanoi Opera House; Erin with large bonsai at Ngoc Son Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake; On the bridge at Ngoc Son Temple; St Joseph's Cathedral in Hanoi Old Quarter; Bonsai at Ngoc Son Temple; SE19 train at Hanoi station; train corridor; view of train coming around mountain; Matt in upper berth soft sleeper; rice paddies & mountains; ocean view from train, Matt and his noodles; Erin on lower berth soft sleeper; view from train.