Week 19 Halong Bay

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Dear Blog,

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me, Happy birthday dear me........ For I'm a jolly good fellow...hip hip hooray....

Spending my 31st in a tiny town in northern Laos, its only just gone midday, adn already had a couple of shots of the local devils water called lao lao, which is surprisingly nice if drunk with coke.

But, not as young as I used to be, so taking it steady!! Hmm wonder how long that will last. Unfortunately there isn't much to do here apart from the Plain of Jars which we saw yesterday so will prob drink self into a stupor and toast absent friends. Just have to convince Alex first that this is a good plan. Sure it wont take much.

Anyway, am really going through a dry patch regarding keeping you updated. Think I left my enthusiasm in Vietnam So I'm just going to speed through my last few days there...

So, the next day, I booked two tours, one to Halong Bay and another to SaPa as I thought this would keep me out of trouble for a bit and be a good way to meet some new people.

I spent the next three days on a Junk, which was quite litteraly a piece of junk, cruising around Halong bay, which is spectacular...lots of limestone rocks rising high out of the sea, many with caves and monastries perched precariously on top. Went Kayaking at sunset exploring the caves and paddling past floating villages, trekking though the jungle on Cat Ba Island and generally having a really good laugh with my fellow groupees..namely Alex (from S.Africa), Mince (Leeds) , Jen and Steve (America) and Chris and Alice (Brazil).

When we finally got back to Hanoi after a long cramped mini bus journey, had a quick shower and a bite to eat with the group before heading off on a 12 hour overnight train jouney to SaPa in the north of Vietnam. Had an amazingly restful nights sleep, and met a couple of english girls who had verbal diarrhoea and so couldn't get a word in edgeways.

Ended up staying in a lovely hotel with stunning views looking down the valley... high mountains topped with clouds, and terraced rice fields high up the sides of the mountains. It was just the image of Vietnam that I had in my mind.

Again was really lucky to meet some really cool people on the tour, so spent the next 3 days visiting tribal villages, spending lots of money on presents and generlly enjoying the solitude and quiet for probably only the second time in the last few weeks.

One night we stayed in a homestead in a small village in the mountains, with no running water and very basic sleeping accomodation, but really enjoyed the experience. Spent the evening playing a crazy vietnamese card game with our crazy guide during which I nearly broke all my fingers and lost badly, drinking rice wine, which is actually quite nice, but consequently manged to fall off and break my little plastic chair that I had been sitting on much to my embarrassment. The next day however, instead of chucking the chair, it had been stacked along with all the others ready for its next unsuspecting victim! Not by me I might add...think our guide might have had something to do with it.

When we got back to Sapa we found an english pub which was totally surreal... ate beans on toast and had a cup of earl grey...heaven!

Caught the train back to Hanoi and was kept awake all night by an elderly gentleman snoring all night long...even resorted to hitting him with my plastic bottle (not too hard) but nothing stopped him, so when I got to Hanoi at 4.30 am was totally knackered. Ended up sitting outside my hotel waiting to collect my rucksack until 7am when it opened, but seeing that most of Hanoi was already awake spent the morning people watching.

Met up with Alex later that day as we had decided to cross into Laos together as we had heard that there were plenty of scams afoot and that there was safety in numbers...little did we know!!

Fogg x

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