Tag Archives: Vietnam

Hanoi, Vietnam Part 2

29 Tuesday Mar 2011

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We got back from Halong Bay late and had no idea if there was going to be room in the hotel we stayed at before. Thankfully they found room for us! Seriously, it you are in Hanoi, stay at the Serenity Hotel. You will not be disappointed!!

We left almost immediately to get some dinner. The hotel recommended a place close by called Highway 4. Amazing! Another Lonely Planet recommendation as well. They even have a line of  liquors that you can buy. I kind of wish I had now. Not a late night. After 8 hours round trip in a car, it was time for bed.

We had no real plans for the next morning. In the afternoon we had booked a massage and then it was dinner and apres dinner for Susan’s birthday. We came down for breakfast and our favourite guy who worked at the hotel said “Happy Birthday!”. I guess he had looked at Sue’s passport when we checked in! So we had our usual breakfasts and then we decided to just walk around and check out parts of Hanoi that we hadn’t seen yet. Before we knew it, it was time for lunch. We decided on the Green Tangerine. We were the only ones on the patio and ordered a feast! Holy moly did we eat a lot! After a few birthday/lunch cocktails it seemed appropriate to go find a place for another beer. We walked towards a location that was suggested in the LP but that place ended up being closed. So we backtracked to a place we had seen earlier. EZ Rider. I loved this place! And more so loved the manager. He was playing Backstreet Boys so I asked him about the band and if he liked them. He said he did and went on to tell us how much tickets were etc. He was totally cute! He told us that it was also a club and they have a backroom with a dance floor. We told him we might come back later to check it out! Most bars in Vietnam close at midnight but EZ Rider club stayed open late.

Off for our massage appointment. The funny thing about the place we booked at is that it was actually the place we wanted to go to a couple days prior but couldn’t find (SF Spa).  It was way better! Your typical spa with serene music and everyone quiet and respectful. Damn! We wasted money at that other place! The massage was fantastic. I fell asleep a couple times. We walked out of there totally out of it from being so relaxed. Until Susan says “Wow, I have never had my boobs massaged before”. Gutteral laughter ensued. Um what? I said to her that it must have been a birthday special because I certainly did not get that!

When we got into our hotel room, we saw red roses and a birthday cake. How nice is it that the hotel did that? Susan was so moved!

We decided on a place for dinner. It was packed when we got there but we managed to squeeze into the bar while we waited for our table. Good thing we got a table right away as we were getting no service at the bar. The food was fantastic. I know I sound like a broken record but I mean it when i have said that we didn’t eat a bad meal in Vietnam.

On to Le Pub! We settled in with some large beers and a jager bomb to get the night going!

After buying a t-shirt, taking a bunch of pictures and talking with the manager, we walked back to EZ Rider. The manager was still there! We chatted with him some more. He actually is brought into various bars to start them up. I talked with him about what he was doing advertising wise. Oh come on…. it is what I do!!! I always have the marketing hat on!

After some more drinks, we ventured to the back “club”. Such a vast different from the bar out front.

 We stayed maybe half hour or so but knew that one more drink would put us over the edge so we made our walk back to the hotel. Of course getting lost in the process. Thanks goodness for Jason and his iphone. GPS!! The crazy thing about our walk is that there is really no one on the streets. The busy Hanoi streets of the day are long gone and a quiet takes over. Kind of strange!

When we got back we dug into the cake! Did we ever. I would say when I woke up there was only 1/3rd of the cake left. Yummy!

Sue wasn’t feeling very well the next morning, so Jason and I wandered down to the Vietnam History Museum. They had some really cool artifacts. But really we just walked around Hanoi. Nothing on the agenda. Just taking it all in.

We met up with Susan later and went to the Water Puppets show! It was fun! Although I am not sure I would see it again but I do I think everyone should experience it!

Since this was our last night in Hanoi and our last night with Jason, we wanted to go out for a nice dinner. We chose Five Restaurant. We did it up right! Appies. Entrees. Desserts and of course wine. A bottle or two. Just really took our time. The craziest thing happened at the restaurant. I has just tweeted about our meal when someone at another table asked me if I had just tweeted?? She must have been following a Hanoi feed and saw my Tweet. It was so strange! We now follow each other on Twitter!

We wanted to check out Ho Kiem Lake at night so after dinner we headed there. Very cool when it is all lit up.

 

We then strolled through the night market. Didn’t see anything worth buying mind you but it was fun regardless! Loved all the colours that we saw as we walked though. So vibrant!

So with that, we made our way one last time through the streets of Hanoi and back to the hotel. An early morning to the airport to say goodbye to Jason and make our way via Vietnam Airlines to Hoi An.

