08.11 The rain has kept falling during the night but is has stopped for now. The sky is all grey. The life goes on outside of the room. Everything is the same here in Luang Prabang and in Laos.

09.54 It seems like the old man is playing again. It is the same monotone melody. There are no crickets accompanying him this time, but the rooster is. The one which is unable to finish it right. Now we will have breakfast somewhere in the town or is breakfast included and shall it be eaten in a third place? We booked one place and stay at another.

10.15 We’ve sat down at Lamache Restaurant down by the river. We’ve ordered mango and banana pancakes with coffee from a waitress with finger mittens. Two dogs just had a fight behind me.

View from Tanoy Guesthouse

A dog wanted to taste our breakfast pancakes.

10.32 Christer has got his pancake and we’ve got company here. It´s a dog sitting next to me looking at Christer and his pancake. He looks more and more grumpy the more Christer eat and it gets nothing.

11.33 We finished breakfast and went out on the internet again. It didn’t go well the last time I tried. It went smoother this time. We’ve learned that it is possible to book Vietnamese train tickets in advance. It is a lot of work though. We’ve also read that Radovan Karadzic has been arrested in Serbia. We know nothing about if it´s possible for us to visit Bahrain with the Israeli stamps that we´ve got in our passports.

Our room at Tanoy Guesthouse

12.24 We’ve checked out and left our luggage at our first home Vilay Guest House. We are back at Joma Bakery Café again after having exchanged money. We´re here mostly for shadow but also for coffee. We are dressed in the clothes we plan to travel in so we don’t want to make them too sweaty. We’ve seen a bearded, tired big man. I guess the heat has worn him down.

13.14 We’ve returned to reality and a bench. We are sitting in front of the Wat Mai temple. Now the sun looked out from behind the clouds. I think I will take a wet wipe and freshen up my face.

A passenger boat on the Mekong.

Animals are coming to Peter, maybe to read the journal?

13.36 We’ve ordered our lunch from menus glued on handmade paper. We are back at LpB Restaurant. There is a tree here down by the river that has large, long, green fruits.

14.12 The meal is finished. We were visited during it by one lizard and two cats. One of the cats was black and white and looked really tired. The other cat is golden brown and it sleeps next to me. Why do we attract animals? Do we look friendly or do we smell the way they do?

Our airport transfer was waiting for us.

14.43 We returned to Vilay Guesthouse to get our backpacks and to enter a mint green tuktuk. It waited for us long before scheduled time. There is no panic among the taxi people here. I don’t think anyone here in Luang Prabang is stressed; this is an oasis worth visiting. It is really a pity that we can’t stay any longer but we’ve got tickets booked for today. We left some of our calling cards by the guest computer at Vilay’s.

15.27 We’ve reached the airport and have just been checked in and stamped out of the country. They wanted to know where we had spent the night. Have they had full control of our stay in the country or is it just standard procedures?

16.03 The bearded man this morning is sitting not far from here. Seems like he´s got his energy back now. He´s sitting here having a conversation with someone.

16.45 The safety belt lamps have been switched off. We are looking down at Laos one final time. When will we be back to this calm and stressfree country? The wet wipes they offered us are a bit frozen. In our plane there are people of different genders and nationalities. We’ve recognised one of the flight attendants from yesterday’s flight. She recognised us as well. There isn't any row 13 on this flight as on so many before.

Our plane is being prepared before the flight to Hanoi.

We are approaching a very wet Vietnam.

17.10 The airplane food which consisted of hamburgers with carrot and lettuce, apple, dragon fruit and sponge cake with Mirinda and coffee to drink is now finished. Outside of the plane the clouds look like tossed out cotton balls. We are about half an hour from this trip´s sixth country, Vietnam.

17.33 We are going down for landing. We can see a river, a huge city and also areas which seem to be flooded. Can it be connected with rain?

VIETNAM

18.20 We are in the arrival hall at Noi Bai Airport north of Hanoi. Here we have exchanged 120 US-dollars each. This transaction turned us into millionaires. We are both having 1,992,840 dong. Now we are waiting for a man with a sign. It is the man who will take us to Bodega Hotel.

An unnecessary long wait at Noi Bai Airport.

