10-25 (Wednesday) Going to Hanoi

Yesterday was the happiest day of Joyce's entire journey - I threw away one of my shirts that she hates! She doesn't know it but I am going to throw away the other one when we get to Hanoi.

After breakfast at the French Restaurant we went to visit the King's Palace which is now a museum. The King and his entire family were in northern Laos in 1975 and have not been heard from since.

For some reason we were thinking we were to leave Luang Prabang at 1:00. We got back to the guest house only to discover that our flight didn't leave until almost 3:00. We decided to go ahead to the airport since we had already arranged transportation for 11:30.

We found out this morning that in just four days there are going to be direct flights between Luang Prabang and Hanoi. They're suppose to be really cheap.

We went to the airport at 11:30 in a tuk tuk. We were the only ones there. Others started to show up before long. Our flight wasn't until 2:40. There was only one runway in Luang Prabang. There are only a couple of flights in and out a day so they just do their own thing. We flew to Vientiane the capital of Lao. There was only one other plane at the airport when we arrived and only one when we left. Can you imagine the capital of a country only having two planes at their airport? They didn't appear to have a tower. As in Luang Prabankg when you're ready, you go. When we got on in Luang Prabang it wasn't two minutes after everyone was seated that we were headed the lthe runway.

The flight from Vientiane to Hanoi was 50 minutes. Some diplomat from Western Sahara was sitting with us. He said he lived in NY for 17 years. He told about being at the White House and having his picture made with Barbara Bush. After Hanoi he is going toYangon.

After we landed in Hanoi we got on a bus to take us to the airport buildings. We cleared customs, I cashed some money. They wouldn't take Joyce's Traveler's Checks because they were Visa. We got a cab for 550,000 ($9.33) into town. The driver stopped to shop along the way while we waited in the back seat!! We pulled up in front of some hotel and a guy came running out, opened our door and welcomed us to the hotel. I told him this wasn't our hotel. I knew it wasn't because we were booked into the same place Dinki and I stayed last year. He jumped in the cab with us and said we must be booked at his other place. The next place was a real dump. He wanted me to go in and look at the rooms. I told him "no." I said we had rooms that were already paid for and this wasn't it. He finally got out of our cab. I don't know where he came from or if it was a set up between him and the driver. It was very strange to say least. We drove some more - we didn't have an address, just the hotel name. Finally we pulled up to a hotel with the correct name but it wasn't the right one. I went inside and talked to the men at the desk. There was a computer so I got on it to look at the email from the girl in Saigon who set it up. About that time the desk clerk came over and said, "Nancy?" He had found my reservation at their other hotel. The taxi driver was furious because he had been driving us all over. He kept saying I needed to give him more money. I felt like he did deserve some extra. Bottom line .He . he finally got us to the right hotel. We are very happy at our new place.

I threw away another shirt tonight. Joyce is going to be so happy.