Sapa and beyond

Low cloud

We've covered a huge distance since our last blog. We've been to hill tribes in Vietnam, chilled out Laos and then travelled all the way to Southern Thailand.

We arrived in Sapa, in the North Vietnamese mountains, without any plans, as usual. Sapa town has plenty of amenities, and looks a bit like an alpine ski town. There are, however, ethnic minotity tribeswomen from various different trbes walking around in their colourful traditional dress - you don't get that in the Alps! Of course they all want to sell you something, but we did get talking to one particular woman called Ma, who offered to be our guide on a 2 day trek.


Ma, our guide in Sapa
 



Ker who accompanied us on our hike.
Great Hair!

   When we started out Ma had 3 of her friends with her, one of whom was 9 months pregant! The 6 of us set off up the hill out of the town. We were on paths running between the terraced rice fields, up in the clouds - a beautiful landscape with amazing views. We walked a quiet route, to avoid being followed by hoardes of souvenir sellers. It worked - we hardly saw anyone for hours. This left us with the challenge of a much longer route included steep inclines. We finally stopped for lunch at one of the women's houses. It was very basic, with dirt floors and a fire to cook on, but they had the only TV in the village, so the house was full of all the neighbours' kids. After lunch the women who'd accompanied us asked us to but some of their jewelery and handicrafts, they were pretty instistant, which left us feelng pretty conflicted as they are really poor yet we had stated clearly at the start that we weren't interested in buying anything - just interested in the tour. We relented and we did buy a few things it was a difficult situation being on a tight budget oursleves, yet being so much richer than the tribes-people. We left wishing we could have helped them more. Oh woe to internal conflicts!


Ok, so I became addicted to taking photos of rice terraces..

 

Looks like hard work!

Ma's house amongst the rice fields

By the time we arrived at our homestay, just before dark, after nearly 20km, and felt like we just climbed kilamanjaro ha ha. We were absolutely knackered. We were greated by our very friendly host. It was much plusher than our lunch-stop - like a Vietnamese B&B. There was thankfully less walking the second day. We visited Ma's house and met her very cute kids before getting back to Sapa exhausted and filthy.

Rice Paddies

We were sad to leave Vietnam after enjoying it so much, but we wanted to squeeze in an unplanned stop at Luang Prabang in Laos, and we weren't disappointed. It's a beautiful town, like France 100 years ago. And it's by far the most chilled out town we've visited. The constant sound of car horns and motorbike engines, present in your average Asian city, is replaced by birds singing and boats cruising up the river - bliss! We went to a copule of temples in LP, to the royal palace and ate some great cheap eats (less than one pound each ) at the nighmarket. We also spent a day kayaking up the Mekong - which we thought would be gentle until we got in the boat, when the guide announced that there would be 'some rapids'! But with some frantic paddling we made it to the cave of Buddhas and the Whiskey village without a soaking. And while we were in LP, Liz was crowned Queen of the Hmong tribe! (see photo).

Queen of the Hmong Tribe!



The main road in Luang Prabang at about 6pm.
No sign of rush hour here!

BBQ at the night market, Luang Prabang

The Mekong, Luang Prabang

Liz's low-impact kayaking technique

After LP, we knew we faced some long journeys. Travel time by road in Laos are measured in days rather than hours. We took the least worst option, to fly to the Laotian capital, Vientiane (a small city, but unremarkable compared to LP), bus it over the border into Thailand, and fly to Phuket. This is one of the Thai islands, but not the one we really wanted to see. So we then island hopped to Krabi. We stayed in a lovely resort nestling in the jungle, with the luxury of a pool. But we were less impressed with the seafront town, which looked like Skegness. So some more research and yet another long bus journey later, has brought us to Ko Lanta, which we'll tell you about in our next post.

Chilling in Krabi



Backpacker's champagne

 

Hope those of you in England are enjoying the heatwave (it's cooled down a bit here, so we've got the same temperatures that you're promised).