18.38 We’ve not met any man with a sign with Christer´s name on it. Christer just went to phone the hotel and to find out what has gone wrong. The hotel has come up with this idea that they shall arrange with transportation. They don’t want their customers to be ripped off by dishonest taxi drivers. It has happened that people have been driven to other hotels.

18.43 There was no reply on the ”hot line”. That is the number they have given to Christer in case something should go wrong. He is now calling straight to the hotel. We sure could have had a better start on our stay here.

18.46 We’ve got new information. They haven’t sent any man to pick us up. They claim that we haven’t given them any information about our flight. But Christer has e-mailed and even got a confirmation on it, odd! They suggest that we shall take a taxi from here instead (the very same thing they told us to avoid earlier). There is something not working at the place we are going to stay.

18.57 We are in a taxi that hopefully will take us to our destination Bodega Hotel. If this trip cost more than the 12 US-dollar that their ride was supposed to cost then I want to have...., well we will see about that. It is +33º outside.

19.38 The driver honks, yawns, has a hiccup and wonder how long we plan to stay at the hotel here in Hanoi.

20.03 We are seated in room 325 at Bodega Hotel (http://www.bodegahotel.com) It is a large room with a big balcony and a wonderful bathroom that we have. The taxi cost more than 12 US-dollars and the driver seemed to take a longer route here. I don’t care about that! It was virtually impossible to cross the street to get to the hotel due to all the traffic. A girl from the hotel came over to our side and brought us back.

A fantastic room was waiting for us at Bodega Hotel.

20.40 It is a local power failure, blackout. It is dark in our room but light out in the hallway and city. People are running around in the corridor with keys.

21.07 It is time for dinner at Pizza 112. We looked around in the neighbourhood but decided that we most of all needed nutrition. The local food has to wait for another day. There are traffic lights here in the city but most of the drivers seem to suffer from red-green colour blindness. They just slow down a little as the lights turn red. I was surprised to say the least as it on green lights for us, a motorcycle came driving just close to my toes.

22.31 We (and the electricity) is back in our room. We had large pizzas and Halida, a delicious local beer. They gave us strawberries and melon for dessert. I am looking forward to slow down and take it easy. Too much has happened today.

22.59 Much has happened today but not everything yet. We just lost all our 50 TV channels.

Wednesday 23rd of July

08.25 ”Good morning Vietnam!” European pop music and the sound of several vehicles comes in from the outside of the hotel. I wonder how warm it is outside.

09.41 It is +30º out there. Up there in the hotel (above a staircase that resembles the toughest downhill sloops) we had our breakfast. A little advice, if you want to have coffee and just coffee, you have to say black coffee. If you say coffee without milk you might end up with coffee with milk. The staff don’t understand the difference between the words "with" and "without". It is soon time to discover yet another capital, Hanoi or as the Vietnamese spell it, Ha Noi.

It´s possible to visit a barber out on the street when you are in Vietnam.

10.43 We left the hotel to the tunes of ABBA´s ”Happy New Year”. Now we’ve walked to Hanoi’s railway station, Ga Ha Noi. We saw a man who got shaved on the way here. It happened at a barbershop in the middle of the street. We’ve also passed several small shops and road crossings with heavy traffic. There are 14 different cashiers, counters here and we´ve got a queue ticket for north/southbound trains. It is plenty of people here but it is nice and cool. It isn't any big deal outside either.

10.59 We had no problems getting the tickets. But we’ll have to go a day later than planned. The train we had planned to catch was already full. It was worse for me as I tried to cross a street. Suddenly a motorcycle in high speed appeared. I had to move to the side to avoid being hit. All went well. I have to watch out more and be more careful. It is full speed ahead in the traffic and also on my pulse. I have to take care of that.

Hang Bong Street in Hanoi.

The attack of the motorcycle army!

11.11 We’ve sat down at Highlands Coffee. It took four persons to take my order which was of the same kind as Christer´s, black hot coffee and a muffin. They’ve been here at our table and turned twice, both times with ice coffee with a straw. Now they brought two cups of the hot kind. My coffee cost 39,000 dong. Christer was asked to pay later.

11.37 Chaos, mess and general confusion took place before we were able to leave Highlands Coffee. They had none or at the best little knowledge of who had paid what to whom. The staff kept arguing back and forth. Suddenly a gentleman stepped in and said in harsh words that I had paid earlier. I wonder if he was some kind of boss.

