Slippery Sapa

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We had to spend 4 days in Hanoi to await our visa extensions - yes, that's how long it take and it costs USD20 each, and you have to go through your guesthouse - there is no option to arrange it directly with Immigration. So we thought we'd make the most of it and explore by foot, as is our wont.

Hanoi is a lovely city with a beautiful lake and parks - some of them you need to pay an entrance fee to enter. We found sanctuary from the noisy streets in a little roof terrace restaurant whose staff we befriended over the few days we were there (Ning Bia). It was a great place to watch the daily life on the street in Hanoi - I was mesmerised one afternoon watching the motorbikes carrying anything from hundreds of rolls of toilet paper to delivering refrigerators. Remarkable.

Hanoi is where we saw the launch of the World Cup. Fortunately for us there is a great Australia bar and restaurant called Jaspa's that had 3 screens showing all the games. We had some great nights there and also took advantage of the beautiful Aussie black and pepper steak they serve - mmm-MMM!!

We were most upset when we realised that our overnight train to Sapa left at half time in the first England v Paraguay game. We saw the first half in Jaspa's then lo and behold, there was a TV in the buffet carriage of our train showing the match!

We saw the game through a haze of smoke - every railway worker in Vietnam seemed to be in the carriage smoking their lungs out! (Later that week we were to discover that you could really see the football ANYWHERE in Vietnam - we saw the Australia v Japan match at a home stay in a village in the hills of Sapa - more about that later....)

Sapa really is stunning; the tiered rice paddy fields run as far as the eye can see in some places, and the local minorities look beautiful in their traditional dress. We arranged to do a 2 day trek with Sonja and Sarah. We apparently walked 16 km the first day through rice fields, villages and lots of mud!

Some of the local villagers try to sell you bracelets and embroidery along the way, but they are no bother, and are really quite helpful when the terrain becomes muddy and slippery. They walk everywhere in simple shoes and are really quite agile on the hills! The majority is the Hmong (whose jewellery I favoured!) with Red Tzao being the next common. All of them are charming people and have some interesting stores to tell if you have the time to listen.

We stayed a night in a village that actually appeared to be an organised village especially for tourists. However, we had fun that night watching the football with the family - and Steve became the best friend of the owner of the house who happened to be the son of the Chief of Police of the province (nudge, nudge, wink,wink) and was a Customs Officer at the China border. Once he discovered Steve could speak Mandarin, well that was it - out came the local whiskey - none of which was offered to us girls - not really sure if he noticed we were there actually....

Anyway, the man-of-the-house actually placed his chair directly in front of Steve thereby impeding his view of the telly, and proceeded to down whiskies with his new found friend! Sonja, Sarah and I left them to it and went to bed ..... there was no escape for Stevie. However he did make his excuses the next morning when he was asked to join said chappie for a breakfast beer or two before heading of on his motorbike to work!

The 2nd day of trekking was less work than the previous day but still enjoyable. As we ended the walk with an ascent of a rather steep hill that would take at least 20 minutes to walk up, Steve spotted two children carrying wood. One of our guides took the weight off the boy who was carrying long bamboo poles. Steve took the back-basket from the girl. He was amazed at how heavy the weight of the basket was so decided to take it up the hill for the girl. I picked the girl up and gave her a piggy-back up the hill - she weighed next to nothing - lighter than the day pack I was carrying. These two kids must have been no taller than 60cm each, and were about 6 years old. Some sights in Vietnam really do break your heart.

All in all Sapa was wonderful and we would recommend it to anyone. Do remember to take walking shoes though, unlike two Aussie girls we overheard complaining that no-one had told them to bring shoes for the mountain-trekking and only brought slide-on mules.....

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