Enjoy the photos.

Hanoi, Cat Ba Island & Halong Bay

Hello All

Welcome to our next installment from Vietnam...

In Hanoi we stayed in the Old Quarter, which was pretty interesting - like a maze with each street selling one thing. There was a kind of B&Q road where all of the tools were spilling out into the streets. Others sold just safes, bamboo poles, pots n pans etc. Unfortunately there isn't really one with a concentration of places to eat. We arrived in Hanoi tired and hungry, only to find this out, leaving us floundering around hungry, although we did eventually fill our tummies :)

Hanoi is where we finally bit the bullet and bought our very own note book laptop. We were getting fed up with using cafes and ancient computers, with slow broadband in hotel receptions. Praise the lord for this decision - happy days :) Although no Facebook as it's illegal in Vietnam. I've only been able to connect to it once!

We saw a Water Puppetry performance, which is a ancient art form here, it was pretty interesting for a one off but not exactly Avatar special affects ha ha!



Water Puppets. Why the sad faces? (see bottom of blog)

Anyone whose been to SE Asia will know how popular and numerous night markets are here, but Hanoi had the edge, not necessaraly on quality, but on the sheer scale of the thing! it seemed to go on for miles and causes a 'moto traffic jam' :)

After Hanoi we took the slow bus and fast ferry to Cat Ba island. We arrived just in time to find them paving paradise - or so it seemed. In fact most of the island is a national park, but the road between the ferry port and Cat Ba town will soon be filled with posh resorts. Cat Ba town itself is a bit like Southend on Sea. The most fun to be had was watching how many Vitenamese can fit on a tandem (4) and a scooter (5). But once we got our own scooter and got out of town, we discovered the beauty of the island. We hiked to top of 'mountain' in National Park. It was only 250m high, but climbing up through the jungle in the heat and humididty it felt like a mountain. Thankfully the fantastic view of the island from the top was worth it.

Marc at the top of Cat Ba Island

From the island, we took a boat trip to in Halong Bay. We imagined it to be one large bay, but it in fact covers a huge area with around 2,600 limestone karsts (islands) surrounded by turquoise sea, with a few white sandy beaches and caves thrown in for good measure. It is a truly beatiful location!

We spent 2 days and one night on board our own private 50 ft 'junk' boat which we had to ourselves (except our guide, two crew, a cat and some huge cockroaches). Apart from gawping at the scenery, we did some swimming and kayaking and had tons of good food - all very relaxing. We watched an amazing sunset the night we spent on the water then played poker and drank wine, before sleeping on the roof of the boat - our first one million star hotel!

Halong Bay

European hair vs humid Asian climate. No contest!

(I've yet to have a 'good hair day' here)

Sunset on 'our' boat

On the second day we stopped off at Monkey Island. We set off on a walk, not realising our guide was planning to take us beyond all the paths to the peak of the island. This involved climbing a bamboo ladder with most of the rungs missing and scrambling up jagged rocks on all fours. 2 knackered pairs of flip-flops, and one cut foot later we gave up and came down. And to add insult to injury we never saw the monkeys!
Luckily we avoided a strike by the boat crews, which we later learned affected people in the days immediately after our trip. Phew!



Now you know!



Viva Vietnam

Welcome to Vietnam!

Our first port of call was Phu Quoc island.We booked into the only the only hotel in our price range with a pool. Big mistake! It turned out to be a Communist style goulag, with an army of teenagers seemingly employed to watch the rubbish accumulate around their feet. It did have a pool, but the bathroom was almost as damp, with black mould everywhere, the stench of which did not go down well with Liz's bloodhound sense of smell. Luckily we transferred to a  much nicer hotel a bit further up the beach.