Peter buying T-shirts.

Hoan Kiem, a lake with a legend.

12.08 We’ve walked more and bought t-shirts for our nieces and nephews back home. We are now on our first Vietnamese bench break. We are sitting at the southern end of the Hoan Kiem Lake. There are supposed to be turtles in this lake, turtles descending from the golden turtle. This turtle is supposed to have brought back a sword to heaven in the 15th century. That sword had been given to Emperor Le Thai To to throw out the Chinese from Vietnam. Because of this the species is called Sword Lake Turtle. The name of the lake means "restored sword lake".

12.55 The time has come for another bench break. We are now on the eastern bank of the lake. We are drinking our recently bought beverages and are watching the Huc bridge which leads out to the island where the Ngoc Son temple is. We were offered books from a walking salesman before we left the other bench and I was asked on the way here if I was interested in a lady. There are some interesting people around this lake.

Strange tree growing near Hoan Kiem Lake.

13.47 We’ve bought more to drink and have returned to the room. I went out on the balcony to hang my clothes to dry. Suddenly I heard ABBA´s ”Happy New Year”. Had the time stood still? No I don’t think so, the room is cleaned, the beds are made and the towels are changed. We bought some stamps out in the city and had more offers to buy books from other walking salesmen. We extended our stay here before we went up to the room. We had to do this because of the changed plans regarding leaving here by train.

14.45 We’ve just called and said happy 35th birthday to our friend Roberth. It is still morning back home. We are a bit further ahead.

16.28 It is time for lunch?, dinner? Or food for short. We are at Stop-Café (http://www.escapade-stop-cafe.com) in a part of Hanoi which is called "Latin quarter".

16.47 That was great and tasted even better. The chopsticks had fishes on them. Does that make them fish sticks?

Countdown to Hanoi´s 1000th birthday.

Roundabout at the northern tip of Hoan Kiem Lake. North from here is the Old Town in Hanoi.

17.28 We’ve finally found an internet café. We’ve checked about places to stay in the upcoming destination Hué and got a e-mail from Shu Ming. She told us that she will join up with us in Saigon a week from now.

18.17 We’ve returned to our room. Now we will just relax and think about the future.

20.39 It is too early to sleep. We are too restless to remain in the room and too full to eat. What will we do next? We are also wondering what the former presidents of the United States are doing now.

20.59 The answer to one of the questions is; we are sitting at Maxx Café. Well that doesn’t involve Jimmy Carter, George Bush or Bill Clinton. It is the two of us who are sitting down. We are going to have Vietnamese coffee and a cheese- and ham sandwich.

Quan Su, a street close to our hotel.

21.14 We got our coffee at once and the cups were filled with ice. Is this what they thought at Highlands Coffee earlier today as we asked them for coffee? The coffee is beyond any shadow of a doubt strong. Now we got our sandwiches, they seem to be grilled, two pieces of toast sliced in triangular shape with ham, cheese and lettuce. I must say I had hoped for more. I want this kind of coffee without ice the next time I order coffee.

21.52 They brought two more sandwiches. This is much better. We’ve sat here and filled out the time by talking about childhood memories. It is now time to pay.

23.53 The time has come to go to sleep. It is for the 34th time on this trip. I’ve lost count on how many times altogether during these years. But there has been some. None of us is sleepy. I wonder if the coffee may have caused this.

Thursday 24th of July

08.26 The shampoo I bought yesterday has a familiar but a hard to place scent. Ou.. Oops! Our phone is ringing! I´d better get this!

08.43 That’s it, I am back. It was our friend Shu Ming. She had questions regarding our arrival to and departure from Saigon. Where was I? Well, our second Hanoi day is here. This is a bonus day that we have been given since we will leave from here a day later than expected.

11.16 We’ve begun our second day. We are standing in front of the cathedral in the city, St Joseph. On the way here we passed two crossings without any working traffic lights. I guess you can figure out how hard it was to cross them. I’ve been offered shoeshine for my sandals and Christer has seen a woman who was albino.

Brave woman crossing a Hanoi street.

Cathédrale St Joseph, catholic cathedral in Hanoi.

