Blogs from Northwest, Vietnam, Asia - page 20

I tried. I tried hard. But the obligatory urge to imitate Robin Williams’ “Gooooood Moooorning Vietnaaaaaam!” as we crossed the border from Cambodia, was just too difficult to suppress. After all, the amount of visual connections I had with this place were hardly in plentiful supply. Sure, I’d seen the majority of the war movies (and a Top Gear special) but aside from a bunch of yellow-star-on-red-T-shirted backpacker types we’d seen travelling in the opposite direction, Vietnam was one big lesson waiting to be learned, and I was the geek in the front row with my pencil sharpened. We began in the south, crossing the border into Ha Tien and as quick as we’d arrived in Vietnam, we were leaving again -well leaving the mainland at least- hopping on board a ferry to Phu Quoc island. ... read more

Xin chào everyone, Last time I was in Hanoi, but I decide after 4 days to do a tour of the north west of the country. But I will go back to Hanoi after the tour, because there are still a lot of thing I haven’t since yet. I started my tour by Mai Chau, a little town at roughly 3 hours bus from Hanoi. This is a little town with a lot of villages around and that is in one of them that I found my bed for 2 nights. I stay in a little village named Ban Van. This is a village I’ll say about 70 stilt houses surrounded by rice plantations and mountains not far from Mai Chau. This is a quiet village with nice people… almost. There is a difference between here ... read more

Geo: 22.3945, 104.056Country number three and a big change in pace from a population of 7 million in Laos to 87 million in Vietnam. We were looking forward to exploring Vietnam and what better way to start off than from the north west. We crossed the border three days after we had planned from the start of our visa. The bus got us to the border and the first thing I did was "mark my territory" on Vietnamese soil, unintentionally of course, then we continued to the first major town of Dien Bien Phu. We had to stay one night in Dien Bien Phu for the 6am bus direct to Sapa. We would have liked to do the north west loop by bike, but starting in Dien Bien Phu would have mean't a bit of backtracking ... read more

Perhaps it was the 5 consecutive days of pre-dawn starts that put me in a cranky frame of mind when we entered Vietnam. Or perhaps it was the fact that we had just spent 6 hours on a chicken bus travelling from Muang Kha in Laos, across the Phongsali border crossing and down into Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. When I say chicken bus I mean an exhaust spewing minivan full of locals, about 100 tonnes of fake Red Bull, a thousand 50kg bags of sticky rice and us crammed at the back with zero legroom whilst cages of live chickens were secured to the roof. Then again, perhaps it was the fact that my first experience in Vietnam was accidently stumbling across a man” busting one out” in the biblical sense! In Laos, I had ... read more

Sapa is amazing! We caught the night train to Loa Cai and it’s not the best thing in the world but hey it gets you there. People can be so rude and don’t have any respect for others who are trying to sleep. The carriages sleep 4, bunk bed style and let’s just say we had one lady who would not keep still and kept getting up all the time…..very annoying when you can here every little thing that goes on. And some rude old men that kept talking really loud at about 2am!! People are trying to get a little sleep you know. So ok, now I’ve had my whinge I’m all good!! Lol After the train you catch a mini bus to the motel (once you’ve found the bus driver – it’s utter chaos ... read more