Last day in Laos and ticking off the fourth city and second country on our trip. 

A quick pack and settling the bill and we caught a taxi to the airport. Seemed a little bit nicer than the arrivals part of the terminal. Also seemed very much better than LP airport, at least they had the proper checking in equipment.

The issue we had is that the Lao Kip cannot be used, bought or sold outside of Laos. So we sold them to get some dollars which come in useful in most places. Surprisingly they offered a pretty decent exchange rate! But what they didn't tell you is that any amount you can't change up to the nearest whole dollar, they just keep. Got to make money somewhere I guess.

Off we go to find somewhere to sit down. They did have a lounge, but not included on our card and was $25 each to get in, what a rip off. For that kind of price I want to have caviar fed to me off a golden fork wielded by my own personal monkey butler. Or you know, at least brand name crisps. So we decided to sit in the pen with everyone else and wait for the plane.

About 45 minutes passed and we hear Hannah's name over the tannoy asking for us to do something in intelligible English. We asked a security guard nearby who was less than useless. So we thought if it was important, they would give the message again. They did. About 10 minutes later another indecipherable message was heard. This time we asked the airline staff who told us we needed to go back downstairs as there was something wrong with our bags. 

We get all the way back through security and passport control to the check in area and see our bags waiting. Apparently there was a battery in my bag. I couldn't for the life of me think of what it was so trying to find it was difficult. Especially when we asked the crew where in the bag and they just said inside. In turns out, it was the spare phone we brought with us. Literally has never been a problem anywhere else. So I don't know if that's bad news for everywhere else or just being nit picky here. With that dealt with it was upstairs back through security and customs and onto the plane.

Plane ride was fairly uneventful, H was sat next to the most disgusting man ever. He had grown a few fingernails very long in order to use them to pick his teeth, which he did continuously (we would later find out this is a trend, at least in Hanoi, and seen as a sign of wisdom so many ladies find it attractive...). 

We landed in Hanoi and headed over to get our visas all sorted out. We had purchased the fast track option, which basically meant we had a guy there to take care of everything for us. The first issue we recognised was our lack of money to pay for it, they only accepted VND or $ and only cash, and we didn't have enough by about $10 irritatingly. But lo and behold, there was a cash machine right there, with a pretty hefty charge on it, imagine that. So we get all that sorted, wait for the visa to be put into our passport and we headed through passport control. 

When I got to the passport control, he was very scrutinising of my passport, never a good thing, but I eventually got let through and Hannah followed. I then heard them call me back, never ideal. It turns out, this was our second issue, my visa dates were incorrect, it was only a month rather than 3 (so i wouldn't have been able to get into Ho Chi Minh in a few months). So we had to go back to the visa station and try to explain. Luckily enough, they were quite helpful and we got through albeit slowly (so much for fast-track!). 

We got our bags and got into a taxi to our apartment. It's to the north of West Lake, very north in Hanoi. Nice building with a supermarket and gym in it. We made our way up to the apartment, which unfortunately was a little bit underwhelming. The apartment itself was very nice, good furniture and stuff as expected. However it was clear it hadn't been cleaned. You could tell this by the old food in the fridge, toenail on the living room carpet and urine stains in the toilet (we won't add the photos of these, they were just for the Air bnb conversation). Not an ideal start to Hanoi, but it's got a big TV and a piano.

It was quite late after a few of our issues, so we went just down the road to the first restaurant that looked like it would take card (you can only take out around £70 per withdrawal here and the visas had wiped us out again). Decent enough food, very expensive for what it was but it did the job.

Back home to unpack and relax.