Today was a pretty chilly day. I checked out of my apartment and searched for a hostel where I can stay, luckily the second hostel I went to had a room in the dorm free. It costs 8$ a night and the rooms, beds and toilets are all really clean. The name is “Vietnam Backpackers hostel – Downtown”, they also have hostels all over Vietnam and I think when I’m in a town where there is one of their hostels I’m going again to them. After checking in and booking a trip to the Ha Long Bay, I went out to finally eat something, I got me a watermelon juice and fried tofu. It was the first time for me eating fried tofu and it’s pretty good, it was very soaked in oil and had not very much taste, but with the soysauce it was pretty good, it’s still tofu so you can’t expect that much^^
I met there two guys who live here since a few years now, one American and one British. We talked about living here and stuff and some friends of them came too. After a while some of us decided to go to a café. Later we went then to a bar which one of those guys ownes. It was early afternoon so besides us there were nobody yet there. We heared some music and I showed them some good hip-hop of my country. My mobile was then plugged on the whole time I was there^^ later I met a German couple who are on their honeymoon, they really liked my music and we talked a lot about Vietnam and traveling here, they made the same route I want to do, just the opposite way, they went from South to north and I’m going to travel from North to South. They also told me that Sa Pa is not that beautiful everyone wants to tell me, at least at the moment. The rice season is over so all the fields they praise at the pictures are not green but just brown and that’s what’s the special thing about this place. Intensely I wanted to go there tomorrow with the train, but now I’m thinking of maybe staying another day in Hanoi and then heading south to hue, but let’s see.
I tried with them one of those balloons the strange guys told me the other day. It’s kinda makes you feel a little bit dizzy and tingles in your face. The feeling only lasts about 15 seconds then everything is normal again. I think it’s somehow strange, it was a good experience but it’s nothing I could do the whole time, even while you’re inhaling you taste that it’s probably not good for you, it has a light sweet chemical taste in your mouth. It’s really better if you stay away from that, trying it out is no problem but you shouldn’t do it every time, especially with the risks, frequently consumption causes serious brain damage, so it’s really not that much fun.
After talking a little longer with the German guys I went out to eat something, I’ve got a Vietnamese Doner which really was pretty good and some fried rice with chicken which was also very tasty. Considering I had to get up at about 7:30 am I decided then to go to sleep so I won’t be that tired the next day.
