Blogs from Sapa, Lao Cai, Northwest, Vietnam, Asia - page 51

If there was still some 'Laos' in us, it was quickly shaken off as we swapped cockeral crows for motorcycle horns as our new form of alarm clock. In Hanoi, 2 wheels rule the road and there are motorcycles everywhere you look. It took us three days to perfect our 'crossing the road walk' (shutting your eyes, crossing your fingers and just stepping into the oncoming traffic!). We spent a few days seeing the sights of Hanoi, although we found that the best way to experience the city was to just sit still in a cafe and watch the mayhem unfold around us. To give our ears a rest from the continuous motorcycle beeping we sought refuge in the moutains of North Vietnam and borded a night train to Sapa to do a three day trek. ... read more

Onto Sa Pa, a quaint mountainside town in the North Western corner of Vietnam. We came here for one reason, to climb Mount Fan Xi Pan; Vietnams highest mountain at 3143 metres above sea level. We started the three day trek after a days rest around town and set forth with happy optimism about the climb. The first day was a very hard slog, seven and a half hours of ascent ranging from steep, to very steep, to vertical, with little respite. Sometimes we had to haul ourselves up the slope using bamboo plants as improvised ladders and on several occasions narrowly missed falls that might have ended up in injuries that at that hight could have proved extremely inconvenient. Anyway we prevailed and enjoyed ourselves in the moment and with the inspiring scenery that surrounded ... read more

Sapa I arranged to get my visa for Cambodia and Laos while I was in Hanoi and this meant that I needed to fill a few more days in North Vietnam. The obvious choice was Sapa. Sapa is in the high country of North Vietnam, close to the border with China and the weather is a bit cooler thanks to the greater altitude. I arranged to go hiking for two days and stay in a local village at a home stay. The trip to Sapa was one of the more interesting (I'm not sure if anyone actually knew exactly who I was or what I was doing especially me!). I had booked to go treking through the same people that were organising my visas and they had included all the transfers however it seemed when we ... read more

hi everynoe as you know we have new camera and we just start to learn how to photo. we hope it will be improved the photo are from trip that we did in sapa in the vilages around enjoy... read more

For 6 days and around a 1000km I had the most memorable time of my trip so far. Since no one I'd been travelling with was keen to go kayaking in Halong Bay I rented a Russian motorcycle in Hanoi alone two and a half days behind a crew of five. The bike was a temperamental beast it ran pretty well until 40km outside of returning the bike when it completely took a crapper. Riding the bike through this type of country was easily the most disconnected I've felt from the travel scene since I've been in Asia. For the first 600 km I didn't see another person who wasn't a local. I might of had a taste of dog the first night though, I stopped at an out of the way town, my accommodation was ... read more