Wander More Work Less

We arrived into Auckland fine and whizzed through passport control and customs with our carry on bags. The domestic terminal though was in chaos. Flights being delayed and cancelled, people sent home, then recalled, Wellington particularly impacted due to wind and Blenheim by an engineering issue. We had to check our bigger bags for the smaller plane to home. They accepted the bags and we waited to see if we would get to fly home or not. Messages from Nelson suggest weather there is crap too, heavy rain and low cloud but not too windy. It's supposed to improve later in the day. 🤞 A few final thoughts on this trip. You could describe it as "the trip of a life time" which is true. But I don't want to rule out doing something even better in future. Just not the near future. My favourite part of this adventure was definitely the Greek Island hopping part. We loved Santorini and Naxos in particular, but also enjoyed the other islands as well.  Second place goes to the Pra...

It was an early start, but not too bad — a 6 a.m. alarm so we had time for a shower and final pack-up before breakfast at 6:30 a.m. We checked out and ordered our Grab car to the airport, which arrived very quickly. A really efficient service. The traffic was typical Hanoi, but it’s amazing how well it flows with their cautious merging, turning, and constant looking out to avoid hitting one another. Their city intersections don’t even have stop signs — just a slow-down-and-proceed-with-caution approach. There are a few traffic lights at major intersections, but not many. There were slow parts of the drive, but we never stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It works well here, but would never work in New Zealand. We arrived at the airport before 9 a.m., having already checked in online via the Vietnam Airlines website. We’re heading to Hong Kong first, then on to Auckland with Air New Zealand. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly. 🤞 It certainly pays not to read the news on the day of a...

These hotel breakfasts are a nice way to start the day — and hopefully, we’re walking most of it off each day. It's certainly a lot more calories than muesli or corn flakes! We’ll find out the impact when we check the bathroom scales in a few days’ time. This morning, we decided to combine a walk and a visit to the West Lake area with a Geocaching Event that a pair from the USA were hosting. It was another chaotic walk to get there. I’m not sure you could ever get desensitised to this environment! We saw some beautifully coloured houses next to a canal just before reaching the lake. Once at the lake, we zeroed in on the event coordinates, which were at a bridge beside a small pagoda. We were about ten minutes late for the 10 a.m. start, but there didn’t appear to be anyone there. Bit weird — even for Geocachers! There were two young guys sitting at a table inside the pagoda courtyard, so I approached them to see if they were the hosts. They didn’t speak any ...

Another day and another hot, crazy walk on the streets of Hanoi. This morning we headed to an old city gate called Quan Chưởng. It was originally built in 1749 and rebuilt in 1817. It’s one of 21 remaining gates that once allowed access to the Thăng Long Citadel — the place we passed yesterday on the way to the mausoleum. Next, we went to a shopping market we had read about called Dong Xuan Market — three floors filled with all sorts of small stores, from electronics to fabrics and dried foods. A real mixture of things. Prices seemed pretty good. I bought a 128GB micro SD card for $20 and a pair of cheap sunglasses for $3. We’ll see if either of them are any good. Oh, and we got another fridge magnet for 80 cents. It was time to try and find a geocache — a physical one stuck under the handrail of a famous bridge. Or at least we think it’s famous. There were a lot of people standing on it taking selfies. Yep it turns out it's a well known landmark...

A slightly later start to our morning walk today, as we needed to sort a few things out. I say “later start,” but really it wasn’t — we started walking at 8:15 a.m. Not that late! Maybe it just felt late because I’d been awake since 3:30 a.m., unable to get back to sleep. Frustrating. My body takes ages to adapt to the time zone difference. I cheated the first night with a sleeping pill, and I’ll probably need to cheat again tonight. Sorry, a bit of rambling there. 😂 Anyway, we walked to one of the most well-known and famous places in Hanoi — Train Street. Many people have seen or heard about it even if they don’t know exactly where it is. It’s here! We picked our way through the crazy, hectic streets to visit it. It’s very cool — the train runs right down past all the cafés and shops alongside the tracks. The tracks were there first, I believe, and everything else slowly built up around them. We arrived with only 20 minutes to wait for the next morning train, which was go...

We enjoyed a nice hotel breakfast — a real treat to have someone make scrambled eggs for me, and they were cooked perfectly. There was also bacon, toast, and a few slightly unusual items such as fried squid and pork on a stick of lemongrass. I tried one but not the other. Passionfruit flavoured juice and a couple of cups of good coffee rounded things out nicely. We then ventured out to explore a bit further than we had last night. Navigating the streets wasn’t too bad — you just need to stay focused. We first went to the nearby Hoan Kiem Lake. It was lovely in the shade of the big trees, and lots of people were out exercising, doing tai chi, or dancing in groups. We circled to the opposite side and then entered the French Quarter. This area has much wider, boulevard-style streets and a number of beautiful French-influenced buildings. We missed seeing the Hanoi Opera House, so we may need to pop back to check that out another day. We did stop at the Ly Thai To Garden, which ...