We have arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport on this sunny Saturday. We will be starting our 16 day tour of Vietnam with family and friends and we are very much looking forward to the trip. As the taxi driver drops us at the airport she reminds us to wear our masks - everyone is concerned about the Coronavirus and masks are ubiquitous (and expected) in the airport. We’ve read about the pro’s and con’s of the masks but to avoid bringing attention to ourselves we put them on.
Our flight from Chiang Mai to Hanoi on Thai Asia Airways is okay. They are a discount airline where you must pay even for water. But the 1 hour 30 minute flight is on time and the flight attendants are pleasant. It meets our needs.
Once arriving in Hanoi we must obtain our Vietnamese visa. We take a left once we have walked to Immigration, quickly heading to the line for visas. After we queue for a bit I figure out that most of the time the man at the counter is pointing to a stack of forms and telling people to fill one out and come back. We grab the forms, fill them out, bundle them with our passports, the Invitation Letters that the tour company provided and the two passport photos we have brought along. The man at the counter wearing a military uniform accepts the bundles and tells us to wait in the next queue. About thirty minutes later William’s name pops up upon the display. We go to the second counter to learn that both visas are ready, pay $50 US cash each for a multi-entry 30 day visa and are able to go through immigration. The process is annoying, but not horrendous.
We pick up our bags, get the maximum 2,000,000 Dong (yes, two million, about $85 US) from an ATM and go out to meet our driver. No one is waiting with a sign displaying our names within the building, so after 10 minutes we walk outside. There he is - the man with our sign! A 40 minute drive into the city, we arrive at the Silk Path Boutique Hotel. The room is nice and the bed seems to be a bit softer than the one in our previous abode (but then, we don’t think it could be any harder).
Our flight from Chiang Mai to Hanoi on Thai Asia Airways is okay. They are a discount airline where you must pay even for water. But the 1 hour 30 minute flight is on time and the flight attendants are pleasant. It meets our needs.
Once arriving in Hanoi we must obtain our Vietnamese visa. We take a left once we have walked to Immigration, quickly heading to the line for visas. After we queue for a bit I figure out that most of the time the man at the counter is pointing to a stack of forms and telling people to fill one out and come back. We grab the forms, fill them out, bundle them with our passports, the Invitation Letters that the tour company provided and the two passport photos we have brought along. The man at the counter wearing a military uniform accepts the bundles and tells us to wait in the next queue. About thirty minutes later William’s name pops up upon the display. We go to the second counter to learn that both visas are ready, pay $50 US cash each for a multi-entry 30 day visa and are able to go through immigration. The process is annoying, but not horrendous.
We pick up our bags, get the maximum 2,000,000 Dong (yes, two million, about $85 US) from an ATM and go out to meet our driver. No one is waiting with a sign displaying our names within the building, so after 10 minutes we walk outside. There he is - the man with our sign! A 40 minute drive into the city, we arrive at the Silk Path Boutique Hotel. The room is nice and the bed seems to be a bit softer than the one in our previous abode (but then, we don’t think it could be any harder).
We meet up with our traveling companions and walk past St. Joseph Cathedral to dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hotel staff. The restaurant is owned by TopChef Thailand. My duck is exceptional and William’s steak is very good. During dinner we chat about our flights, our families and our upcoming adventures. A very pleasant evening.
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