19th December…one strategically located hotel for the arrival of two special ladies, and one super excited me flapping around my room waiting for them to arrive from the airport. We had a plan, the CamVietland trip was an epic one…
Plan
After landing the girls meet me to refresh after 2 connections and 12 hours flying (hardcore)
We head back to the airport
Fly to Hanoi, Vietnam
Spend three nights
Fly to bangkok
Spend two nights
Bus to Cambodia
Spend one night
Bus to bangkok airport, fly to Surat thani
Spend one night
Ferry to koh phangan
Spend 5 nights…
Girls head to Bangkok on new years eve eve to catch there connecting flight home. I carry on south towards the southern most tip of Thailand.
All in two weeks, it was going to be busy but fun…it was always a highlight of the trip for me since the minute they booked the flights. First Christmas away from home but not being away from familiar faces was really awesome.
First stop Vietnam
After jumping around for five minutes in the excitement of seeing my friends, I could have cried. I was so happy, but there was no time, they had to shower and change, and we had to get back to the airport.
Hurdle one…we discovered they had not gotten the visa needed for Vietnam, I had forced myself to sort mine out in Chiang Mai but had totally forgotten to mention it because I assumed they knew and I had read how easy it was to do from London. We figured out after a little googling that it was possible to get a quick turnaround visa so we spent all our efforts trying to get the correct information to request them. Long story short it gets down to the wire and the minute after checking closed, I had spent that last five minutes trying to buy time with the check in staff, Musta sprints barefoot (shoes would have caused delays) arm stretched out holding the converted visa paper. JUST IN Time. Yes, it really was 1 minute after checking officially closed. Lucky does not, cannot describe. 😐
We arrive in Hanoi flustered, confused by the exchange rate and seriously unprepared for where to go in the city to stay. We took some time in the airport to compose ourselves and wound up in town at an awesome hotel in a good location with LongRiver as our host. Hands down the best hotel employee I have ever encountered.
We napped and then mustered some energy for a trip to a restaurant…trip advisor recommended “restaurant 96” and here we fell in love with the ice cream….
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