Vietnam

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Hi again,

We arrived in Hanoi Airport early in the morning and had arranged through our hotel for a guy to pick us up and take us to Hanoi city and our hotel, Little Hanoi which was located in the old quarter. As soon as we left the airport we were hit by the crazy traffic and it only got worse as we got closer to Hanoi. There are no words that can describe the roads and traffic in Hanoi, its absolutely mad. There are thousands of mopeds, cars, bicycles, tricycles etc on the roads and no one follows any kind of rules or regulations, even a red light does not automatically mean stop, it means you should stop but most people don’t. We found it extremely difficult to even cross the road outside our hotel and were jumping for joy, hi fiving, every time we managed to cross one.

After a quick shower and change at the hotel we went to meet Sarah and Luke (from Ski Rider), they moved to Hanoi for six months to teach English and had arrived a couple of days prior to us. We were so excited to see our friends again and made extra effort to stand out by wearing our ski rider work uniform, it did the trick. We spent the rest of the day catching up, eating local food and sampling the Vietnamese beer.

The second day in Hanoi we went sightseeing, first stop was the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, unfortunately "Uncle Ho" was in Russia for restoration so we visited the history museum and the War museum. After a few hours of anti American propaganda (always fun) we went to the park, and saw a few women squatting down for a pee (hopefully) and a few guys playing with rifles, nice!

The next day started well...I got slapped by an angry Vietnamese woman (for no reason), we got robbed by a taxi driver and Steve got a note on his back saying f#*k you, you have to laugh. Friendly lot these Vietnamese! After this ordeal, we were ready for a break and booked our trip to Halong bay with the famous Kangaroo cafe. We booked a 2 day tour, with one night on the boat. Halong bay is a Unesco World Heritage site and consists of 1960 limestone islands in various size and shapes, several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Around the islands are floating villages of fishermen.

We were picked up early the next morning in a minibus which took us to Halong bay, approximately a four hours drive from Hanoi. During the bus ride we met our fellow travellers, there were three Aussies, a Kiwi, six Poms (including two Steve's from Bradford), a Scot, a Swede and a Canadian guy, a really nice bunch of people. We boarded the boat and were given a room each, the rooms were fantastic, and ours even had a little balcony. After a seafood lunch we went kayaking and then some people hiked up to the top of one of the islands, me and Steve opted for the beach. After dinner we played drinking games and sang Karaoke with the boat crew, it was one of those unexpected truly hilarious nights which we will not forget. At one stage of the night we were all singing national anthems, I had to sing the Swedish national anthem on my own, but I think I did Swedish people proud. The second day we all felt a bit hangover from the previous nights partying, but with no time to spare, we headed straight for the 'Amazing cave'. The cave was enormous, like nothing we had ever seen before, really worth a visit. After the cave we did some swimming and then we set off back to the pier for some lunch and then bus back to Hanoi. All in all our trip to Halong bay was great thanks to our brilliant guide 'the leader' and all the nice people we met on board.

Back in Hanoi we were planning our next trip to Sapa and also catching up with Sarah and Luke. Luke had manage to find a nice apartment for them to rent and Sarah was doing good in her teaching classes, preparing for her first real teaching experience. One night we met up with Bradford Steve Number 2 and Dan from the Halong bay tour, as well as Sarah and Luke for a beer hoi session. Beer hoi is the cheapest beer you can buy in Hanoi, it cost about 10-18 pence per glass, the funny thing is that no one knows how strong it is, but it tastes good. You sit on small nursery school chairs around tiny tables on the payment, sometimes even on the street and you don't have to order the beer it just keeps coming.

The next day we took the train to Lao Cai, which is about 5 km from the Chinese boarder and then mini bus to Sapa. Sapa lies at the altitude of 1600m and is home to a great diversity of ethnic minority people. There are five different ethnic minority tribes in and around Sapa, the H'mong, the Zay, Tay, Yao and a small number of Xe Pho. All the different ethnic minority tribes live in harmony in villages around Sapa, which is used as the main trade town.

When we arrived in Sapa we checked in to our hotel and went straight to bed for a few hours. After some sleep and a healthy breakfast we were ready to explore Sapa. We checked out the market, where H'mong women were selling handicraft, food and fruit, the fruit is really good in Vietnam, especially the green fruit that tastes like an orange. Everywhere we went we were followed by tribes women who wanted us to by handicraft from them, they all said: 'you buy from me?' and we said 'no thank you', but why not? 'You buy later?' No thank you, 'but why not?' etc. They all speak really good English, much better than the rest of the people in Vietnam, even the children speak English really well, and apparently they just pick it up from tourist.

Eleven and a half months have now passed, our time is up, a week today we'll be on a plane back to England, so this will be the last blog entry from us for a while. Overall Vietnam has been well "interesting". Very different from the other parts of Asia we have visited but certainly not to be missed....anyhow, bye for now and see you all soon. Maja and Steve

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Photos

Our guides
we felt like giants

Street food
witht he worlds smallest chairs

Uncle Ho
Currently in Russia getting a re-wax

Killer Coffee
High for a week!

Minhs Jazz Club
The place to be!