Blogs from Lao Cai, Northwest, Vietnam, Asia - page 6

Sapa Oh, just typing the word make me happy. It was such a gem of my trip. The antithesis of my Halong Bay experience. As an aside, I should probably stop hating on Halong Bay. So many people love it. Just a personal and uncommon opinion. I get back to the hotel, and I meet a nice American architect from Minnesota. We get to chatting and decide to go around the corner to try to bia hoa, or fresh beer. By "bar" I mean a structure with a porch like thing and kid size tables and chairs which you scrunch into with the other locals. Goo thing the Vietnamese are small, because the furniture for dining is just comical. I don't know much about the beer except that it's brewed fresh that day and is cheap ... read more

V této kapitole se naši hrdinové projdou po Hanoji pěšky i projedou na kole, ochutnají místní kuchyni a zakoupí lístek na vlak na sever. Náš hoteliér, pan Huong, studoval v osmdesátých letech v Praze VŠCHT a oblíbil si zejména selský salám a Spartu. Právě jemu jsme vezli onen kilogram salámu... Měl z něj velkou radost a staral se pak o nás jako o vlastní. Máme docela štěstí na hoteliéry milující Čechy (naposledy pan Gopal Pandey v Kátmandú)! Krabice s koly nás nechal odložit před hotelem (malá zapadlá ulićka), kde na nimi bděl až do večera. Na noc krabice zaujaly čestné místo v recepci vedle motorek. Kola jsme skládali potmě ve čtvrtek, tedy den před odjezdem vlakem na sever. Jedna z krabic byla evidentně otevřena někým během transportu Praha-Moskva-Hanoj, ale na první pohled se zdálo, že je ... read more

Hi everyone, Well, its been a while since blogs so I have a lot to catch up on. I am writing this sitting in a little village on the wooden balcony of a fairly basic homestay with the sounds of roosters crowing and pigs snorting around me! Of course there is no wifi here, so I’m writing this to post later. The village is in a mountain highlands area of north west Vietnam very close to the Chinese border. It’s famous for its ethnic groups in their colourful traditional costumes and today is the weekly market so I’m looking forward to walking up there after breakfast. I saw a few ladies working the fields in heavily woven and colourful clothes on my ‘guided walk’ around the local villages yesterday. It was with a local English student ... read more

Geo: 22.3945, 104.056Sa Pa is in the mountain, west of Lao Cai. It's the opposite side compared to Bac Ha and it's much greener. We managed to find an hotel with a terrace offering a great view on the Fansipan (highest summit in Vietnam). So the first evening we just grabbed some food at the market and ate while watching the sun setting behind the mountain. On our first day we just walked around and above town. We also did some shopping. There is so many shops selling cheap outdoor equipment. In the end, Elfi bought a small day pack and that's it.Home stay experience. There is many Black H'Mong women on the market trying to sell you bags or take you to their village. We decided to try a home stay. Our guide was Mu. ... read more

After a few hectic days in Hanoi we decided to go for something a bit different and go to a bit more of a quitter place and do some hiking which we hadn't done for a little while. We had been recommended a place called Sapa in the north west of the country in the mountains not far from the border with China, here there are a number of tribes which have kept their traditional ways and still live in small villages and wear their traditional clothing, so we thought this would be pretty cool thing to do as we hadn't yet seen any of the tribes in Asia. With trying to save a bit of money where ever we go we decided to get the night time sleeper train from Hanoi to Lao Cai which ... read more