Conical Hats, Ho Chi Minh and lots of Motorbikes!

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Hello everyone,

It seems like there's so much to tell you since we arrived in Vietnam. The place is so different from the rest of Southeast Asia. Thailand and Laos were relatively similar, so it's good that we finally feel we're in a different country. Hanoi, the capital city, is extremely busy and quite crazy, with loads of traffic, mainly motorbikes, racing around everywhere - quite different from Vientiane! We've learned to cross the road slowly, rather than running, which means the crazy drivers have time to avoid us. Luckily they've all managed it so far, although we've had a few near misses! We've spent a few days in Hanoi, seeing the main attractions like the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where Ho's mummified body is on display (very strange!). They take it all very seriously, and are really concerned about being respectful, so you can't talk or wear 'ínappropriate' clothing. One of the guards even told us to take our sunglasses off while we were queuing outside the mausoleum! We also went to Ho Chi Minh's stilt house and another house where he lived in the same area. It was interesting to see, but more because it makes you realise how much the Vietnamese worship him than because it was an attraction in its own right! There are images of him everywhere, and they seem quite obsessed! We also visited the Temple of Literature, which is supposed to be the most impressive temple in Hanoi. Although it was very interesting, we're a bit Templed-out now after having seen so many!!

We've also taken a day trip out to Hoa Lu, the ancient citadel, and Tam Coc, or Three Caves. Hoa Lu was okay but a bit of a disappointment, as there were only a couple of temples to see. The second part of the trip involved taking a 2 hour boat trip down a river to the three caves, which Sa was quite worried about but actually quite enjoyed!! We were rowed down the river by a Vietnamese woman (wearing the essential conical hat!) and passed through the caves, which were very picturesque with lots of stalactites hanging down over our heads. They have a scam going where vendors on other boats come along and try to get you to buy a drink for your rower, but then the rower sells it back to the vendor for half price - luckily we managed to evade this one, but some Australian people we met got boxed in by all the vendor boats until they bought a drink!! The scenery is amazing around Tam Coc - limestone karsts sticking up out of rice paddies - very beautiful!

Last week we went on a 3 day boat trip to Halong Bay, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has similar scenery to Tam Coc, but with the limestone karsts sticking up out of the sea instead. We booked a package tour for this, as they're incredibly cheap. Unfortunately we soon realised why!! The people running the boat were not the friendliest of people and the service wasn't the best. And the food, although it would have been perfectly nice once, was not so nice when we'd had the same meal repeated for lunch and dinner for three days!! The first day we arrived at the port and had to wait for almost an hour before we could board the boat. The boat itself was an old junk, very picturesque, although our cabin was on the small side!! We had lunch on the boat and sunbathed for a bit on the top deck while we cruised, and then visited a couple of caves on one of the limestone islands. The first one, Paradise Cave, was filled with wonderful limestone formations, many of which resemble various animals. It would have been nicer without the crazily coloured fluorescent lights though! We cruised for a bit longer and then stopped for kayaking (obviously Sa didn't do this!). Phil went kayaking with a girl called Justine who rowed at Oxford, so you'd think we'd have been quite good, but Phil promptly fell in the water before she'd even got into the kayak!! We had another stop for swimming, where we all jumped off the top deck of the boat while Sa took pictures.

The next day they dropped us at Cat Ba Island, where Sa went on a trek into the national park but Phil stayed in Cat Ba town and explored as her stomach wasn't feeling great again! Sa arrived back very tired for lunch - apparently the trek was more like a rock climb, everyone got extremely sweaty, and Sa and another girl thought they were going to pass out so had to stop near the top and wait for the others to come back down! We had lunch at the hotel (the usual rice, tofu, squid and morning glory!) and then were told we had a free afternoon (this despite being told when we booked the tour that we'd have another cruise and swimming, kayaking and snorkelling! - very disappointing!). So we decided to walk round to the Cat Co Beaches, which were very scenic but unfortunately the one we went to had been taken over by a large resort. The sky was steadily darkening as we walked there, and Phil just managed to get in the water when it started pouring it down! We got undercover of the bar though and stayed there for most of the afternoon. The last day was spent merely being shunted around from one place to another, on a minibus, the boat and finally another minibus to take us back to Hanoi. All in all, we're glad we did the trip as the scenery was amazing and we met some nice people, but the tour companies are really spoiling the experience for a lot of people and if they're not careful, they're just going to ruin it.

