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After waiting too long in Hanoi for my Vietnamese visa extension, I was almost ready to explode and needed to go some place where there were no tourists or people trying to sell me things or scams. Not saying that all of Hanoi is bad, just select parts.
From Hanoi I took a 7 hour, local bus to Son La. It's a city in the northwest and I thought it would be a good base to check out the area. The people in the town were really friendly and honest, but that was only if you could find them. The town is wide and spread out. It was totally paved over and was empty. Not just of tourists, but locals too. Maybe there was a local event going on because it was eerily empty and had a still feel. That made me move on to the next place, Dien Bien Phu.
Dien Bien Phu is the capital for the region and has some historical importance. It is the site of a major French defeat and started the end of Indochina. The city itself isn't much else. There isn't many sites and it looks like most other Vietnamese cities
with large, paved roads, a decent market and plenty of Pho and Co'm food shops. One good thing to note is that the Laos border that is about 34 km from town has, as of last month, been officially opened to everyone. This should make Dien Bien a more popular place for people to pass through in the future.
My next stop was to the tiny town of Muong Lay. Muong Lay has been going through some major changes. First was it's name change. 2 years ago it was Lai Chau. Second has been the almost complete evacuation from it. The reason is because in 5 years it will be under water. A major dam is being built that will flood it and much of the surrounding area. Only the minority people and a few Vietnamese have still remained. Besides that bad news, the area itself is beautiful. My hotel, the only one still open, had free, new mountain bikes and I was able to ride around during my time there. There's a few little villages near the town and the road goes along a river which makes the landscape very appealing.
After Muong Lay, I was feeling
the urge to speak english again. So where to go? That choice was easy. Sapa. It's by far the main tourist site for the northwest and every tourist agency in Hanoi has signs advertising it. I knew I would be going back to a land full of tourist prices and touts, but I figured it was time.
Sapa wasn't as aggressive as I thought it would be. True, there are little Hmong girls everywhere trying to sell you souvenirs along side their elders, but they aren't too bad. Once they realize that you're not interested they open up and just want to talk. Two little girls that I met where Mo and Ha. They were trying to "sell me", but knew I didn't want anything, so we just started talking about my home and theirs'. I took them out to a big hot pot lunch. It's similar to Japanese shabu-shabu, but with a Vietnamese twist. You get raw meats and vegetables and a big pot with a soup mixture on top of a gas burner. You cook the meats up yourself and it's very delicious and filling. When talking over lunch, they offered to take me around the area
to different villages and act a my guides. It seemed like fun, so we set a time for the next day.
Early the next morning I met up with Ha and Mo and we went out on the motorbike that I rented. Sapa is up at over 1500 meters, so it has great mountain scenery with countless rice paddies carved into them. That, with several different ethnic villages, makes driving around very enjoyable. We ended up going to 6 or 7 different villages. They were not tourist free, but were still nice to see. It was funny because whenever we would drive past a group of tourists with me driving and my two little guides in the back, you would always hear, "awww..."
At the end of the day, we were exhausted. I took them out to another hot pot and we walked around town. It is actually a little chilly there, so walking around isn't the sweat filled chore it is elsewhere in Vietnam. I tried to give them some money for taking me around, but they refused. They said, "no, no, we tell you it was for free." I was later able to sneak some money
into their purses, but they found out and got a little angry at me. I insisted they keep it and they insisted a take some presents then and that they buy me dinner. So even in a tourist town, this shows that not everyone is money hungry. They were an excellent find.
From here I'm not sure where the next stop is. Sometimes that a good thing.
See you next time.
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Shantel
non-member comment
:)
How nice to have found those two little tour guides! How cute! I'm just picturing you and them riding through the town on the bike :)