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Published: November 13th 2009
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Hello, wanna buy something from me? That's what we heard some 100 times a day here in Vietnam.
A quick review of what we did after Thailand :
We visited only the north of Vietnam (2 weeks), and we were a little surprised of the touristic bomb that has exploded here. In some places there are more tourists then vietnamese it seems.
Luckily we did only the north, considering the typhoon that blasted against the middle of the country about a week ago. A lot of travellers that wanted to go from north to south vietnam got stuck somewehere in between. But, as we escaped earthquakes in indonesia, duststorms in Australia, floodings in Papua and Sulawesi and god knows what else in other countries, we escaped this typhoon too.
Our journey started in Hanoi : a completely crazy place, where crossing the street is like zigzagging accross a minefield! Hanoi is packed with hundreds of thousands of motorbikes and there are apparently no traffic rules, honking horns everywhere, combined with riksja's, women carrying their goods in bamboo baskets,...Asia at it's best!
If you know that Vietnam has 80 mio. inhabitants and 60 mio. motorbikes, it's no
surprise that the streets are full of it.
The old city of Hanoi nevertheless is an interesting place to stroll around, dine in some very fine restaurants and …..to shop!
After Hanoi, the must-do Halong Bay! Magnificient views, lovely cruiseboat and nice swimming on Monkey Island. On the other hand : hords of tourists and you're part of a (well organised) tourist industry. Although we complaint to one another that there were too many tourists, we secretely both enjoyed being on an organised tour: don't think, relax and follow!
We did a 3-day tour, spending one night on the boat and one in a hotel on Cat Ba Island : a good combination, with a divers program of relaxing, trekking and swimming. (and kayaking if we wanted to, but we really don't like to peddle in a kayak for 2 persons. Let's say we don't coordinate very well in a kayak: “No no Raf, I said to peddle right! No No, not toooo much to the right. Oh now, watch out for that boat!” We did it before in Australia and it didn't work well....
Little advice here : hop in with several tour agents to compare
the prices (the programs are al the same, no matter what they say), as a lot of people we met, paid double, triple and even 4 times the price we did for the same thing!! (we paid 74 USD pp)
Oh yeah, and in Vietnam they don't inform tourists about the level of trekkings: if you book one, either ask about it, or assume that it's a heavy (and even dangerous) one, like on Cat Ba Island, where the path was really steep and slippery. Many tourists were just wearing flipflops, not a good idea on a trekking! We were on sandals, still better then flipflops, but still very dangerous.
From Hanoi, another day trip we did was the Perfume Pagoda : a complex of pagoda's and Buddhist shrines, including a cave temple on the top of a mountain. To go there, a charming lady peddled us in a little boat to the entrance, after which we took a cable car almost to the cave (tsss....lazy tourists). This temple is a very important one for Buddhists in the region and they vistit it 'en masse' during a festival that takes places in March/April. During our visit there were very
little visitors, which was of course peacefull, but the place looked deserted. If you visit, you should do it in the months of March or April. The cave temple itself isn't that impressing either (but maybe we're a little bit spoiled after a few months), so we think that a visit to this temple is best during the festival, to feel the athmosphere between all those pilgrims.
The temple down the hill on the other hand is a real beauty, but our guide gave us 15 minutes to explore it : a shame.
The peddling lady took us back on her little boat, and lost her charm when she rudely insisted for a larger tip then we gave (which all the rowing ladies do there no matter what amount you give).
Next stop : Ninh Binh, a releave from the busy city and the mass tourism. We rented a bycicle for 2 days to explore the region, enjoy the “spring” weather and the friendly locals along the road. Ninh Binh is a bit like Halong Bay but then on dry land. Instead of sea between the mountains, there are now rice fields, goats and oxes in between them.
From Ninh Binh we took a soft sleeper night train to Lao Cai at the Chinese border, first the explore Bac Ha for 2 days, and then Sapa for another 2.
This region is known for its magnificent rice terraces and its diverse minority villages with their colourfull markets.
Bac Ha is the litlle brother of Sapa, a little less impressing with only a small village center and few hotel options, but it's much more relaxed. We did some nice walks in the mountains, peacefully (without chasing vendors behind us) and again : it felt like spring! On Sunday the colourfull market was the highlight of this trip, where the Montagnard ethnic groups sell their handicrafts.
In Sapa we enjoyed our cozy hotel ('Darling Hotel', you read it well), overlooking Sapa town and with some stunning views from our windows. Too bad that the autumn had'nt arrived yet this year, because otherwise the picture would be complete with a burning fireplace! (but we didn't get any wood...)
The organised day trip we did to some hill tribes was let's say... not relaxed! During the 3 hour walk about 30 locals tried to sell something to us, some of
them very insistently. It's a pity that they approach the tourists like that, because it really spoils tour pleasure of walking in such an amazing landscape. Maybe if you do a trek of a couple of days, you wont have that problem any more after some kilometers...
This element, however, was largely compensated by the delicious dishes of “Baguette & Chocolate” where we treated ourselves several times with food we couldn't imagine to find in Asia. Wine, chocolate, cheese....you name it: they have it!
Epilogue Right now we are in China. We crossed the border with China on foot and we were a bit nervous about that. We read on the internet stories about lonely planets being confiscated by the chinese, bags that had to be emptied completely and money that had to be paid under the table just to be able to cross. Nothing of that happened. On the contrary, no grumpy chinese border officials to report to you, they were really friendly, offering us something to drink and so on....After checking out in Vietnam you have to cross a bridge on foot to enter China and it really gives a bit of a kick to
cross a border like that. So, we moviewise crossed the bridge and after just 15 minutes we were in China!
And there we were, waiting on the other side for the obligated calls “ you want taxi?” or “you want to buy something? Change money?”. Nothing happened however and no chinese seemed to care that there were two whities showing up on the border of their land. A real contrast with Vietnam and a great relief!
After crossing we quickly went our way to the bus station to book a bus to Kunming (where we are now), a large provincial city in the inland of china. We had expected a bumpy busride of about 12 to 14 hours (that's what lonely planet told us), but things change fast in China. They had just made a new asphalt road, straight to kunming and we arrived in Kunming after only 8 hours on a super de luxe aircon bus with great seats. While Arnold Schwarzenegger was flexing his muscles on the movie screen above us, we passed through a new city being build by the chinese governement in the middle of nowhere. Hundreds of freshly new giant appartment blocks, painted
in the brightest white, were all empty and still waiting for the new citizens to arrive. Very very impressive.
Ooooooh yes, we have arrived in China: the land where new roads and complete cities are being built in just one night! Hmmm....let's think about this for a moment while the governement in Belgium is now talking for one year-and only talking- about maybe, perhaps, some day, if not tooooo many people mind, building a bridge in antwerp called 'lange wapper'.....
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mooie foto's
Hello boys, Jullie nieuw toestelletje werkt goed. Mooie , heldere foto's met vele kleuren. Groetjes, Greet