Sapa, Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island

Hi everyone,

Wednesday afternoon I booked a trip to Sapa. This is a small town up in the mountains in Northwestern Vietnam. 5 Other people booked the same trip so there was 6 of us travelling together. We took the night train from Hanoi to Lau Cai, whitch is one of the border towns with China. In Lau Cai we were picked up by a minibus and brought to a tour agency in Sapa. There we had breakfast and a chance to freshen ourselves up before we started a 16km hike that would take pretty much all day. The hike was pretty tough actually as it was not really a path we were walking on but muddy and rocky tracks. Besides our guide, Ha, we were soon joined by a group of about 10 people from one of the many minority villages that the area hosts. Of course eventually these minority people wanted to sell us something (bracelets, bags, shirts, etc) in the end but they were also very helpful on the way. Where we were slipping and holding on to anything just not to slide down the mountain, they would just easily run up to you on their bare feet or on slippers to give you a hand. The hike that took us through one of the most impressive scenery that I have ever seen. There was an endless amount of rice paddies against the beautiful mountains where we walked through. After some lunch and the rest of the afternoon walking we arrived at our homestay. Here we would have dinner and spend the night with a local minority family. Although I very much enjoyed that, I was a bit sad that our guide hardly spoke any English and thus was not able to translate much of my questions to the family. But anyway we had a lovely dinner with some ricewine (which actually is more like a spirit) going around. The host and our guide kept calling the rice wine happy water which I thought was a pretty good name for the tequilla-like spirit. I had a very good night sleep and the next morning we were prepared a pancake breakfast. Unlike the day before it was very sunny and already very warm. First we walked some 4km's to a waterfall where we got the opportunity to go swimming. As the water was 15m deep we could do some nice diving of rock formations. After an hour or so we returned to our homestay for lunch. From there on we had another very challenging 5km's of hiking straight uphill. I never knew I could sweat like that.... Once we reached the top of the hill we were collected by a minibus and retuned to Sapa. Here we had some dinner on our won before another minibus brought us back to Lau Cai to catch the night train to Hanoi. A funny detail on the night train was the karaoke wagon. Here the highest ranking train official was singing one song after the other.

The trip I booked through the Hanoi backpackers hostel was eventually worth every penny. If I would have gone there on my own I would defineteley not have known where to go and I would have missed out on some very impressive sights and the homestay. Although I enjoyed the homestay very much I have heard stories about even better ones in the mekong delta where you are actually expected to cooperate in the activities of the locals' daily lives as in Sapa we were more like their guests. Because of the nice group we were with, (I could get along especially well with Adam, a guy from Manchester, and Casey, a girl from Sidney) I decided to join them to Halong Bay right the morning we came back from Sapa.

The train from Lau Cai arrived at 06:30h and the bus to Halong Bay departed at 08:00h so their was no time to chill. When we got to Halong City we transfered onto an old looking Junk that looked really nice. Their we had breakfast and it took us for a ride along the bay. Again the scenery was breathtaking, the 200 huge rockformations which just rise out of the water are very impressive. Although the weather wasn't very nice we stop for some swimming after a while. Even though there are quite a lot of jellyfish in Halong Bay everyone was jumping of the roof of the 6m high junk into the water after a while. After swimming we went kayaking to explore some of the caves that are everywhere. Because there had already been some drinking going on on the boat everyone was in a happy mood eventually causing several kayaks (like mine and Casey's) to flip over. After this litlle accident the kayak was almost impossible to steer as it was full of water but we didn't really care as we were having lot's of fun. After the kayaking the weather actually cleared up and we were having more drinks on the roof of the junk while it was sailing towards the place where it would drop ankor for the night. We got treated to a beatiful sunset along the way. When we arrived at the place where we would stay for the night we all got a room on on of 3 junks that were tied together. The rooms were very luxurius with aircon, bathroom, toilet and nice beds. Dinner was next and everyone was getting pretty drunk while we were opening the second bottle of vodka we sneaked onto the boat. After dinner the party was of and involved some dancing, skinny dipping and lot's of drinking. Maybe not very surprising but after a while some things started to go wrong. First one of the Danish girls we met there jumped in the water, head first, only to hit a jellyfish. So she was of to bed as their stings burn like hell. Worse though, was when an English girl jumped on Adam while he was sitting on the railing of the top deck. They both flipped over in between two of the junks. At first they looked really bad and they had to be brought to the hospital but eventually they both had a couple of stitches in their head and Adam was bruised pretty badly as he did not fall into the water but onto the other boat. Another set-back was that I broke the screen of my camera during a wrestle with one of the Danish girls. The next day after breakfast and lunch on the boat we were returned to Halong City. As the rest of the group went back to Hanoi I got onto a boat to Cat Ba island which is supposed to be really nice.

I booked a trip from Halong city to Cat Ba Island and got myself into an Hotel where I knew the people from my trip who booked another night would also be sleeping. The two people who fell of the boat the night before were already there and were allright. The hotel was really nice, I got a bedroom with 2 double beds and an ocean view for $10 a night!! So we had some dinner with the entire group and after that I went to bed as I was very tired. The next day the group all went back to Hanoi except for me and and Austrian/German couple. We agreed to have dinner together that night but both had other plans for the day. I rented a motorbike and explored the Island. It was a lovely day and I had great fun cruising thru the beautiful landscape. The next day the German/Austrian couple and I went to do a challenging 18km hike thru the national park on the island. We decided not to take a guide and just asked some guys with motorbikes to drop us off at the park's entrance. The hike was awesome as it took as through some really dense rainforest and over some pretty big mountains. At some points we were really down on our knees crawling thru the jungle. We saw a couple of snakes, lot's of insects but unfortunateley no monkeys. The hike took us thru a village and eventually to a small harbour where we got a boat to bring us back to Cat Ba town. As the walking/climbing used up all my energy, I got to bed early again. Next day I would get the fast boat to Haiphong where I could finally buy a new camera.

Haiphong was a nice city, it actually looks a lot like Hanoi but is a bit more quite. I stayed in Haiphong for one night and got myself a new camera. Today I took the bus towards Ninh Binh where there are supposed to be some nice attractions.

I'll keep you posted, Chris

---

---