We spent 6 days in Brisbane after I got back from NZ and Chris returned from her road trip with Katherine in South Australia. It was Easter, and so we ate and drank and enjoyed the lovely weather.
We packed up all our camping/cooking gear and cold weather clothes into a big box to send back to the US! Vietnam does not really have camping infrastructure and lodging/prepared food is really inexpensive. Kind of amazing that we carried all those things for 3 months on a bike. We’ll have less to carry as we travel across Vietnam, since we’ll be eating out and sleeping in hotels, home stays, etc.
At 8:30PM, we loaded our bikes and carryon bags into Andrew’s truck planning to arrive at the airport at about 9PM. Our visas had not arrived by the time we left the house, and we found at the airport that we needed visas to check in, or we would not be able to fly. Luckily, the visas had been approved and were available for download between the time we left the house and arrived at the airport! Whew…that was close!
For some reason, we only thought to apply for a visa to Vietnam at the last moment, so got the application done only the day before our departure, paying for a 1-day turnaround so we could actually go. Since Covid, the Visa on Arrival has been stopped and so you have to apply for an e-Visa online that lasts only 30 days. We are planning to exit Vietnam to Laos for a day or two along the way so we can get another 30-day visa, and our friend Dieter says this is common. It seems that visa extensions are difficult to get, much more so than just getting a new visa.
We transited through Singapore, a 7-hour flight from Brisbane and and boarded another plane for the 3-hour flight to Hanoi. Both planes were full. Immigration was a snap in Vietnam, due to our (ahem) careful planning on the visa front and our bike boxes appeared in short order. Dieter had arranged a van to pick up up and drop us at his house, so we were well taken care of. The air is thick here…water vapor and pollution mixed. No Brisbane blue skies for the moment, anyway.
Arriving at Dieters, he took us to the local Pho restaurant for lunch, a few doors down from his apartment. A big bowl of delicious Pho is about $2US, which is about 50,000 Vietnamese dong. The exchange rate is $1US = 22,500 dong, so it’s funny to all be millionaires. I took 5 million dong out at the ATM!
We took a short nap after a shower and then I walked to an ATM to get some local cash. The sidewalks appear and disappear, the surface very irregular and sometimes wet, so most people walk in the street. The traffic flows well, but very differently than western countries that are more rules focused. All lanes seem to be shared space. Every manner of vehicle merges, changes lanes or even performs u-turns without really waiting for traffic to stop…they just move into the place they want to be and the traffic adjusts, letting them enter the stream. There is a lot of functional polite beeping to just let others know you want their attention, not so much the angry honking of the US. However, I don’t think Chris and I will be cycling in Hanoi, since I think it takes some time to adjust to the system.
Dieter and his girlfriend Dung (pronounced Zoom) took us to one of their favorite restaurants for dinner. She’s Vietnamese and charming, and it was so great to have her to order food and guide us to the right stuff. I think we are going to have a great time food-wise in Vietnam! Pretty much everyone we’ve talked to has said that the food is amazing.
We went to bed at 10PM, ready for a good night’s sleep in a bed instead of in an airline seat.
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