Back in Hanoi, we spent a day just relaxing and stocking up on food supplies (we're self catering breakfast and lunch now to save money - impressive!), then the next day we set off for Sapa, a former French Hill Station in the mountains of the far northwest. To save money, we decided to buy a hard seat ticket for the 11 hour journey (starting at 6.10am!), which actually turned out to be not that bad. The seats were definitely hard but the train wasn't too busy, so we were able to stretch out lots. The scenery from the window was lovely too. We arrived in Lao Cai, the train station for Sapa, about 4.30pm and then took a minibus up to Sapa (unfortunately getting overcharged by the horrible minibus driver! - everyone's out to make money here!). We found a lovely, and much cheaper, hotel in Sapa, which had two double beds - luxury!! It was much cooler than in Hanoi but still relatively warm. We'd heard a lot about the awful weather in Sapa, which is usually very misty and rainy, so we were pleasantly surprised when we woke up to find it was sunny and warm. The first day we trekked by ourselves down to the nearby village of Cat Cat, which is inhabited by the Hmong hill tribe people. It was really interesting to see them all in their traditional costumes, and the rice terraces in the valleys made for some good photos. It was nice to come somewhere that wasn't too touristy (although apparently many more people come at the weekends), and where the people just seemed to be going about their everyday lives rather than catering for tourists the whole time. It was all downhill to Cat Cat and didn't take very long, but the way back was really tiring - we were ready for a cold coke at the end!! That afternoon we explored Sapa, which isn't that big, and discovered a nice bakery with lovely carrot cake! We were going to walk up another hill for the views but abandoned that idea when the mist came down!

The second day we booked a guided trek with two other people to the villages of Lao Chai (with Hmong People), Ta Van (Red Dzao People) and Giang Ta Chai (Dzay). The trek was really good and well worth doing, especially as our guide was very knowledgeable, something we haven't experienced much of so far in Vietnam! We'd been told that the walking was mostly downhill, but it was more like 'Nepali Flat', with lots of uphill and downhill sections, through rice fields and bamboo forests. The hilltribe people were lovely - we were followed for the first half of the walk by a group of five Hmong girls from Lao Chai who wanted to sell us handicrafts but also spoke very good English (even the five year old!) - they were very nice and let us take their photos too! There were loads of people working in the fields as we went past too. On the trek we encountered thousands of huge orange butterflies, which Sa didn't like very much but were very pretty! We had lunch near Giang Ta Chai Village, next to a waterfall. The lunch was simple but really good - baguettes with eggs and cheese and then lovely fresh apple, banana and watermelon for pudding - yum! We arrived back in Sapa about 2pm and went for another coke to rehydrate (it got quite hot on the trek!) and then wandered around the wonderful handicrafts shops for a while. The next day was again spent on the train for 11 hours, but unfortunately this train was not as nice as the last one and also had loads of people on. The station was crazy when we arrived, with people pushing from every direction and trying to get other people to get them tickets, just like in Sri Lanka! We were a bit worried we weren't going to get tickets in time, so we had to turn Vietnamese and shove all the people pushing us back with our bags!!! On the train, the seats were very narrow anyway but when they tried fitting four onto three seats, it got even worse! There was a lovely Vietnamese family sitting opposite us with a very cute baby, although it did manage to wee on Phil's leg (!!!) and spray it's drink everywhere!! Luckily for the last few hours it was slightly less crowded and not so awful but we were glad to get off that train and back to Hanoi!

We're off south to Hue this evening on the sleeper bus, so we'll fill you in about that next time.

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