So this is day 0/day 1. Not really sure what to call it, since I’m going to be flying out of LAX today at 10 pm on a friday, and landing at 9:00 am in Hanoi on Sunday. So my body is probably going to be all fucked up.
I’m typing this in LAX right now, about an hour before boarding starts for my flight to Hanoi. I actually left my hose at about 1pm today. And of course, as per normal for BART, bart was having significant delays. So I uber’d it over to the airport.
Man, do *NOT* travel during the holidays. It’s awful. Everywhere lines, lines, lines. In LAX I had to wait 30 minutes just to get a burger. I prefer airports that are dead empty because you’re there at weird hours(read: 3am).
So anyways, going back to my itenerary, it looks like this:
SFO -> LAX. Land at LAX at 5:30
LAX -> tapei(14 hour flight). Leave LAX at 10:30.
2 hour layover in Tapei, then 3 hour flight to Hanoi. Get to Hanoi at 9 am on Sunday.
Sean will also be flying out of Tapei. But as he put it, “I don’t like early flights”. So he’ll be landing at around 3pm on Sunday. I don’t know how I’m going to check into the hotel(because he bought the hotel), but hopefully he’ll call them between now and then and they’ll let me check in early. Also they probably won’t be ready by the time i get there, so I”ll probably just drop off my bag and wander around for a few hours(on probably very little sleep).
Oh. I had a fun thing happen. I was telling a friend, somewhat jokingly, that the best way not to get robbed is to dress like you have nothing of value. I think I successfully did that today — on my way to BART I was wearing my giant dirty torn up backup, torn up pants, hole-y sneakers, and a really baggy shirt. A homeless person crossed the road and gave me an approving nod. Pretty sure she thought I was homeless as well. So mission successful?
Here’s a pic of how I’m dressed:
And the bag that’s carrying it all:
Sean and I almost canceled or plans to Hanoi as well. That was fun. It turns out that it’ll be raining a shit-ton in Vietnam when we get there. Hell, there’s even a tropical storm that might hit lower ‘nam.
So we were possibily planning on staying in Tapei or Loas or somewhere else for a couple of days to wait out the storm. The main reason is because after spending a day in Hanoi, or plan is to go straight to Ha Long Bay, which is where we’ll be climbing. And you can’t really climb when it’s raining(or it’s not something I want to try).
Luckily, we realized that if we just pushed back the climbing plans a few days, we should be able to avoid most of the rain. The problem with Asia is it’s raining all the time everywhere. So you can’t really cancel your plans on account of rain. They also are REALLY bad at predicting weather — I looked at 2-3 weather sources, and they all gave me different predictions. But I checked 2 Vietnamese government websites for the weather(IMO government websites always give the most accurate predictions), and it seemed to confirm that by the 28th/29th we should be in the clear.
So our new plan is this: land in Hanoi, acclimate for a day, go on our Sappa trek(2-3 days), come back and maybe spend another day in Hanoi(perhaps cooking lessons?), then head over to Ha Long bay. I don’t care if it rains during other activities, just not during climbing.
If you were curious of how I travel(I know you arn’t), here’s some of the stuff I brought:
9 pairs of underwear(anti-wick) and 9 pairs of socks
-2 pairs of shorts
-1 pair of zipper pants that can turn into shorts. These are ESSENTIAL. They make it so much easier to handle any type of weather, they don’t get smelly, and it means you don’t have to pack both pants and shorts, saving you a bit of space. Yeah they’re dorky AF, but you’re gonna look like a dork anyways in a foreign country, with your foreign fashion, and not speaking the language. Might-as-well be comfortable.
-10 tshirts, some of them technical
-climbing strechy pants
-climbing gear
-a600 camera, with 2 spare batteries and a zoom lens
-charger and cables for said camera
-nintendo switch for the long plane ride, wrapped in a pillowcase for protection
-this chromebook which I’m typing on(10.1 inch screen), wrapped in a pillowcase for protection
-naglene for water(which I promptly left on my first flight)
-compressable REI stuff backpack. These are really cool — they scrunch into the size of a pancake, and it allows you to carry a backpack in your backpack. I use it mainly as my carry-on bag while travelling, and on really short hikes. We might use to to bring up some small supplies when we do our multipitch climb, but we’ll see
-Gopro with case and “self-stick” with a girth hitch shoulder-length sling. This will be attached to me when I climb and allow me to take sick photos without risking my camera/phone
-Kindle
-20,000mAh battery pack. This is ESSENTIAL if you want to survive long trips. It’ll be charging my switch for my 16 hour flight, as well as my phone.
-another 6,000 mAh battery pack that I won in white elephant. Because, why not
-A gift for Sean. I didn’t have tape, so I just wrapped the gift(very poorly) and stuffed it in a giftlock bag. Its pretty sad looking ahaha.
-sunglasses, hat, sunscreen
-toiletries
-charging cables for all these battery packs
-international adapter; it seems that Vietnam has US plugs, but it’s always best to play on the safe side
-wind-resistant fleece jacket
-Northface rain jacket with GORTEX techonology. I love this jacket to death. I’ve taken it basically on every outdoor trip I’ve ever gone on. It’s survived me through snow, hail, ice, and tons of rain. Get a good rain jacket. Your body will thank you
-Pack cover.
-Old running shoes
-Sandles
-an international phone. This is essential for travelling. Yes you can travel without a phone(no I haven’t done it), but why would you? Just go to the country and get the SIM. And make sure your phone works internationally. There’s websites to look up what bands your phone supports, and what bands the country has. My Samsung S7 edge is the international version(I bought it for my last trip), so I can just slip in a new phone and you’re good to go!
Things I forgot:
-A PEN. You need a pen, FFS. When they pass out customs forms I always look like a fool because I don’t have anything to write with.
Also a quick tip: look what the conversion rate is for a country BEFORE you leave for your flight there. Once you land, you won’t have access to internet, and it’s really easy to get swindled because you don’t know how much shit is worth, or what a decent exchange rate is. Always check first.
Okay, enough of the condescending “I travel more then you so here’s some advice”. I hope someone found at least some of this info useful.
Also, my shoes smell like shit. Once you get a pair of shoes wet, no matter how hard you try, they’ll always be smelly. I might go change into my sandles before my flight so my poor seat mates don’t have to deal with the stench.
I’m going to go hop on my plane now. I’ll leave with one more thought:
If marijuana gets legalized on Jan 1st, are they going to have to retrain all the drug-sniffing dogs in the airport? *thinking emoji*
One more image. Feeling pretty international with this sign:
