Good Mornning Vietnam! - Hanoi and Sapa

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Hi all,

Well the minute I got off the airport here in Laos, I knew that if I didn't get right down to writing this blog, it would never happen. Why you ask? well simply put, the difference is culture and ambiance between Vietnam and Laos is so staggering that the crazyness which is Hanoi will mellow from absolute insanity down to a mere - shall we say - eccentricity after a few more hours of monks, temples and whatnot. Anyway, Laos is the next entry - this one starts where I started...getting on a Vietnam airlines flight on a Saturday afternoon feeling exhausted. It had been a crazy few weeks, with the trip to Cambodia and the visit with Rose and my Mom. To pick up from there, I packed up all my personal belongings into a few boxes - where they are conveniently stored in one of the cubicles at work in Singapore. I've accumulated about 20kg of items in the last 4 months one way or another - and all of it is going to have to make it back to London eventually...but that is a different story too.

So anyway, as everyone knows, I might call what I'm doing backpacking - but its a rather 'lite' version since I really can't be bothered with any actual struggles on my journeys. To that end, although I did restrain myself to a 37 USD per night hotel room, I also opted for the 15USD private car pickup service from the airport. I love those guys with the little sings standing there with my name on it - cuts right through all the hustlers-and in Vietnam there are lots of them!

Arriving at my hotel, which was very conveniently located near the lake which denotes the centre of Hanoi, I was simply shocked by the traffic. Not even the Arc di Triumph in Paris comes anywhere close the sheer craziness of the roads in Hanoi. I literally had to work up the courage to cross the road. I nearly hired a motorbike to take me across but that seemed to be putting the same risk of death in the hands of some crazy motorcycle taxi driver. I opted instead to find some other people who were crossing in the same general direction that I wanted to go - and following real closely to them - sort of like the guys in Chicago and London do when they don't want to pay the fare at the train turnstyles. It worked, and I was able to get to a coffeeshop which looked down on the most outlandish intersection - where I basically studied traffic patterns for a while to build up my confidence a bit. By the end of the night, I was successfully crossing the street on my own, but my nerves were shot - so I made arrangements to get out of town at the next possible time.

I took the overnight train to SaPa. This is a small village in the mountainous northern part of Viet Nam. I do love sleeping on trains. I fell asleep within the first hour and barely woke before our 5:30AM arrival. Again, I had arranged for a car to pick me up - and a good thing too as it was pouring rain, dark, and we had 2 hours of curvy mountain road ahead of us. The driver seemed confident - I put this down to the bobble-head cow he had on the dash - which must have contributed to our safety as we aggressively pused the 4 wheel drive around blind mountain road corners in the darkness. We used the horn to audibly feel our way around corners so that , presumably, everyone else would get out of our way.

When we arrived in SaPa, I got checked in (I love when hotel let you check in right away, even if its 7AM!)- the hotel was a converted rich-persons house - and my room had great big windows - but there was no view, as the sky was a soupy grey. I had every intention of taking a shower - but as soon as I was unpacked, the electricity went out all across town. I instead went out and watched the Black Hmong native people in the area set up there stands for the days market in the rain. I soon came to know that it wasn't really necessary to go look for the hmong because for the rest of my trip, it was nearly impossible to get rid of them - always following me around saying 'buy from me' and 'you buy from me, you happy, me happy, all happy' or 'if you buy later, you buy from me' They did make pretty nice looking stuff - but what real use do I have for hippy purses and silver bracelets??

SaPa is sort of like the Vietnam version of an Indian Hill Station. The weather is cool and the air is clear. THe mountains make for good easy/medium grade short treks, which I got started with as soon as I had had lunch. The first trek I did was to Cat Cat Village, which was a Black Hmong village basically right in town. You can take a motorcycle or car all the way there - but I walked, as I was really looking to start shedding my belly. THe second day, I joined up with 3 of the countless frenchies in SaPa to do the 3 village trek, which is the most popular 1 day trek you can do, but which still has a few challenging bits to it. I even slipped into a rice paddy and managed to get wet up to my knee. ...nothing the new trekking trousers or Keen weathrproof sandles couldn't handle though ;-) The frenchies were spending the night in the final village so our tour guide, a cute Vietnamese girl hamed Him, strangely, took me to a motorbike taxi and put me on the back so that she could get back to the frechies...she 'got to' spend the rest of the night with them - which I'm sure was fun as she didn't speak french and they didn't speak english. Oh and apparently it was 'Woman's Day' - which I'm told is different than Valentines day, as 'Valentines day is for young lovers and Woman's day is for all women'...and here I thought EVERY day was Women's day!!! ;-)

Well I loved being on the back of the motobike - still scared todrive one, but when I got back to Hanoi, I was right there to get around town the second cheapest way (After your feet of course). The traffic was still scary - and I saw many strange things - like a guy balancing a 46 inch LED tv to the back of his motorbike without any cables, only holding on behind him with one hand as he drove.

I spent most of my time back in Hanoi wandering around. I saw the Army museum, where American helicopters and planes captured during the Vietnam wore are triumphantly displayed. I saw Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (which was closed but still heavily guarded) and spent a lot of time getting lost in the back alleys of the 'Old Quarter' where people sold everything and there was always lots of action on the street.

It was a good trip - though the biggest disappointment was that the only food worth noting was the Pho. This is a noodle soup that is apparently the only spicy dish in the Vietnamese diet. ITs had for breakfast - and at least in my experience was available with either chicken or beef. My ability to eat it at all showed off my improved chopstick skills since leaving for Singapore in June. I always used to avoid it in restaurants as I knew I'd make a mess of my clothes :-) Other than that the food was only so-so, which leaves me with a lot to look forward to as I make my way down to Thailand!

Until next time, take care of yourselves....(I know I better do, as I just found out my travel insurance has lapsed - oops!! better get on that one next...)

Matt

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Photos

Looking like a local!
Taking time out to sell some pineapple.

Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh
is supposed to be buried here but in October, he goes to Russia for 'secret preservation treatments' - like a spa I guess?

DSC00756
Luxury on the rails

Schools always look like this
govenment architecture at its finest

Jazz at Minh's
I got a t-shirt!

The standard pose
Behind the bar...I'm starting a series :)