This was the first time we've ridden a scooter. It was a great idea, as we got to wobble sedately around the island for a couple of days on the red dirt roads. We got covered in dust, but it allowed us to go to explore the island. The coast road at dusk was awesome, with palm trees, the shimmering silver sea and fisherman's huts dotted along it. We also discovered a paradise beach called Sao Bai, surrounded by jungle, with white powder sand, clear turquoise waters, and a few really colourful jellyfish. We spent loads of time in the water. The only downside was the litter on the beach, which we later found to be a Vietnam-wide problem, much to Liz's annoyance - Nowhere is perfect!

Next stop was the Mekong delta, a landscape with brown rivers snaking through the jungle in all directions. We spent a day on a little wooden boat, with Yick, who was determined to play tricks on Liz and make her jump at every opportunity. We visited a couple of interesting floating markets, where the old Vietnamese women still row around wearing conical hats. We walked through a riverside orchard with mango, papaya, jackfruit, bananas, and water coconuts. This is where we discovered our new favourite drink - mango smoothies.

 


















 After the tranquility of the Mekong came the madness of Ho Ch Minh City (or Saigon). Described to as once as 'like the start of the London marathon, but with everyone on motos', this is a perfect description of the roads in HCM. At junctions the traffic just merges through each other, without anyone stopping or any crashes. It takes a while to learn how to cross these roads where the traffic never stops - you just walk slowly across and the traffic swerves to avoid you. The zebra crossings mean nothing. Maybe surprisingly we've continued to make it across in one piece! Despite this there doesn't appear to be any road rage.

There were only occasionally over zealous touts in HCM, which was great! Neither of us had high hopes for this city but surprisingly we both loved it! Despite the traffic, including continuous use of horns, the city has many saving graces, including some lovely parks and wide pavements. We never felt claustrophobic as we have on occasion elsewhere . There's more of a western feel to it, whilst remaining distinctly Asian, with less poverty and mostly friendly people, although our cyclo riders did try to rip us off!

The Cu Chi tunnels were next. These are a network of 250km of complex tiny underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong to outwit the Americans during the war. It was amazing to learn how these 16,000 Vietnamese villagers lived underground by day and farmed by night during the 'American War' as it's known. Only 4,000 survived, but what resilience they showed! The tunnels are too small for us 'fat westerners' (as they like to remind us at any given opportunity, and especially when shopping for clothes ha ha)  But we did crawl through a tunnel, especially enlarged for us western bloaters lol

Following this we visited the War Remnants Museum. We found this particularly harrowing and we struggled to understand the pointlessness of this war and the devastation caused. I (Liz) struggles with some feelings of anger. I'll say no more.

Happy Hoi An :) We loved this town, the old quarter especially, with it's old chinese influenced buildings and narrow streets! At night the whole town is lit by beautiful and colourful Chinese lanterns - quite the sight!

Here we attended a cookery course, which was excellent. We are now Michelin star quality Vietnamese chefs! Seriously, it was fun and we got to cook and eat some of the tastiest food we've had in Vietnam.

Our1st train ride to Hue was really cool. The scenery was spectacular to view from the train snaking along the mountain side. Vistas included the beautiful untouched beaches below and the rugged mountains - excellent! Hue seemed like a nice place, but we didn't see much, except the citadel, where the emperor and his concubines and Eunochs once lived. We also took a cyclo - like a Victorian bath chair attached to a bike - to the Pagoda. This is now Liz's new favourite mode of transport.  She expects to be taken around London like this on our return!

We're writing this on the 15 hour long overnight sleeper train to Hanoi. What an experience! We're in the 'deluxe' 4 berth soft sleeper, with such luxuries as 2 coat hooks each. It's like a prison cell but with less space and more beds. It's so bumpy, and everything creeks over every bump, so you hear the bumps as well as felling them. Good job it moves so slowly. Liz became rather too familiar with the squat toilet over the course of the journey too, so we only got 4 hours shut-eye.

We love Vietnam so far, and can't wait to go to Ha Long Bay and Sapa in the mountains. We'll keep you posted next time...