11.30 After the cathedral we´ve went back to the Hoan Kiem Lake. Here we are seated on a bench on the western bank and we are watching people walking by. First we saw a young man with a red plastic bag. He wanted to sell us books. It was the very same kind of books that we’ve been offered earlier. Right now a young boy passed. He was kicking a piece of polystyrene. Now a group of young students arrived. They don’t want to sell anything. They want to talk to us. I guess that is fine.

12.00 During our interesting conversations, sometimes in broken English, we spoke about who we were and what we did. Our conversation was interrupted by a mentally retarded woman who wanted to have money and sell chewing gums. Christer and I said no but she just couldn’t take no for an answer. A girl among the students asked Christer about our trip and suggested that we should eat dog. One of the guys asked if we had tried cyclo (bicycle taxi). I said two so broadshouldered gentlemen wouldn’t fit. At this very moment the retarded woman got furious and started to swing her handbag towards our new friends so they had to run away from her. We parted and before we left we gave them a calling card each which they looked at very carefully. We think they had an assignment in school to speak English to tourists. Now we are benchbreaking by the Ngoc Son-temple which is as mentioned yesterday on an island in the lake. Our sweat is flowing. The temple is built to commemorate Tran Hung Dao who led the Vietnamese against an army sent by Kublai Khan. As we passed over the bridge leading to the island we saw guys who were fishing. In the water we saw dead fishes floating around. Why just pull up the fish, kill it and throw it back? Here on the island is a stuffed specimen of the large turtle that lives (or is supposed to live) in the lake.

The bridge leading to the Ngoc Son temple.

Nice to take a rest on a quiet spot.

12.47 An almost desperate search for a restaurant in the old town has come to an end. We weren’t welcome at the first place. They refuse to serve people wearing shorts. After we had left that place some small and smaller ones followed. Now we are sitting at the small and cosy Ancient Town. Out in the streets there are several salesmen, cyclo drivers and others. All of them start their conversation with "Helloooo!!".

14.19 After several "hello" and even more honking we´re back home. A girl in the reception asked about Ha Long Bay. I thought that she asked ”How long stay?” but before I was able to reply she claimed that her friend had a request for a trip to Ha Long Bay. We told her that it wasn't us who had asked. Could her friend be that small guy who messed things up regarding our airport pick up? Out in the city we’ve seen a manicurist and even more barbers out on the pavement. Do you book time there or is it just drop-in. It is plenty of free enterprise here. It is much more than back home. I thought that Vietnam was a communist state, but I guess they have become very modern lately. The only communist thing is the government and some flags.

Tricky?

Ready to go!

Lots to choose from in this little shop.

16.29 We have rested and cooled off. Now we will try to find a coffee house, an internet café and something else. What that will be we just have to find out.

17.17 They have no pastries here at the café 2gether. They do have free internet, if you brought your own computer that is. The water in our glasses has a green and yellow colour. We’ve ordered black, hot coffee. Now the waiter just brought two cups with iced coffee. No this is it!, I am going to tell him! Do I have to learn Vietnamese to get some proper coffee?

17.29 All went smoothly. We got our black, hot coffee. It has the resemblance of motor oil when it comes to colour. I don’t know about taste. I never tasted motor oil before. The coffee leaves a brown film on the china. As it comes to the water, well I think it is weak ice tea.

Peter avoiding yet another man selling things.

18.20 We finished our coffee and left. I bought myself a new book for the journal just in case I should finish this or perhaps for the future. Now we found an internet café on a backstreet not far from our hotel. Why has my keyboard burnmarks?

19.14 Christer has arranged with a place to stay in our next city. I have once again mailed and checked if we can enter Bahrain although we have been to Israel. Bahrain is an Arabic country and some of them are not so pleased about you having been to Israel. We only stayed one night in Istael on our way from Jordan to Egypt in 2005. We´re not exactly the largest contributor to their tourist economy! Now we´ve searched and found the restaurant Hanoi Garden to get us some dinner. It is noisy here. We feel like we are in some kind of school cafeteria.

20.04 All we set out to do today is more or less done. A thought that has occurred to us is how people are able to do things like; cooking, selling and making people look better out in the streets? There are honking vehicles everywhere, people walking buy and through the activity. We who “just” walk feel stressed. It is a different pace here compared to that in the cities in Laos.

