Day 51 - Last day in Laos and flight to Hanoi

My last day in Vietiane, I got a massage for 30000 Kip for an hour at a place called Mixay Massage. This place was on the second floor of a cafe. When I walked in all the staff were napping on floor behind the service counter. I realized that I had been in Asia for a while at this point because I didn't think twice about it and how weird it is. EVERYONE naps in the middle of the day on this side of the world. Especially if business is slow. In China I saw people sleeping on top of chicken coops and on the open bags of rice they were selling.

The Vientiane airport is absolutely tiny. The only good thing about getting here and checking in was the fact that they had CNN on TV. I haven't seen English TV in the longest time. It was nice to find out what was going on in the world. Most of coverage was for the Election and Obama as the president. It was really nice to see.

I arrived in Hanoi at 3:30 pm and took the bus into town for 25000 dong ($1.50). I ended up sitting in the bus for about an hour before it left. I think I had just missed the last bus. It took about 45 min to get into the city. There was no visible signs of flooding from the airport to downtown Hanoi. The bus randomly dropped everyone off in the middle of the road in the middle of the city. I can see this place being quite interesting already. Around the bus, I was wearing my pack and was swarmed by taxi drivers and hote representatives. I had a feeling that a these people were sketchy to start off with. I've heard stories of people getting into taxis and ending up at a different hotel than what they asked for and/or getting totally scammed on the price they pay for the taxi ride. I decided the best thing for me was to walk to the hostel I had in mind being constantly harassed by taxis and cyclo drivers the entire way there.

The walk took about 30 min but it was well worth it. The hostel is huge and full of travellers. I'm sure I can find people with the same travel plans as me. At least for a little while anyway.