Good moaning in Vietnam

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My final train journey in Vietnam got off to a bad start when I discovered my MP3 player was completely blank. No idea how it happened, but there were 0 songs on it. This was not good, with 8.5 hours of train travel to endure, but I managed to survive the night without my usual dose of Euro music.

Arrival in Lao Cai (the jumping off point for Sa Pa) saw us immediately on the receiving end of a scam attempt. A guy quoted us 3 times the expected price for a minibus to Sa Pa. We blew him off, but he followed us around and, by the appearance of things, was telling the other drivers we spoke to to also quote us over the odds. He was eventually sent on his way with some choice Anglo-Saxon, at which point one of the other drivers scurried over furtively and offered us an acceptable price.

We arrived in Sa Pa in cool, wet conditions. It was also, we learned, right in the middle of a Vietnamese festival so the only available accommodation was either really bad or really expensive. We ended up taking a place with the grimmest of shared bathrooms, costing $15 (I subsequently read a blog from someone who'd been here out of holiday season and they'd paid $3).

The town itself was full of tourists, mainly domestic. The place was also crawling with vendors in traditional hilltribe costumes, though we had some doubts as to their authenticity when we saw an army of them clustered around a guy who appeared to be collecting their takings for the day - as though they were his agents. Diet Coke and Double Chocolate Milanos were available, a sure sign of a tourist haunt. However with the relatively small size of the town, and the views to the mountains across the valley, I was reminded a little of Dharamsala.

With the weather grim, Sa Pa appearing to be too over-touristed for decent trekking, and me especially just getting fed up with Vietnam, we resolved to break for the Chinese border after 2 nights.

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Photos

Cafe tablecloth
Using Canon S3 IS Super Macro mode

Grim bathroom
Pinochio Guesthouse
Copyright LA Woman 2007

Comments

[digital_explorer]

Street Food
You reminded me of our Filipino delicacy, lechon - the roasted pig!!!

[peed there, done that]

doesn't look half bad
The grim bathroom??? Tile walls and floor? An actual throne to sit on instead of a hole to squat over? A real sink with what must be real running water? No obvious frogs, insects or other critters on the floor for company? Looks like luxury to me.......you can't have been roughing it too much if you think this one is grim.

[Jabe]

Grim ...
... is not at one end of the spectrum.