Last night a bus from the hostel took us down the winding roads of Sapa to the train station. Since we had some time to spare, I went to find something to eat and came across a place serving com ga. I received a huge plate of fried rice with shredded chicken, which is exactly what I wanted. I then headed back to the train station to wait with the rest of the Loyola students. While we were waiting, we saw but the same Russian woman who tried to get into our hostel. Small world!
We finally got on the train and were moving by 7:30pm. I again quickly fell asleep to the swaying of the train, as well as the man who walked the hallway shouting "Cold bia! Coca!" Our train pulled into Hanoi at 5:30am, and we quickly got off and went on the hunt for a taxi. There were taxis everywhere, but as soon as we showed them where we wanted to go (the hotel we had stayed at previously) they said they would only take us for 150,000VND. We knew that this was a rip-off because we paid 40,000VND to get to the train station on Friday. The taxi drivers all knew that the hotel was close and so basically refused to take us unless they could make some money off of it. We even tried to get a metered taxi, but they wouldn't take us with the meter running and would only take us for a set price. Frustrated and angry, we walked away from the train station until we found a taxi roaming the streets. Luckily, he took us with no hesitations, turned on the meter, and we paid the correct price.
Back at the hotel we checked into our two rooms and quickly crashed. Since we had to be out by noon, I decided to spend as much time sleeping in them as possible as well as getting my stuff repacked for the flight tonight.
After bumming around the hotel and the surrounding area for a while, I had plans to meet one of Bìnhs friends. She came to pick me up on her motorbike around 2 pm and we headed off to get a snack. The drive was wonderful, although a little cold, but it was great to get to to see more of Hanoi then just where my feet could take me. We ended up in this alleyway where she ordered each of us a yogurt and some breaded pork to share. The conversation that took place was hilarious simply because of the huge language barrier. We ended up speaking through a translation app. We would type in what we were trying to say, push translate, and show the other person. At one point we even had to call Bình to be our translator because of the poor translations that the app was giving us.
Even though conversation was tough, it was sad when she had to take me back to the hotel. She had other plans of showing me more of Hanoi and taking me around a lake but time just didn't allow for it. I made it back to the hotel with about 20 minutes to spare before we had to get on the shuttle to the airport. Going all day without a proper meal, I decided to spend 50,000d on a somewhat disgusting ham and cheese sandwich in the aiport. The sad thing is that it tasted good simply because it was something other than sugar!
The plane ride was agonizingly slow, as I just wanted to return to HCMC. We did get a meal on the plane, which surprised me. After two hours we finally landed, quickly grabbed our bags, and got in a taxi headed straight to the dorm. I can't even explain how great it is to be back, even with classes tomorrow!
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