Because of the unstable situation in Bangkok, we decided to spend one last night in Hanoi instead, since we were able to get a connecting flight all the way home from there. We booked a car from our hotel to Da Nang airport, and the driver spoke very good English and had a lot of knowledge about the area, so we had a great trip and learned a lot. Our flight was 30 minutes late, but we arrived at our hotel in Hanoi at 7 pm. We were welcomed by Dragon, who we knew from our stay there at the beginning of the trip, and were upgraded to an even bigger room than the one we booked.
After several days in relaxing Hoi An, it was again a bit of a shock to arrive in Hanoi. Lots of traffic and noise, but this time we knew how to handle it. We went for dinner at our favourite restaurant, New day, where we had duck in orange sauce, shrimps in tamarind sauce and of course some spring rolls. We went to the night market for some last minute shopping, had a beer in a very local bar, tasted and bought coffee at a small coffee shop, and spent the rest of the evening with gin tonics and good music at Rockstore. At midnight they suddenly closed the bar, and we tried to find another bar instead. But it seemed that the entire old town was closed down, and police were walking around making sure everything was quiet. So we ended the evening with a beer in our room instead.
The next morning we packed our bags, and with all the shopping we had done, we were actually able to close the suitcases and even had some space left in our hand lugguage! So after breakfast at Le Pub, we did some more shopping at silk street and Hang Da Market. 😉 We also had time for a massage at a posh massage clinique just next to our hotel, before we had to go to the airport at 5 pm. We had our last springrolls for a while, and spent the rest of our Vietnamese dong in the airport shops. We had more time in Bangkok than expected, so we figured that we had time for another massage. Not as posh and relaxed as the last one, but still a great way to spend the waiting time. The flight home was long, but both of us were actually able to sleep a little bit. Still we were quite tired when we landed in Oslo at 6:02 am (45 minutes early, and just 2 minutes after opening time). We were welcomed home by the first snow of the season. Luckily we had new jackets from the tailor, but our shoes were not really fit for winter.