Vietnam in a week. Part 1: Seattle to Hanoi

Last year, Jenny and I flew to Western Australia. That's like a 9 hour flight, then a 7 hour flight, then another 6 hour flight. Probably even more than that, I may have blocked the specifics from my memory. Plus there's plenty of hanging out in airports all over the globe in between the mind-numbingly long flights. It's really freaking far. Vietnam is pretty far, but it's not Australia far. So when our itinerary called for just a 12 hour puddle-jump to Taipei and then a 3-hour-and-some-change hop to Hanoi, it didn't sound too soul-crushing. The 2 am departure time wasn't necessarily ideal, but when you're flying to the other side of the planet, your body gets so confused as to what day and time it is that it really doesn't matter what time you start the adventure. It's exhausting to matter what.

We landed in Taipei after the first leg of the journey to discover we had more than a six hour layover. Well, I discovered that, Jenny definitely already new. I sort of make a point of being blissfully naive about time-frames when traveling. It's easier to wrap my mind around that way. One time when I flew from Boston to Buenos Aires, I was pretty sure my Atlanta-Buenos Aires leg was something like 6 hours. About 5 hours into the flight, I discovered it was actually closer to 11 hours. But hey, at that point I only had 6 hours left. Somehow that sounded more rational when it was only in my head.

Anyway, back to Taipei. Not a lot was going on in the airport at 5 am, or whatever ungodly hour we arrived. Fortunately, it was early afternoon on Saturday back in the states, and I was able to watch Portland implode against Colorado on the only-sort-of-sketchy wifi.

Rickets took a red card, Timbers conceded two penalties in like 60 seconds and went on to get spanked 0-2 against an extremely mediocre Rapids team. So far the trip was a rousing success. A couple more hours of soccer and a double espresso later, and I felt fully immersed in South Asian culture.

At least it was a decent way to spend of a brutal layover.

Our flight to Hanoi was easy. We had plowed through the overtired stage (with the help of caffeine) and were ready for vacation. And lucky for us, Hanoi decided to make us feel at home by emulating Seattle's weather.

I guess that's normal for Vietnam though. Didn't it rain for like 70 days straight in Forrest Gump?

A few more "hurry up and wait"s later and we had our visas, were through customs, grabbed our bags, found our driver and were off to the hotel to meet Mike and Lynn. It was also our first introduction to the organized chaos of Vietnam traffic. Pictures don't do it justice, but imagine Seattle traffic without lane lines and replace each car with two motorbikes. Oh, and instead of freeways, it's a bunch of super narrow windy side roads. It's actually kind of beautifully in its insanity.

We met up with Mike and Lynn at the hotel. I think it was somewhere around noonish. Not sure what day. I think Sunday. Saturday disappeared into the travel abyss. We hadn't slept since Thursday night, not really anyway. But were ready to start the adventure.

To be continued... (part 2 now available here)