Blogs from Northwest, Vietnam, Asia - page 13

Geo: 22.3945, 104.056What a gift our trip to Sapa was! On our own again without our friend Mary, we arrived in Sapa by the night train from Hanoi at 5:30am to cool temperatures. Well, cool to us; they were nothing like the frigid (-35 degrees), snowy weather many of our friends had reported from home in Canada. Upon arrival at our hotel, Fansipan View, we immediately became friends with the manager, Thuyen and her Dutch friend Monique. Next thing we knew we were enjoying dinner seated in a circle on the floor surrounding a hotpot at Thuyen's sister's home acquainting ourselves with sisters, mother, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews. How extraordinary was our time in Sapa, as we got to know Thuyen, her husband Quang and their baby daughter Anh Ngoc! After that lovely dinner, a couple ... read more

Bo and I had bought "hard sleeper" tickets to the train from Hanoi to Sapa and expected - and kind of hoped for the experience as well - wooden beds, which unfortunately wasn't the case. Instead we discovered, that the only difference between "hard" and "soft" sleeper was, that there were 6 people instead of 4 people in a room in a "hard sleeper" and the beds was a bit wider in the "soft sleeper". But the "hard sleeper" was nice and comfortable, so we were happy with our choise, eventhough we didn't get the wooden benches, that we had hoped for. In Sapa Bo and I chose to do two different trips, one of them was climbing "Mount Fan Si Pan", which I had planned on doing, even before I left Denmark, the other trip ... read more

The aroma of spicy breakfast floats through our window. It is 7am and we are leaving Hanoi today. Down on the street we are served steaming Pho sitting on our little plastic chairs. Pho seems to be the national dish served out of every shop front and street corner. It is boiled noodles with meat, spices and a variety of salad vegetables. Very yummy! We are travelling west today, up The Black River Valley, which winds its way up through the mountains to the Laos border. It sounds all very exotic and as matter of fact it is. The bus takes 12 hours but being the flash packers we are we have hired a car and driver for 2 days. Thai is the driver’s name who is supposed to speak beautiful English which may be so ... read more

We caught the overnight train (ET Pumpkin $35 each 4 berth soft sleeper) from Hanoi to Sapa. The train was comfortable enough though it was obvious that the advertising photo was out of date! Our fellow cabin mates were two lovely German women, both older than us, who had some wonderful tales of travel to share. The train was an express therefore didn't stop very often and we arrived on time in Lao Cai at 5.30am. It was dark and very cold and we were feeling slightly hungover from lack of sleep. The train got very hot and stuffy during the night and it's movement was jerky enough to prevent a good nights sleep. Most of the tourists on board had transport up to Sapa prearranged but Jerry and I boarded one of the waiting mini ... read more

From December 16 through the 19, Scott and I decided to venture slightly south to the small village of Mai Chau rather than spend a few more days in Hanoi waiting for our Christmas excursion to Sapa. We called ahead and booked 3 nights at a traditional homestay with stilt houses and bungalows, located a little off the beaten path from Mai Chau's "city center" - basically a few shops, street-food restaurants and a gas station. We planned our journey, intending to take an 8:00 a.m. public bus, but, after taking a taxi all the way across town and arriving at the bus station, we were informed that the bus had left earlier than we thought, and the next one wasn't leaving until 1:30 p.m. Great. With no other choice aside from camping out in the ... read more