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Published: October 25th 2007
After all the long boat/bus rides etc I was so glad I caught a plane to Hanoi. It only took us 45 minutes instead of 16 hours! The bus ride from the airport to our hotel was so funny. Its unbeleivable how they drive here. Basically the general rules are little gives way to big or you die... Oh yeah and you have to honk your horn every couple of seconds! Because we arrived late and were tired we kind of ended up in a shit area of the city. It was nice and everything but it was just really out of the way. We went for some noodle soup which is a local dish they eat here. We sat on the corner of a street on tiny chairs (really common here) and ate a meal which cost in total 40,000 Dong which is just over a quid!
On the second day me and this Columbian guy took a taxi into the central part of the city where we had a look around the shopping centre and then checked out this temple thing which is on the lake.
Me and the Ozys got all of our trips sorted at this agent.
Me at a temple
Really bored of temples now! Thing the Ankgor wat willbe the last!Booked trips to Halong bay, Sapa and the Purfume Pergoda, all of which I've heard good things about.
The trip to Halong was really good considering the weather wasn't too good. Me and Ben decided to get on the beers early and ended up drinking from 11am until around midnight! The boat set off on a tour around some of the islands before stopping so we could all jump off the top deck which was awesome. The following day we done an hour hike through the jungle and ended up at our hotel where we were saying. Went out with everyone on our boat which was a laugh...got smashed again and ended up catching a moped back with 3 us on it!
After the boat trip we headed to Sapa. We had to catch the night train which was surprisingley good, compared to the one I caught in Thailand. We arrived at Lao Cai where we caught a minibus that took us firstly to the Sunday market at Bac Ha. The market was pretty cool. We saw loads of the locals tribe people dressed in their traditional clothing. We just walked around the market once because it was really busy
and started to get annoying with people pushing past.
After the market we continued to Sapa which is in a really mountainous region where the weather is alot cooler. We checked into an awesome hotel which was included on the trip. After staying there the night we started our trek in the morning. A load of local tribes people were waiting outside the hotel to take us on the trek to their village. It started out realy well with it being a small group but gradually the number of tourists increased which ruined it abit. We stayed at our guides house which was really good. There was only myself and 4 other ausies which made it better. The food they prepared for us was amazing considering the 'Kitchen' they had to prepare the food in....basically a hole in the ground and a fire. In the morning we had to trek to the end of the trail accompanied again by some of the local tribes people. They were really friendly and everything but they only walked with you to sell you stuff at the end and you feel obliged to buy something even if you have no use for it!
We
On a bike tuk-tuk
This ride was crazy...we thought we were going to die! caught the night train back to Hanoi which arrived at 4:30am. We basically sat around on the street for a couple of hours waiting to be picked up for the Purfume Pagoda trip. The trip was ok but we were all really tired and not really appreciating anything! The best bit was the boat ride down the river to where the pergoda is. The temple itself is just a cave...
I'd arranged a flight from Hanoi to Saigon because I was tired of all the long travelling and fancied an easy ride. I said final goodbyes to the Ausies as they were going to Hoi an.
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