Blogs from Northwest, Vietnam, Asia - page 3

28 October to 3 November 2012 – This is the second part of my 14-day trip to the North West of Vietnam. The photographer and I got a bus from Sapa to Lai Châu town. It was my third visit to Lai Châu province over the past 3 months. When I first came to this province last July, I didn’t expect I would visit this province so many times this year. We planned to visit Pa Há and Pa Tần, but ended up going to Pa Há and Dào San. Both communes were new to us and it was possible to take a local bus from Lai Châu town. The reason why I chose Pa Há was that on my last visit to Lai Châu province last September, I talked to a H’mong man sitting next ... read more

It was something of an inauspicious start to our time in Vietnam. The border itself was an easy stroll across the Red River between checkpoints. However we were not even through Vietnamese customs before we were nearly chased back into China by touts. Vietnam is renowned for its touts. They don't call it Vietscam for nothing. Here, the ordinary rules do not apply. You're no longer a fascination to the locals, as in China. There's certainly no fear of impersonating an authority figure, or just plain lying. While we have grown to appreciate the Vietnamese industriousness, it is no surprise that that industriousness has long been known as deviance to South East Asian rivals. In the strictest sense, we weren't even in Vietnam when the Lao Cai mafia started to try and liberate us from our ... read more

We had a bit of a lay in but had to check out by 10am so moved our bags into L&A's (as they wre staying another night) before heading out for breakfast. We had breakfast in a lovely little cafe looking out at the beautiful scenery. We stayed there for a few hours eating, drinking and chatting before we realised it was nearly lunch. Lucy, Alex and Aidan decided to rent motorbikes but I was happy to just potter around the town, so after handing in some washing we went our seperate ways for a couple of hours. I had a walk around the town before settling down in a quite area outside a restaurant. The sun was shinning brightly and the view of the mist and cloud covered Sapa mountains and paddy fields was breath ... read more

We are a bit behind on our blog as since we arrived in Vietnam 8 days ago we have been having too much fun to go online much, but here is our entry from our first few days in the Northern town of Sapa... So, once we were stamped out of China we crossed a short bridge and entered Vietnam at last, which was a strange but exhilarating feeling. We have been so excited about coming to Vietnam for ages as it is somewhere we have been meaning to visit for the last few years but just haven't, so we have built up our expectations and hope it delivers over the next few weeks. One of the things we were a bit apprehensive about here was getting ripped off or scammed, as while we have heard ... read more

Never ever expect to have a good sleep on the floor of an airport; for one, its not comfy and two, its cold! That's been the worst part of the trip by far. Anyway, after maybe 2 hours sleep we got to Hanoi, a city full of mopeds and motorbikes, and despite the rumours that crossing the road is hard we seemed to manage quite well. The thing you have to watch out for are the cars, always look for the cars! They don't have the same turning circle as a bike does. The mopeds weren't the only things we noticed, the food too has been awesome. Maybe it is the change from curry or the reintroduction of meat to our diets that has made this food stand out, either way Vietnamese food is gorgeous. Chopsticks ... read more