Late flight, so arranged late checkout at 2pm - plenty of time for something this morning. Decided to go to Silk Market - TA posts tell us you can buy spectacles there very reasonably, and they can be ready within the hour.
After breakfast in our room, decided to try the MTR on our own, it didn't look too bad, only one change - no problems for a cluey pair like us! Trains were very crowded, but made it through okay, found our way to the right place, arriving around 9:20 - only 10 minutes to wait till opening.
Straight to 4th floor and a kiosk that had been recommended on TA. They have a machine that analyzes your current lens so they can reproduce the prescription. Found a frame I liked (Prada) then Errol did the bartering. They started asking 2500, and didn't like our offer of 120! They came down some, but Errol wouldn't budge. We started to walk away, and they grabbed his arm and pulled him back - we finally paid 160 (about $aus26 - 27) for glasses and frames. It is such a good idea to research before you go away! This is the price we had read was achieved by others, otherwise would probably not have bothered after their original pricing.
They were only going to take half an hour to make, so we wandered around for a bit. Errol finally bought something - he didn't have a clean shirt for tomorrow! I tried on a few D&G trench coats, but they didn't look right on me - no idea what the price was.
Back onto the MTR to Oriental Plaza - HUGE shopping centre, not far from hotel. Lovely places for lunch. Decided on Thai today. Walk back to hotel, freshen up, final packing and checked out.
Flight to Hanoi was a little late leaving, and was not due in till around 11:30pm but the captains first comments talked about arriving at 9:30 ish. We were confused, but pleased with the idea that we wouldn't have such a late night after all. But as we started our descent, the pilot announced our imminent arrival at another city in China - we had no idea where we were! It was just a stop over though, and Hanoi arrival time was still about the same. Now the ridiculous started: all passengers had to get off the plane with our carryon baggage, which in itself is not unusual. They took us on a bus to the terminal, in through a ground floor door, up stairs, through customs (!!!this was an internal China flight so far!!!) through security check (just incase we had managed to sneak something in our bags out of thin air), back down stairs, out a ground floor door, onto a bus and back to the plane!!! What a waste of time!
The rest of the flight was uneventful, arrival in Hanoi was a little late, but the guide and driver were there to meet us, and the people at Hanoi Elegance Ruby hotel were wonderful. They sat us with cold drinks and refresher towels while they brought paperwork to us. It is a very small hotel, but our room was lovely, and joy of joys, there is a laptop I'm the room, and wifi is excellent.
There are even rose petals on the bed and floating in the bathroom sink.
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