Blogs from Northwest, Vietnam, Asia - page 68

We have just finished a run of busy, but very enjoyable days. On our last day in Hanoi we took a day trip to the Perfume Pagoda. This involved a 2hr minibus journey there, then an hour in a piece of metal they called a boat, rowed by a tiny lady for an hour. All we had to sit on was a small plank of wood. The first 20 mins was fine as we were taking in the views, but then we really did have numb bums! You couldn’t even shift your weight as this caused the boat to rock and with only a inch or so clearance rocking was not a smart move! Once back on dry land we then had a 4km walk up to a grotto - this was quite hard going in ... read more

From Hanoi, we went to Sapa, a hill town in the north west of Vietnam. We spent there several days. It's a town that was built by the French around a dozen different minority groups. We made every day an activity/ trek for several hours and saw some of the most amazing views in Vietnam- landscape and people. We were walking between the clouds, up and down mountains. We were spending time with the minority people, which are amazing people and generally more fluent in English than the Vietnamese. They're really funny and we had good laughs bargaining for stuff, or just talking. It was just an amazing time. Donata made a friend there, they exchanged gifts and it was a really good ending for our time in Vietnam and a really relaxed place. The tempratures ... read more

My relief to be leaving Hanoi was soon overtaken by the immediate perplexities of actually going anywhere. While I wasn’t thrilled that my ride to the train station was on the back of a motorbike, I was happy to see I was meeting up with a group. This thrill too, was quickly washed away as we were each directed to different sections of the train. I was supposed to have a sleeper but was directed instead to sit in a seat and wait and allegedly someone would come get me and show me to my sleeper after the train had distanced itself from the station. I did as I was told, but my skepticism increased after I met a fellow tourist who’d been told the same thing and had an even bleaker outlook than I did. ... read more

All aboard the night train! We were off to Sapa to view some of Vietnam's most spectacular scenery and much to Eddie's delight the home to 5 ethnic minority tribes. Our six berth cabin was occupied by 3 Aussies and a poor Vietnamese man who I'm sure could not figure out why he was being punished with all these Mr and Mrs Westerners (Ong Tay & Ba Tay), especially as Ed and I had had a feed of garlic before clambering on board and we were all locked up in very close confines! Sleep was sparse to say the least and we arrived very early in Lao Cai (town on the border with China) the next morning. A minibus picked us up and with its sleepy load climbed bravely through the patchwork of crops which grow ... read more

As we disembarked the bus into the bright hot morning air, we realised that we had no VMD (dong) and a quick look in the photocopied pages of the Lonely Planet we had, showed that there was no bank in town. So there was no other option but to use the black market, in the form of a young man who met us as we got off the bus. He seemed a little disappointed that we had no Lonely Planet to sell him, but more disappointed that we didn't need to buy one. He did however cheer up when we said we needed to change some cash, he offered us 169 VMD to 1 yuan. We knew that we were being had but it turned out to be only about 30 VMD under the bank rate. ... read more