22.24 I am not going to learn Vietnamese to be able to order coffee. I have come to this conclusion after we’ve seen a TV show about the Vietnamese language. It feels even more difficult than the traffic. The word ma has a different meaning depending on how a is pronounced. It can mean ghost, horse, grave, cheek, seedling and but. You have to take it easy on the date. You don’t want to ask to kiss her horse, seedling or (heaven forbid) grave or ghost. No, I will stick to English.

23.10 The only dramatic thing that´s happened lately is that a girl on a bike crashed out on the street. She was ok though and left the scene.

Friday 25th of July

08.58 A well planned day has begun. We´ve got a lot to do in the next ten hours. Our southbound train leaves at 19.00. Something that we haven’t taken in consideration is the fact that it is raining.

09.56 The rain like the breakfast is over and gone. None of us hope for a return. Before we fell asleep last night we thought about the fact that we’ve seen very few animals in Hanoi. Where are the dogs, pigeons and the other animals that we usually see? Sure the Vietnamese eat almost anything but they can’t have eaten all the animals, can they?

10.29 The rain came back but it is holding up for now. We are going out to get things done. We will also look out for the missing animals.

One of many small shops in Hanoi.

11.49 We’ve withdrawn money, two million per person. Now we are checking up things at the internet. A small child is bothering me in a charming way. He smiles and keeps on moving my mouse. I haven’t got any answers from Bahrain. Our next step will be some kind of lighter lunch. We’ve paid our hotel 550 000 dong for three nights plus extension until 18.00 today.

12.07 We are back at Stop-Café. One of the waitress said welcome back to us.

13.40 The lunch was just delicious. We’ve navigated ourselves to Hoa Vien Bräuhaus. Here we will have an on spot brewed beer. We found our way here from the memory of a map we´ve looked at and forgotten in the room. That map had the name of street where the brewery is situated. We got some extra help from another map which lacked that particular streetname. We managed somehow to find our way here. We are looking forward to have a mug of malt.

Christer at the gate to Hoa Vien Bräuhaus.

Czech-style microbrewery in Hanoi.

15.01 The beer and the brewery are highly recommended, but beware of the snack they put on the table, they cost. The brewery had help and support from people knowing this business, none other than the Czechs. Since it was raining heavily the staff at the microbrewery gave us a single-use raincoat each as we left. It came in handy. Now I know where all the animals are. They are dry and safe together with some 21st century Noah. It is coming down heavily out there. We are glad that we brought our umbrellas today. Now we are going to get dry before we carry on doing all the small things we need to do before we board the train. I just hope my sandals will get dry before that trip.

Peter getting prepared for heavy rain.

16.49 My sandals are dry again with a little help from a hairdryer. Now we have injected money straight into the Vietnamese monetary bloodstream. We’ve bought candy and beverages in a small shop. We’ve bought lychee fruits from a lady with a kind of balance looking carrying thing. We’ve also bought bread in a local bread shop. Next in line will be pizza at pizzeria 112. Hey, I almost forgot, Christer has bought a soccer jersey for his nephew Anton. He bought it straight from the street. The clothes hanged on a wall.

17.36 What has happened? We had so much time. We now have a growing stress factor. So far things are not falling apart. The pizzas and the complimentary fruit was consumed at haste and now we are back in the room doing all that is needed to be done in a tremendous pace, shower, packing, removing of all the twigs from the fruit we bought and so on. We’ve asked a taxi for 18.00. It will take us to the railway station.

18.05 That small guy at the hotel has done it again! He has managed to arrange with a transport to the airport for us. We managed to solve this mistake and we will now take a short car trip to the railway station. We walked there the other day but that was without the backpacks.

18.26 I am sitting in/on bed 17 in compartment 3 and wagon 8. I managed to put the sheet on its place. It sure is lack of space here. Christer is in bed 18 and in the four beds below us are, Vietnamese.

19.40 We’ve been on the tracks for the last forty minutes. The train lurch and rock. Music with unintelligible lyrics can be heard from the loudspeaker. It is warm and a long way to go before we´ll reach Hué.

20.32 As the light goes out in the compartment a voice can be heard in the loudspeaker. Or is it the other way around? A screaming sound of the kind connected to acoustic feedback can be heard as the voice speaks. We’ve done a station stop in Nam Dinh.

21.24 It is time to get some sleep. It is easy to drift away as one lays here reading a book which takes place somewhere else in the world. It is like waking up from a dream.