Blogs from Sapa, Lao Cai, Northwest, Vietnam, Asia - page 44

After a long day doing the perfume pagoda and a good dinner at the Baguette and Chocolate, we crashed hard till 11am the next morn. We dragged our overslept butts around Hanoing for a couple of ours trying to waste time till our 11pm sleeper train to Sapa. After an OK sleep being rocked in the sweat box the call a sleeper we arrived bushed at the town on Lao Ci at 6am. We found a local driver with a placard with the worst spelling of my name I have ever seen and plopped our buts into yet another minibus. A crazy twisty hour drive up higher into the northern highlands we arrive in Sapa proper at about 7am. We were treated to a quickly baguette and jam breakfast and it was trekking time. At about ... read more

Here are some photos from Hanoi and some from our Mountain Walk today. We walked through the mountains for a good few hours and it was amazing. And just for Auntie Ann a photo of Simon doing his Tai Chi!!... read more

Well our first day in Hanoi was definatly exciting! It was the most chaotic and cultured city we have been this far! As we walked through all the different streets they were all dedicated to a certain item. For example clothing street, shoe street, herbal medicine street, christmas street, etc. There were about 50 of these different types of streets. We got lost walking through the old quarter of Hanoi. Every corner we turned was filled with a new suprise. The sidewalks are so filled with motorbikes and street stalls selling so much random junk that you have to walk in the middle of the road and weave through all the motorbikes. During the day when we were walking around I was comfortable. Once the night time hit when Asia gets busy I didnt even want ... read more

Hello happy people! I made the night train without hitch and it actually wasn't too bad. Was sharing with a passionate Russian couple or some country that way and a sullen Vietnames guy who kept trying to smoke in the no smoking cabin and snored but a nice man i'm sure! Arrived in Sapa around 6.30am stepped off the train and froze. I had been warned that it was cold but wasn't prepared for it at all. You could see your breath in the hotel bedroom, it was that cold! After checking in and getting breakfast we had a 2 hour trek to a waterfall and then back to the hotel for lunch the afternoon was then our own to kill. I wondered into the town and fell completely in love with the place. If you ... read more

Apres une nuit passee dans le train, nous voila arrive a Sapa au Nord Ouest de Hanoi a 1600 m d'altitude. Il fait plutot frais ce qui donne une bonne atmosphere de sport d'hiver. On se trouve une petite chambre avec vue sur la montagne pour presque rien. Le paysage est magnifique, des risieres a perte de vue. On s'est fait une premiere journee d'excursion en jeep jusqu'aux villages environnants. Il y a plusieurs tribus qui cohabitent dans les montagnes. On s'est tres chaleureusement fait recevoir par une famille Lao. Les Laos se distinguent par leur dents noirs. En fait ils mastiquent une sorte de resine dont ils s' enduisent les dents afin de les protegers. Enfin ils ont plus ou moins tous les bridges en or donc je suis moyennement convaincue par cette technique! Ils ... read more