Vietnam and Laos

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We flew into Ho Chi Minh and had a fantastic first evening chilling in a bar in the backpacker district and chatting to some lovely local girls about life in Vietnam. Later the same evening we met a guy who was doing our trip in reverse and got the low down on his experiences in Vietnam. All in all a very informative and cultural first night.

Ho Chi Minh City is vibrant and diverse, the traffic is crazy with over 6million bikes in the city alone and the people incredibly friendly and welcoming. We explored numerous parts of the city and visited the War Museum, a potent reminder of the impact of the war on Vietnam and the Chu Chi tunnels where the Vietnamese hid from the Americans during the War.

The Mekong Delta was a highlight of our time in Vietnam. Many parts are only accessible by boat and travel in the area thus provides a fascinating insight into how life revolves around the Mighty Mekong. We saw people washing, cooking, swimming and playing in the river and shopping in the floating markets. We stayed overnight with a local family who lived 1hr by boat upstream from the nearest town and local life there was particurly basic. The food that evening was some of our best in vietnam. Travelling further into the delta we found ourselves in a city where we could not find one single restaurant. After much searching we found a small street stall selling some rice and beef. This area of Vietnam is in complete contrast to the landscape and our experience in the rest of the country.

Our travels continued to Mui Ne a lovely beach town. We explored the white and red sanddunes and the red canyons for which the area is famous. Dalat was a fascinating town in the mountains and we hired 'easy riders' to take us around the local countryside for the day and see a taste of the scenery and local industries. Nha Trang is highly criticised for its intense development and tourist nature but we appriciated the ease of everything and had a couple of chilled days on the beach. We had a wonderful experience in the local mud baths where we found ourselves to be the only Westerners there and were hoarded by local women who all wanted to share a bath with us and loved our white skin!

Hoi An is a stunning town famous for its tailors. We took the opportunity to get some clothes made and although a great experience it was exhausting! We enjoyed relaxing in our hotel pool (this is the cheapest accomodation in Vietnam and it was very exciting for us to have a pool) and walking round the old town. We took a boat trip up the river and again loved to see the way life flows from this great resource.

A couple of long overnight bus journeys, a long day in Hue and we arrived in Hanoi the bustling, cosmopolitan capital of Vietnam. The old quarter is vibrant and fascinating to explore. A brief stop here was all we had before getting the overnight train to Sapa. We opted for the cheaper carriage class and it was very interesting to see the surprise and amusement of the locals at sharing their carriage with us. In Sapa we spent two days trekking to minority villages. The scenery is stunning; rice fields, hills and streams and a fascinating look at villiage life. We were very lucky to get a guide who is from one of the minority villages and we chatted for two days about local customs, traditions, expectations and life in the hill tribes. We stayed in one of the villiages overnight with a local family and had a great time attempting communication with our family and helping them cook a traditional dinner. A final day in Sapa was spent visiting two more villiages in another area (this time by motorbike) and it was interesting to see the variety in villiage life/customs/standard of living just miles from other hill tribes.

We headed back to Hanoi for a night before heading to Halong Bay to celebrate my birthday. Halong Bay is an incredible natural formation of limestone carsts that jut out of the sea making up a unique and beautiful landscape. We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon on board the boat taking in the scenery and kayaking to get a closer look. We then had an appauling nights sleep in our air con room (which was turned off my the boat staff to save money) as the swarms of cockroaches snuggled up to us in bed. After spending a couple of hours flicking cockroaches off Lara as she slept and feeling very grumpy i got a lovely bday txt from Talia saying how jelous she was of my travels and stunning bday location. I laughed out loud and went up on deck to watch the sun rise.

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