Hanoi

My trip in Vietnam so far has essentially been a disaster. After the horrific bus ride, I arrived in Hanoi and fell asleep for a few hours. When I woke up, there were horrible downpours of rain, making it almost impossible to do any sort of sightseeing around the city. I decided to wait out the rain, and ended up wasting almost two days just sitting around, doing nothing. The major attraction outside of Hanoi is Halong Bay, but you cannot even take trips out into the bay when the weather is this bad. With Halong Bay out of the picture, I decided that maybe it would be a better idea to go north to Sapa, which is known for its beautiful scenery and treks through the mountains. Big mistake. After a twelve hour bus ride (does not even phase me now) overnight I arrived in Sapa where it was around 40 degrees and pouring rain still. It was so foggy that you could not even see outside the window of the bus. The treks are all through rice paddies in the mountains, so the thought of walking through mud and water in almost freezing weather for a few days did not appeal whatsoever to me, so I decided to catch the overnight bus back that same day and get at least some of my money refunded. I arrived back in Hanoi at 4:30 AM (it was still pouring), and the hostels were not open. Luckily they opened at 6 AM so I only had to wait for a short amount of time but, needless to say, I was exhausted, wet and cold. I have to be in Bangkok on the 1st of April to catch my flight to Nepal, and I still have to go to Cambodia via Saigon in the south of Vietnam, so I made the executive decision to just hop on a bus and go south as soon as possible hopefully onward to better weather (most likely not). If not, I am just going to spend more time in Cambodia. Essentially, the only cool thing I have seen in the five days I have been in Vietnam is the prison where John McCain was kept during the Vietnam War, which was not even that impressive. I am scheduled to go and play with cobras and eat snake tonight, but knowing my luck it won't happen. I will let everyone know when I do something cool other than watching the rain fall.