Last day in HCMC. Our flight to Hanoi is at 7 pm so we had some time to relax before we left. Our check out time was 4 pm. We’ve been so exhausted going on tours and traveling that we didn’t even bother to go out today. The hotels we’ve been staying at have been amazing so we took advantage of it.
I had breakfast in the morning at the hotel and then worked on a Milliardco post for yesterday. I’ve been doing them one day later now since I’ve been trying to go to sleep earlier.
After breakfast, we chilled and watched some shows. I’ve never relaxed so much in my life but it’s been refreshing. For a workaholic like myself, learning to relax is hard. I’m usually a terrible travel buddy because I don’t feel productive unless I’m doing something that moves me forward. Maybe because I’ve worked so much on this trip, I don’t feel guilty and I got most of what I came here to accomplish completed.
We didn’t even bother going out to get food. We just ordered room service since the food has been better than most places we’ve been to.
Afterward, we packed up, checked out of our hotel room, and took a taxi to the airport. We’re glad we left early because the traffic was bad during rush hour. We got to the airport close to 5:15pm. The checkin process was quick but the security line to get through was atrocious. We waited about an hour in the line before we could go through security and to our gate.
During the wait in line, I was pretty annoyed by the people. Even though I’m culturally American Vietnamese, I find the people extremely rude, inconsiderate, and poorly mannered. People were speaking loudly to each other, coughing and sneezing without covering their mouths, cutting us in line, picking their nose, and simply acting as if they were the only one in the airport. It didn’t get better once we got onto the plane and landed.
During the flight, the bugger in front of me kept moving around so much and banging his back against his seat, jostling everything on my table. I was aggravated enough to say something but I didn’t. It was a two hour flight so it was bearable and I downloaded some shows on Netflix to distract myself.
We landed and grabbed a taxi to the JW Marriot hotel where were are staying. Hanoi seems more peaceful and calm. I have a better feeling about Hanoi than HCMC. However, once we get into our taxi, the taxi driver tries to rip us off by taking a longer path to get the hotel and he was driving really slow. Jason was tracking our trip so he assertively asked if the driver was taking a long path. The driver studdered his way through a half attempt at an excuse, slowly trailing off his words as he knew he was caught. The rest of the ride we were on alert and so was he.
We get to our hotel and the total was a bit more than 400k VND. The driver grabs our bags out and we hand him a 500k VND bill. He gives us 100k instead of exact change because he probably felt bad he tried to jip us on price. He promptly left.
The hotel is incredible. It has one of the nicest exteriors of all of the hotels we’ve stayed at. We did a quick scout of the executive lounge and gym then headed to the room. It was already 11 pm so we couldn’t enjoy the amenities. We needed to be up and out of the hotel by 6:50 am where our Limo bus would be waiting for us. We packed a smaller bag for our two day cruise on the Dragon Legend Cruise to Bai Tu Long Bay next to the more popular Ha Long Bay and called it a night.
