Bonus travel hours, city, and travel buddy, Walking Zombie in a museum, Water puppetry, Mad biking skills, HOT!!! Welcome to VietNam

There were a few travel bumps in getting to VietNam, but I finally made it. Dan left for California from Seattle at 5:30 a.m. and I stayed at the hotel because my flight didn't leave until much later. The travel bumps began when my original flight from Seattle was delayed 3 hours. This meant that it was going to be super difficult to catch my connecting flight in Seoul. Delta provided free snacks at the gate because of the long wait so I stocked up, not knowing how I was going to actually get to Hanoi.

So many interesting items for sale that give Hanoi such vibrant colors. This store sells lanterns.

Leaving the Red Roof Inn in Seattle 

Free snacks!

Stocking up 

During our flight, we actually lost time so I knew that I would not be able to catch my connecting flight (the next flight to Hanoi was not until 10:00 a.m. the next morning) and resigned myself to sleeping in the Seoul Airport because I did not have the necessary PCR test to enter Korea. However, when we deplaned (to the sound of the song "Baby Shark") there was a gate agent announcing a flight to Ho Chi Minh City and to my surprise, my name was on the list of passengers. There was a language barrier, but I communicated that my name was on the list even though I was trying to get to Hanoi not Ho Chi Minh City. The gate agent stuck a sticker on me as well as all of the other passengers whose names were on the list. This was the only connecting flight that passengers from my 1st flight were able to make. So the gate agent counted up all of the passengers with stickers and ushered us through the Seoul airport. It was in this chaos that I met another passenger in the same boat as me (also trying to get to Hanoi). We introduced each other and Truett and I became fast travel buddies. We did not know how we were going to get to Hanoi, but decided to take the lemming approach and just follow the leader. We found out that we would hopefully be able to catch a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi at 5:00 a.m. There was a potential complication with our entry city for our visas, but we decided we would cross that bridge when we came to it.

The gate agent ushering a group of us through the Seoul Airport 

The sticker the was stuck on me when I arrived to show that I was on the flight to Ho Chi Minh City

My name on the list of passengers for Ho Chi Minh City

When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, we found out that the domestic terminal was closed until 3:00 a.m., so we would have to just camp out just outside of it. When you get off the plane in Vietnam, the heat hits you like a wall. Without a place to hang out, Truett and I set up camp and chatted the night away. It was actually kind of fun.

The location of our "camp" outside of the domestic terminal in Ho Chi Minh City

Truett and I were able to get some smoothies to sustain us

We successfully got on the flight bound for Hanoi in the morning and were able to see a nice sunrise over Ho Chi Minh City. When we arrived in Hanoi, Truett and I shared a cab to our respective hotels. Having Truett as a travel buddy made it such a good experience. We chatted about all sorts of things and the time just flew by. So, I was able to see a bonus city, make a friend, and only missed sleeping time in Hanoi.

A nice welcome sign

Sharing a cab with Truett

The entrance to our hotel (that I didn't get to actually sleep in because I arrived 11 hours later than planned)

Room 603 - this New Hampshire kid felt right at home 😃

Fallon met me at the hotel and it felt like deja vu from back when we met up in Georgia. I was all smiles when I found out we were in room 603 (NH was in the House). Having not slept in an entire day and night and being in a totally different time zone, my body didn't know if it was time for breakfast, lunch, dinner or if it was supposed to be awake or asleep. My plan was to push through the day so that I would get to see Hanoi as we were leaving for Tam Coc in the evening. 

Being in a city is a little out of my comfort zone and Hanoi is a city with everything moving all at once. There are motorbikes, cars, bikes, people, dogs (you get the picture) all moving everywhere fast and seemingly without any rules. This will take some getting used to as will the wicked hot temps. The first sight we saw in Hanoi was Turtle Lake - kind of an Excalibur type story of a old turtle, a sword, and overcoming Chinese rule.

Turtle Lake 

You can see the Chinese influence by the characters used on the columns

Chinese influence on artwork

B

Buying tickets for the evening water puppet show

As we wandered around the streets of Hanoi, we got hungry and found a yummy buffet type street food for lunch. Check out the tiny stools that everyone sits on to eat.

Our lunch buffet - street food is great (hope this doesn't come back to haunt me)

Sitting on a tiny stool eating my lunch 

We wondered through the streets some more and marveled at the motorbiking skills of the Vietnamese. It is unbelievable how much stuff can be packed on a motorbike and still be able to ride it through the chaos of the streets.

Motorbike with a wide load navigating a narrow street 

I have no idea how you would even attempt this

A Vietnamese version of a family minivan- there are 5 people on this motorbike

We wandered through an area that sold lots of fish products and I thought " Dan would hate this."

By the time we made it to the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnography, I was pretty much a walking zombie. It was a really interesting museum about the people of VietNam. There are so many different ethnic groups. I really wanted to learn about them, but I was so tired that I could not think straight. I managed to fall asleep on three different benches (at one point a security guard asked me to move 😂). So, hopefully Fallon will fill in the gaps of everything I didn't learn in the museum.

Kara out cold next to an exhibit

Getting a taxi is fairly easy with the different apps that are available despite the communication barriers

A much-needed cold smoothie revived me

Coconut ice cream hit the spot

Next we went to the water puppet show. The air conditioning felt dreamy. Vietnamese water puppetry is a tradition that dates back as far as the 11th century when it originated in the villages of the Red River Delta area of northern Vietnam. Today's Vietnamese water puppetry is a unique variation on the ancient Asian puppet tradition.

After the show we headed back to the hotel to get our stuff and catch a van to Tam Coc. It did not take me long to fall asleep in the van despite the super bumpy ride. Fallon wanted to sleep, but she doesn't have my "gift". We arrived in Tam Coc, found our hotel. The hosts were very enthusiastic about making sure we would like our stay. Next we looked for a yummy place to eat and then retreated to bed.

I savored this luxurious bed as this will not be the standard of how we travel