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Published: July 16th 2008
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Greetings from Vietnam!
This is now the 5th country we have visited on our trip and so far it certainly been one of the best.
We started our vietnam adventure in the Northern town of Dien Bien Phu, The town where the vietnamese finally defeated the french.
We spent a day looking around some of the old war sites such as bunkers and museums in the town before catching a flight to the capital city of Hanoi.
Hanoi
The capital city of Hanoi is a vibrant and colourful place full of culture (and motorbikes!!)
We spent 2 days here and explored as much of the city as we could manage in this short time seeing some really interesting museums, great pagodas and the famous, beautiful Hoan kiem Lake which is the focal point of the old quarter and a beautiful and calm Oasis in a Busy, Frantic city.
Hanoi was certainly one of the nicest cities we have visited despite dicing with death every time we had to cross the street!!
Halong Bay
First of all an apology, there are at the moment no photos of what was without doubt the most beautiful part of our trip. They are
all safely stored onto a dvd but finding somewhere that can actually read dvd's to put them on this blog has proved pretty difficult! I will try and fix that as soon as I can but for now if you just type in Halong Bay to google and click on images you'll get an idea of what it was like believe me it's worth a look.
We travelled down to Halong Bay from Hanoi on a 3 day/2 night tour and it turned out to e a great decision as many people opt for a 1 night tour instead which, although fantastic in it's own right, wouldn't have allowed us to see some of the most unspoilt places of the bay which we got to see on our 2nd day.
The tour was taken on an old chinese style junk boat with beautiful saffron coloured sails.
We slept in a beautiful bedroom with a huge ensuite bathroom and dinner was served every evening in the boats beautiful dining room.
There were 10 of us on the tour for the first day although some left after just 1 night.
On the first day of our tour we visited some amazing caves
a beautiful beach, surrounded by karst mountains and just swam off our boat in the beautiful Ocean. After dinner we sat on the top deck of our boat staring up at the beautifully clear starry sky before heading for an early bed.
After an early night we were up bright an early to see the sun rise in Halong Bay and it was amazing, possibly the best place for a sun rise you could imagine first from on the boat looking across the still water through the mist shrouded mountains and then diving in the water for a sunrise swim.
The second day turned out to be even better than the first as we visited nother beautiful cave with a fantastic view to the sea on one side and a lagoon on the other, totally cut off by the steep sided karsts on every side.
After this we sais goodbye to 6 of the group leaving just 4 of us to enjoy the serenity of the bay alone.
We headed out further into the bay until there were no other boats in sight we stopped in a bay surrounded by beautiful mountains and untouched little beaches . The water was
like glass, bright green and incredibly clear and the sand was as white as flour. We spent an hour or 2 just swimming in the bay, eating lunch and sitting on our very own little beach, possibly the most special part of our trip so far (BIG CLAIM!!)
After lunch we went kayaking through caves and into more lagoons surrounded by steep, forested slopes on all sides and teaming with birdlife.
The day ended with another great seafood dinner before watching a distant thunder storm light up the otherwise pitch black sky.
On our final day in Halong Bay we awoke to find the bay shrouded in thick mist, it gave the place an amazingly mystical atmosphere that was in its own way as beautiful as the blazing sunshine of the previous days.
We travelled slowly back to shore before bidding farewell to our beautiful boat and heading back to Hanoi.
Everyone should come and experience Halong Bay, it was certainly something that we will never forget.
Sapa
After leaving Halong Bay anywhere was likely to struggle to match that experience. However Sapa came pretty close to doing just that.
First of all it was cool. Cold even at
times, we even had to where a jumper for the first time since January! This is because the town is nearly 2000m above sea level. The scenery around Sapa is stunning, surrounded by towering mountains above and tumbling, bright green rice terraces below. The views in the area are as beautiful as I have seen anywhere.
We enjoyed 4 days here just walking around the area, meeting the local minority people at the markets and enjoying the scenery.
We were told, the best way to enjoy the scenery was to hire a motorbike and head out on our own so that is exactly what we did!
After yet another fantastic breakfast in our favourite haunt Baguette and Chocolate, a great little bakery and cafe, we took the windy mountain road up to Ton Tram Pass, the highest road in Vietnam with stunning views down to the bottom of the valley nearly 1000m below,via the beautiful Silver Falls. We drove the 40km all the way down to the bottom of the valley, stopping every 25m for another great photo opportunity before crawling back up the hill.
Don't worry parents I drove very safely and checked every kilometre or so that Laura
Lanterns!
In Hanoi! was still attached!!
We have now left Sapa and are heading south via Hanoi again to the ancient city of Hue.
Hope everyone is well.
Let us know of any news and thankyou for all your comments/messages.
All our Love.
Steve & Laura. xxxx
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Lu
non-member comment
Bloody Hell Laura!! You're disappearing!! Hope you're not letting that fat nacker eat all the grub!!! ;) xx