Hanoi, Vietnam

So far on this trip, Claire and I haven't really been thrown out of our comfort zone... Until now. Leaving laos was definitely bittersweet, but we were anything but enthusiastic about our 27 hour bus journey from Vang Vieng to the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi. It was our first sleeper bus (overnight bus) experience and for the first time, we were the only tourists traveling on the bus. We were immediately assigned the back of the bus... Which to be honest we took offence to at first, but long story short, it really wasn't that bad. We left at 7pm, stopped for dinner at around midnight, and were at the Vietnamese border at 7 the next morning. It was early, and not a comfortable experience... Being the only Caucasian tourists, language barrier prominent, and trying to understand where to go and who to give our passports to, we realised that everyone bribes border control to get their passports stamped first. While we were being ignored, pushy Vietnamese men would squeeze their way to the front of the line, money in hand, until they were allowed to cross the border. Claire and I were scared that at this rate, our bus would continue on without us, but after some convincing, border patrol finally stamped our passports and we were off. When we finally reached Hanoi, we were overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of the city. We checked into Hanoi backpackers, made a few friends, then joined in on a pub crawl which ended up consisting of going to one very crowded club. We were reminded that we were in Vietnam at midnight when the military came into the club to shut the DJ down at exactly 12am...curfew in Vietnam. The following day we took a free walking tour of Hanoi. We started with St. Joseph's Cathedral. Then we continued to stroll around Hoan Kiem Lake where for the first time since I've left home I can say I had chills running down my back... It was windy and cold! The walking tour wrapped up, we grabbed some street food with some girls from the tour ( fried yummy food) and went back to the hostel where we buddied up with Maria and Verena, two Germans we met at the hostel,  and booked another sleeper bus that night to get further south... where it's hopefully a bit warmer.