A little bit of panic....

So at 4am a guy comes up with his torch and indicates it is time for us to get off the bus....we were not expecting it to be this early and as we get off the bus on the side of the road several men pounce on us offering a cab or motorbike ride. We are trying to get our luggage and establish how much we should pay with our bus guy but he had no idea what we were trying to say. So the bus drives off and we are standing there trying to get a price and where we want to go (which is to a hotel close to the airport)....we settle on a couple of dollars each and jump on the back of a bike each. I am chuckling to myself as we are hooning up the road in the pitch black, having no idea if they are taking us to the right place or not and thinking, how many people do this shit....lol. I spot what I reckon is the airport and we go to the right to the top level but Tanya's guy goes straight ahead....my guy beeps his horn and we wave but I lose sight of them.....he pulls up outside the airport and I am trying to tell him we wanted to go to a hotel and where the bloody hell was my friend....all I get is Vietnamese gibberish, a few hand signals and he rides off.......I am left standing there in shock thinking Tanya will come up any second now.....I cross the road to look over the balcony but can not see her anywhere......yes folks this is where I say....OMFG, he has kidnapped her and how the hell am I going to communicate with these morons here to find her (& worse still, tell Lorraine & Gran I have lost her). To say I was slightly freaked out was an understatement.....I even asked a lady walking past where that road goes to but you guessed it....no freaking English. FINALLY.....after what seemed like forever, I saw her walking with her guy out of the dark down below.....I am waving my arms frantically and calling out till she finally looks up.....phew...relief....I tell her i will come down to her, which of course do you think I could find the stairs......When I finally find them we were both so happy but also cranky with these stupid people. It is still dark and bloody early so we decide to wait at the airport and see if we are able to change our flight to today as the only reason I booked it for tomorrow was it leaves at 8.30am & as the buses are not reliable with times & we got to Sapa at 7.30am & assumed we would get back here at the same time we did not want to miss our flight.....anyway, we had to wait for Jetstar to open so we sat there for 2 hours...with no internet because the airport is the only place in Vietnam with no free WiFi & everyone I asked about it either didn't understand or just said no. Finally a lady gets into the booth but takes about 10 minutes to actually acknowledge us & is a bit of a cranky pants....I said to Tanya I wanted the cardboard cut out lady to serve us as she actually looks happy....lol. So she tells us how much it is to change flights & as we thought was way too much so it's off to find a hotel. Tanya asked a young girl at an information desk once again about WiFi....& shock horror....she gave her a password. So we look up hotels nearby & pick one very close. When we walk outside the taxi guys all ask you where you are going and after telling about 20 of them the answers ranged from really expensive, don't know where that is or didn't want the fare as it was too close...so we decided to walk but after one more minivan guy asked us & we said no to his price he called out after us with the price we wanted...finally. In we jump and we were glad we didn't walk as they are building a new International Airport next to the existing one and the road is a bit all over the place. Anyway this guy had no clue where this hotel was & took us to one that was expensive & we said no, so went to another one across the road and we got out & Tanya looked at the room but it was crappy & they had no WiFi...& yes that is a major priority. We thank the driver & tell him we will find something & off we wander. We see a sign for one that we recognise from the internet & go in for a look. The guy tells us a price that was more than we want to pay so we say no thanks but he tells us a lower price which although is nearly triple what we have been paying (due to being so close to the airport), we look at the room & take it. And we intend on staying in the room all day as we have no desire to walk down anymore crappy streets & try & speak to people who have no interest in speaking to us. We have showers & go downstairs for some Pho & fried rice and free tea & coffee (nice bonus). Back to the room for resting & lots of internet research for our stop over in Bankok & also cooking classes in Chang Mai. Our t.v only have Vietnamese channels which is a bit of a bummer but Tanya found a channel & though she would try a bit of Yoga/Exercise, Vietnamese style.....lol. We spent the whole day in our room & at about 5pm we walked out to the street & had some fried rice which was pretty ordinary. When we got back to the room I had a great idea of downloading our favourite t.v show, Winners & Losers & catching up....it took a bit of mucking around to get it to work on the tablet & my phone but we got it sorted & had a couple of hours of bliss. Now we are downloading last weeks episode & also Master Chef to watch while on planes, trains & automobiles :-) Time for bed now, up early to the airport to fly to Ho Chi Minh & then to Bankok in the arvo. Alvo xo