Blogs from Northwest, Vietnam, Asia - page 4

Our guide from yesterday, I now know that her name is spelt Dao but pronounced Yioau, met us just before 9.00am and we were joined by a young couple from Holland, 4 Italians and the 2 older Germans from yesterday. Today was a 12km hike along roads and through rice fields with a lot of ups and downs. It was, mercifully, a beautiful sunny day or the trails would have been deadly. The views were absolutely breathtaking, like something out of one of the advertising brochures, with terraced rice fields rising hundreds of metres up the sides of steep mountains. It beggars the mind to think of the local people rising at 4 or 4.30am then traipsing for 3 or 4 kilometres, pretty much all of it uphill, to put in a hard days graft in ... read more

Our night bus was due to pick us up at our hotel 9.30 pm. We expected that it might be closer to 10 pm. as we were living quite close to the station so might be the last pick up. At 9.30pm a guy on a motorbike came and directed us to wait on the side of the road around the corner from our hotel. 10 pm came and still no bus. Now we were getting concerned. It was meant to leave Hanoi 10 pm. About 10.20 I took a risk missing the bus and dashed back across the busy road to our hotel. The lovely Max in reception was surprised to see that we hadn't yet gone. I gave him a phone number and raced back to Tomas in the side of the street. A ... read more

Our local guide came by while we were having breakfast with a few clarifications about our itinerary. He asked what we had paid. It seems that La Beauty de Hanoi makes a good commission. Today we have a 12 kilometre trek ahead of us, down into the valley to a couple of Black Hmung villages. We sleep in a “homestay”. I am not quite sure what this is as I have read that it illegal for locals to have foreigners sleep in there homes. The trek was 95% downhill. Some places we had to catwalk down an especially deep step. Other times it was skipping over rocks. This entailed a delicate dance and the quick decision of what foot should go forward first and plan a few steps ahead. Other times it was a leisurely walk ... read more

I don't know why I bought them. The two guys with baskets of metal objects on the site of Khe Sanh hounded me from the moment I set foot in the area. They had coins and medals and bullet casings and fragments of war. One had a 1976 penny. Obviously, he had picked it up from somewhere else, not here, on the flat open area where Americans and Vietnamese fought a prolonged battle in 1968. Khe Sanh. The name of the site barely scratched my memory. I was 14 years old, in a world and mindset away from the war happening in this distant land. I remember the TV news people talking about the Tet offensive, but I was so young and unaware. Something about the Vietnamese new year starting. But back then, their holiday signaled ... read more

After our initial this-is-ok with the room and getting into bed in all our clothes waiting for the electric blanket and heater to kick in, we noticed a big big draught from the window. It didn't seem to close, and looking harder there was a 2cm gap at the top where you could see straight through to the 4 degrees outside. Closing the curtain didn't help. After shivering for an hour I went downstairs to see if they could move us. Sadly, booking.com said there was only a quad or a dorm bed for tonight. Didn't fancy it. The guy on the desk said immediately 'Window not close?'. He came up, fiddled with the wire on the handle, closed the curtain and started to leave. Nonono! He said bed warm, heater, is OK. Not OK! So ... read more