Advertisement
Published: March 25th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Sapa
The silhouettes of the Tram Ton Pass So, having arrived in
HANOI we quickly immersed ourselves into the atmosphere, shopping and eating which the old quarter of the city had to offer. We decided to use HANOI as our final base in Vietnam to explore
SAPA and
HALONG BAY and we had great fun checking out the numerous travel agents to see who had what to offer. Having decided that we wanted to go to SAPA sooner rather than later on account of the good weather in the area, we booked on another Sleeper Train the same day we had arrived!!
(I think we were gluttons for punishment having only just stepped off the luxury(?) of the previous night's soft sleeper beds!!) We spent the rest of the day walking around
Hoan Kiem Lake and the visiting the
Jade Mountain Temple, including the rather strange tortoises, before boarding our train to SAPA. This time around it was not so bad and we shared our room with a Vietnamese girl (who was on holiday from Germany) and her very attentive boyfriend! All this was a bit wierd given that this was her first visit home in 10 years and he had not been to Germany? We decided not
Sapa
Katherine and her friends from the local minority tribes to ask too many questions!
Having arrived in SAPA, our itinerary had been swapped and of all the luck we had to stay in the hotel the first night!! This was a blessing in disguise as we had not offically slept for the last two days! The glorious views of SAPA were unfortunately hiding behind the constant haze of smoke from the illegal burning by farmers. However, it was warm enough to build up a good sweat, as we found out after visiting the minority village of Cat Cat. That evening we were just about able to keep our eyes open during dinner and were soon sound asleep in a seriously comfortable bed! For the following two days we trekked through several villages of the indigenous people of the area and also had a home-stay for one night. Not so much of an insight into the traditional way of life, but rather a bustling economy of beds for the many travellers passing along the route. The atmosphere was a bit 'Westernised' because of the sound of the infamous Karaoke booming out from the various local houses - the rice wine was definitely flowing freely between the respective hosts and
Halong Bay
Silver service on the Santa Maria guests.
Having been followed by numerous local ladies selling their ethnic handcrafts (including some factory items!) we managed to get to the end of the trek relatively purchase free!! (Actually Nathan found the charming ladies just too hard to resist and had me dressed up in all of his purchases!!!!!) However, at the last refreshment stop of the day we met the
Tour de Force of sellers in the form of three elderly ladies - these ladies knew the path we had walked and were ready to show us their items - even if this meant undressing us in the process!! Fortunately two French girls we had met previously came to our rescue and formed a diversion in the selling of their various bracelets, shirts, hats and pencil cases!! We quickly escaped via our pickup back to SAPA and caught another sleeper train back to Hanoi.
After an interlude of shopping in HANOI we took our trip to HALONG BAY with another couple from Sydney (How many Australians did we meet along the way!?!?!) The capacity of the boat was 16 people and we were fortunate to have the whole boat to the four of us - the crew out numbered us 2 to 1! The overnight stay was pure luxury and the food was some of the best we had eaten in Vietnam - this was the end of the travels and we were 'FLASH-PACKING' in style. It seemed at times when we were kayaking around the various islands that we and the local villagers were the only people in the World Heritage Site.....it was a definite highlight of the trip.
On arriving back to HANOI we visited the mausoleum of
Ho Chi Minh who never thought that he would end up in a glass cabinet with a multitide of visitors shuffling by everyday
(his dying wish was to be buried!). It was amazing to see the hundreds of children who were obviously brought to the final resting place of their former leader to pay their respects - I think the ice-creams they were all licking afterwards were far more appealing!!
So that is it! The travels are over and we have both so enjoyed our experiences of the country, the people and its history. The highlights for us were the beautiful views of hundreds of rice-paddies lining many of our routes, the Vietnamese people especially in the colourful ethnic villages, the opportunity to learn about the terrible effects of the war and the wonderful friendships we made along the way. Here's to our next trip......
Advertisement
Tot: 0.101s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 12; qc: 29; dbt: 0.023s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb