Vietnam - Sapa, the night train and Ho Chi Minh

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Vietnam - Sapa, the night train and Ho Chi Minh city...
"If you can dodge traffic you can dodge a ball" - Chuck Norris Dodge Ball..

I woke up feeling like I could be sick any moment. I don't know what we drank but by god it hurt. Had we had more time I think I would have spent the whole day in bed feeling sorry for myself but we had to check out... I had vague memories about a conversation with some guy about a KFC being round the corner. It was the only thing that got me up and out of bed. I am completely ashamed of myself but I had to have one, nothing was going to sort me out other than some junk food.

Kirsty and I went to walk around the large lake in Han Oi - got half way round and retired to a coffee shop for four hours to talk and recover. It started to rain -which justified our laziness. We managed to buy Kirsty and couple of bags and had another cup of tea. Crossing the road in Han Oi was painful - though that might have been the drink. The best option you have is to avoid the cars - because they are bigger and hurt more and just hope to god that the bikes avoid you. This theory seemed to work. By the end of it I was not even looking, I was just stepping out into the road and hoping for the best. (Someone might have to watch me when I get back to the UK). It reminded me of the scene in the film Dodgeball when everyone was made to run across a massive road of traffic. If you have seen the film, replay that clip and now imagine about 200 motorbikes on the road as well... That's Vietnam for you.

The streets of Han Oi are small and cluttered. Motorbikes mount the pavement making the road the easiest place to walk. Shops and bars overflow onto the streets and small clusters of people sit on the floor around fires cooking together.

We grabbed our bags from our hotel and were taken to Han Oi station where we were about to embark upon a night train to Sa Pa. I was VERY excited about the night train. We shared a "Berth" with two other Korean girls. The Berths were little rooms with two bunkbeds either side and a table with a lamp in the middle. A sliding door connects you to the corridor. It reminded me of the trains they use in Harry Potter films. We kept our curtains open all night so that we could see the outside world. The excitment was short lived as I was asleep in no time. I am getting good at sleeping in random places! The train was loud and rocky and there was one moment when I woke up and felt my feet high up in the air. I swear to god the train was going to tip over any moment. I slept - but not well.

5am we were woken up by the most horrendous music you have ever heard. Five minutes to get up and get off the train and then we were carted off to Sa Pa town centre. We had a basic breakfast and waited for our guide. Local women were standing around talking to the tourists they wore their traditional dress and tried to sell you bags and bracelets. We learnt that women with large earrings were married and women without were not. Most of the women were in their 30's and boasted to me that they had had four children. They seemed quite appaulled that I was single and not married and proceeded to try and marry me off to their friends...
Ken our tour guide took us on a trek through mud and rocks, we were accompanied by some of the village women and their children which I thought was lovely. The trek was not far but the heat and the incline made it almost impossible. Shamefully the women helped us across areas which were slippy and helped map out our footing. I felt ashammed of myself for relying so heavily on the H'mong women who were wearing broken sandals that did not fit them and carrying large baskets with their worldly possessions on their backs. I had my trainers and a tiny day pack...
The views were amazing, Ken pointed out groves in the hills where the farmers were cultivating the land for crops. Pigs and bulls owned by the farmers dotted the paths and wandered freely up to us. Sa Pa is truly magical and though many travellers come to do these treks you do feel as though you are one of the privillaged that has been given a window into another world.

We stopped for lunch in a small shack. My face was burning red and my back was soaking in the heat. The H'mong women looked unphased. I bought a couple of things from them and gave one lady in particular some money for helping me so much. She took the money and asked to stroke my hair. Apparently blonde hair is good luck... (I didn't tell her that I'd had a couple of highlights along the way)

After lunch we took a more level route through the village to see the other minorities. I felt extremely ungrateful for the life that I have led. I have spent a lot of time moaning about trivial things and was presented with a school of children playing in the dirt. Completely content with life. The huts were basic, one large room with two entrances. The mountain range was steep and difficult, when it rained I could not imagine what it would be like to live there. The schools were half full as the children did not see any benefit in education. They would prefer to work a trade with their parents. The hospital was one room which would not be able to cope with an outbrake of any kind. Richer families had a motorbike and a waterwheel which provided them with clean water. I was an very sobering experience.

I am ashamed to admit that I crossed my fingers when we were taken to our hotel. I was exhausted and the rain had started to fall, all I wanted was a shower. I instantly regretted the indulgence and comfort that I had come to expect from life. We were taken to a restaurant for dinner. I was starving and so wolfed down most of the dishes that were put infront of me. Bar one dish.. Lemon Chicken that was brought over on a hot sizzling plate. I am not as fussy as Kirsty and so I try all the food first. Not wanting to put a damper on the food I simply told her what it was. She took one mouthful and said to me... "You know what that tastes like...?"

"Washing up liquid I replied"

We laughed and spent the rest of the evening trying to hide the chicken under rice and other dishes in an attempt to make it look as though we had eaten a large portion of it. So not to be rude! We giggled but felt awful when thinking about the villagers that we had just seen who would probably kill for this meal...

Rain rain rain... Not a good start to the day. Upon purchasing a rather fetching turquise poncho Kirsty and I head out on our trek second to the minority villages. I am nothing but stylish!
My tummy has not accepted the Malaria tablets and after spending a substancial amount of time on the loo I have a massive knat bite on my ass. The prospect of the trek in the rain did not fill me with excitment especially as we had to get on the night train at 8pm and upon arrival at Han Oi go straight to the airport for our flight to Ho Chi Minh...Suddenly life was becoming a lot more hectic and sleep was becoming scarse...!
Our trek did not start till after lunch so we had the morning to look around the village and see what people were selling. The markets burst with colour despite it being such a miserable day. Women sat at sewing machines surrounded by bright vivd colours producing a multitude of tops, skirts, bags etc. We head off for lunch and were presented with a rather familiar looking starter. Half way through the meal we heard a sizzling noise... I looked at Kirsty, Kirsty looked at me... Oh No! The Lemon Chicken!!! It was in fact lemon beef - which was actually worse. It tasted like those steamed towels that you are given at the end of an Indian meal you fresh your face. Try eating one of them.. the lemon was just too much.

We set off to see the large waterfall and en-route stopped off at a typical H'mong house and were invited in. I felt a bit bad walking in and taking pictures. Ken told us that the village contained about 70 houses of which each house contained about 17 people. The whole house was the size of my bedroom...
Dark, dirty and smokey. By the entrance was a fire which served to keep the house warm and provide the house with food. The smoke filled the whole house and made it difficult to see. There were different sections to the house for sleeping and making garments. We were shown where the clothes were dyed and hung to dry. I could not quite work out where all 17 people slept..
People from Sa Pa farm rice, vegatables and have built a few waterworks to filter clean water from the waterfall. We bought two bracelets from the house for 70 pence.
The trek was not as intense as the previous day which allowed us to ask Ken lots of questions about the H'mong village. Typically women marry young after about 2-3 months of dating and it has only been in the last ten years that they have been able to choose who they marry. Despite the fact that Sa pa was not really touched by the American War it had been greatly affected by the French war in 1905. There is a huge French presence all across Vietnam and a vast amount of the travellers that we met were from France.
It rained all day and thick fog surrounded the tops of the mountains. The whole place looked very green and lush but was still incredibly hot and humid. We made our way back to Sa Pa town village. We relaxed in a bar and discussed the day. Although the trek was not as physically intense the whole experience is very emotionally draining.

In the evening we were taken for dinner. Fortunately we were taken to a different restaurant and the food was much much nicer. We were given a lemon beef dish - which did not taste any bit better but fortunately the rest of the meal was substancial enough to keep us going. By this time I had given up trying to hide the food and explained to the waitress that I loved the lemon beef but was just full. tee hee.

In typical Vietnamesse style we were totally relaxed and really enjpoying the meal and then suddently told to leave and in a flash were carted into a mini van and flung towards the train station. The moral of thestory being don't ever get too comfortable! Another example of Vietnamesse logic is our episode at the train station... We were dropped off at a restaurant just down the road from the station and told that the station was shut and would not open for half and hour. I could tell this was a ploy to get us to sit in the restaurant and order something. We were then told that the tickets that we had for the train were not actually tickets, they were vouchers and that we had to go to the station to exchange them for real tickets. (Why we were not trusted with the real tickets to start with is beyond me but hey). At the station we found a little booth and proudly presented our vouchers. "Outside" was the response... OK... We wandered into the Chaos surrounding the station and then wandered round the corner hoping to find something to shed light on the situation. We found a dark alley... nope, nothing. We were starting to get a big miffed at this point as our train was leaving in about 15 minutes and we hadn't even managed to get through the barriers to find out which train was ours... One guy pointed us to a small man sitting on a little red plastic chair. This little man had our tickets - no one elses (They must have twigged before us). The man had no sign, no badge or uniform, in fact there was no indication that he had anything to do with the train station at all. And given the amount of people that had asked if they could clean my shoes for me I could have easily given him my trainers instead of the voucher! The little man gave us two tickets that looked almost identical to the vouchers that we already had.

On board the train we introduced ourselves to a middle aged German couple who proceeded to drink beer all night and then keep getting up to go to the loo. Most annoying! Once again I woke up and genuinely thought that the train would tip over and I clutched onto my passport hoping that if anything did happen at least they would be able to identify my body.

We got off the train in Han Oi in the rain. It had not stopped raining since we had arrived in Sa Pa, Han oi was flooded. We ran for a taxi and did not even bother to negotiate costs. The taxi tried to drop us off in the middle of no where but I was not in the mood to be messed about and practically assaulted the man into driving us to the hotel. For the second time Kirsty and I banged on the hotel door and woke the men up. Water was starting to rise and come through the door to the hotel. I was not singing songs this time round!

We got a taxi to the airport and left Han Oi and it's monsoons behind us. Our hotel in Ho Chi Minh was box but the hotel was just down the road from the Opera House was was in a great position. After all that lemon chicken I needed to eat something reliable and so found an Italian restaurant. You can't go wrong with pizza.
We had a look around the city and saw the old Post Office which is gorgeous, The Opera house and the Notre Dam cathedral. Which was a bit odd being placed in the middle of Vietnam... It got dark and we found a 60's style bar to sit in and order some cocktails. Upon arrival I felt a million and one Vietnamesse eyes upon me. We were the only westerners there. But I needed a drink and so sat on down.
When it was time to leave I reached for my wallet to pay for the drinks. I only had 200 thousand Dong, no problem I thought I would pay by card.... They don't accept card... Bollocks
The waiter pointed me in the direction of a cash machine so I trotted off to get some cash out leaving Kirsty sitting in the bar. The cash machine only took Visa and Visa Debit - no good for me being a HSBC Mastercard/ Switch kind of girl. Damn I walked on thinking I would find somewhere else. I came across another cach machine - same story... I went to another yet again the machine only accepted Visa.. I had been gone a good 15 minutes and poor kirsty was still sitting in the bar surrounded by waiters eyeing her suspitiously thinking she was going to run any minute.
Suddenly I saw a massive HSBC bank - it really is the world's local bank. In my haste I withdrew 2 million Dong and ran back to the bar. I had crossed many roads and by now was getting pretty good at this whole dodging traffic thing - you just walk and don't look. Exhausted I got back to the bar produly presented my money and walked off with Kirsty without looking back.

We woke up the next day and upon Maria's recommedation we went to the Refinery for lunch. A French restaurant geared for Expasts, it was a but more expensive that what we were used to paying but Mrs Dickson had given us some suberb advice and the food was just amazing! We were in high spirits and made our way to the Vietnam War Museum which deshed them almost immediately. The museum contains some harrowing pictures and snippets of texts surrounding the War with America. The ste up of the museum is very good, small but to the point. It does not go over the top and though is alitte to biased it paints a very clear and vivid picture of how the war started and the effects of the war on the Vietnammese people.

We had run out of time and so had to grab our bags and head to the airport to meet the girls in Thailand. I will certainly be coming back to Vietnam at some point in the near distant future.

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