10 Mar 2025
We landed at Hanoi at 4:30 am. and had cleared immigration, collected our luggage, ordered a Grab ( local Uber) transport and driven the 30 minute journey to the Pan Pacific hotel in Hanoi by 5:30 am: surely a record. Once at the hotel we obtained a day rate for early arrival and were shown to our room on the 16th floor with gorgeous views over the Red River: albeit very misty views.. We settled down quickly for a 3 to 4 hours sleep which still gave us time to be in the executive lounge for breakfast well before it closed at 10:30 am.
We really enjoyed our breakfast with magnificent views. over one of Hanoi‘s Lake, but once again with terrible pollution. We then went out for a short walk which actually absorbed us for almost 3 hours and was really interesting, seeing the old French buildings that have survived and a temple that dated from the eighth century.
Pan Pacific Hotel, Hanoi
Click on thumbnail photo below to get larger photo
Click on thumbnail photo below to get larger photo
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Back at the hotel I ironed all the screwed up clothes in the two suitcases so that we should be more respectable once we boarded the Rivercraft in the morning. We went up to the executive lounge for tea at 3:30 pm and we’re back there again by 6:30 pm for Tapas and a drink of Wine. We actually stayed there for over three hours as we got chatting to a very interesting Australian from Brisbane who worked for the Australian Ministry of Defence and had studied physics too. After this we went up to the top floor of the hotel to see their drinks lounge but were not tempted to drink yet more and just took a picture of the views. So to bed to get ready to check in with Pandaw Cruises tomorrow after breakfast.
Click on thumbnail photo below to get larger photo
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