Day 1 at Hanoi - part one

We were due to depart for Hanoi on 25th Oct. Not wanting to lose too much time due to late timing of the flights, i 'psycho' BC to take SQ which is more expensive than others. He seems to find it expensive too but too late. All's done.

We reached Hanoi Noi Ba International airport at 11.30am local time. (Hanoi is one hour slower than SIN)We got a cab, a fixed charge of 150,000VND, to our hotel at Hang Cot, Jasper Hotel.

(By the way, this whole trip was initiated as i've won a 2 nights complimentary at the Hilton Hanoi hotel and hence, not wanting to waste the stay, i got BC to go with me)

This Jasper hotel looks a bit like a motel from its appearance. We got through the check in without much hassels. Hassel free to the extent that no credit card was required as deposit, they need no forms to be filled, they just needed to safekeep your passport. This is something that im not too comfortable but it seems like we do not have much choices. So the porter then took our luggage to room 402. Upon arriving level 4, he knocks on the room door. BC ask the reason for doing that. I guess its due to superstition but then we realised that no. It was for the fact that there are people in the room and when the door opens, it looks as though a couple of chambermaid dressed in casual clothes were taking a morning nap. We were asked to wait at the corridor while the porter went back to the reception to check things out.

After much wait, we were brought to a different room. Room 502 instead. I was slightly amazed by the look of the room. Modern, neat, clean and looks like a high end hotel minus the technology. Cool. Not bad for SGD60+ per night. As usual, i took photos of the room and BC was playing with the safe. Without much success, the so called English Menu gave him problems and for the first time in my life, the safe's alarm went off. We had to call the reception for help. The same porter and BC struggled for a long 30mins and after much repeated attempts to set the alarm, with the same porter being called to the room many times, we finally got the procedure for setting the safe's code. Phew.

We changed and headed down the streets to experience Hanoi........