Halong Bay, Vietnam

18 Friday Mar 2011

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The train back to Hanoi from Sapa was uneventful. Slept on and off and arrived in Hanoi about 5am. We mistakenly got in a meter cab on our back back to Hotel Serenity and got gouged. What should have been a 30,000 dong cab ride cost us triple that. We got in an argument with the dude. Kind of a funny but paid him anyway. No more meter cabs for us!!

The hotel wasn’t open yet as they lock up for the night but our favourite guy who worked there opened the doors when he heard our voices and even gave us a room to chill out in for a couple hours as we were not meeting my brother until 7am.

It was so great to see Jason! He lives in the Philipines which means we don’t get to see eachother often. I was looking forward to spending some quality time with him. We had some breakfast and then waited for our Halong Bay shuttle to pick us up. We grabbed seats at the back of the bus for the 4 hour drive. What a mistake. Every bump catapolted us off our seats. Thank goodness for seat belts! Felt a little sick by the time we got to Halong Bay and I don’t normally get car sick.

Halong Bay at noon is chaos as people from the overnight boats are leaving to go back to Hanoi and people from Hanoi are arriving for their tours. We were scheduled to go on a 3 day, 2 night trip on the Oriental Sails junk boat. We paid a premium for our tour. Some boats can as cheap as $30 for 2 nights but often that is not the best choice as you will note below.

There was some confusion when we arrived. For some reason we were not allowed to get on our boat. We had heard that they were not giving out slips to leave the harbour but there was no reason given. After waiting about 30 minutes with no real answers, I found our guide and pressed him on the reason. I said that we were not understanding the delay and that he needed to come explain to everyone what the problem was. He came back over and that is when some British man started barking at our guide to tell us the truth of the accident that had happened the night before where people had died. Um what???

We didn’t get that confirmed really until later that day. Our guides continued to tell us it was about a storm coming which seemed fishy since it was clear out. So what did happen?? Apparently a junk boat had sunk the night before and 12 people drowned. How horribly tragic. I feel so badly for the loved ones of those who died. And those poor people. What they thought was going to be a lovely holiday turned into tragedy. Word was that it was an unliscenced boat. So sad.

||A bit shaken from hearing that news, we got into a day boat and started touring Halong Bay. We were told we could go out for the day and that they would give us more information later about what was going to happen next.

Halong Bay is beautiful. And so were the junk boats. Hundreds of them sailing about.

 

We cruised around for a bit and were served an amazing lunch with complimentary wine for all of our troubles. The food was incredible. So much fresh seafood!

As we approached the dock for our cave tour, Sue decided to help out.

The cave was quite cool to walk through.  It had all these crazy rock formations that were unfortunately not naturally lit. All the light make it kind of corny but we still had fun as they pointed out all the different formations.

The view from outside the caves.

We then set sail once again and this is when we really got to see Halong Bay. What an amazing experience!!! Especially to see it when the sun went down. It really was perfection and I can understand why so many people come here every year. Some pictures I took as we sailed along.

After the sun set, we came back down into the dining area and the staff explained that no overnights were being allowed on Halong Bay and that we had the option of staying in the hotel overnight and then going out on another day trip or heading back to Hanoi and getting 50% of our money back. This is where Caley and Kyle stepped in with their awesome negotiation skills! They are fellow Canadians from Toronto and they stood their ground and said that they wanted 75% of their money back which actually was right seeing as we only got 25% of the trip we had paid for. The tour agreed and we took that same option. Still no reason was given as to why no overnights were allowed. Well, they said it was about the storm still but at this point, it had been confirmed to us by other staff that the accident had indeed happened.

So we piled back into the shuttle bus after a beautiful day experience in Halong Bay and headed back to Hanoi. The tour in Halong Bay was supposed to be Susan’s birthday trip and it sucked that it didn’t go as planned. I know that it would have been such a great time but these things happen. They needed to check the saftely of all the boats before letting them stay overnight again and we completely agreed with that decision.  

 

 

Sapa, Vietnam

13 Sunday Mar 2011

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The only way to get to Sapa is by train to Lao Cai and then bus or taxi from there to Sapa. Or of course car or motorbike but we chose the train. We booked the overnight train from Hanoi that left about 9pm and arrived in Sapa at around 6am. We arrived at the train station in Hanoi to chaos. We had no idea where we were supposed to go with our vouchers. We had bought tickets in the Orient Express sleeper train. We went to the main ticket booth and they told us to go outside but we still didn’t see where we were supposed to go. Thank goodness some guy selling snacks pointed us in the right direction. We got sorted with our tickets and then still didn’t know what to do. Were we supposed to wait in the station or go straight to the train? We ended up deciding to go straight to the train and if we weren’t supposed to someone would say something but they let us go through. Immediately our luggage was hijacked by some kid who I tried to grab my bags from but he wouldn’t let me. I knew this was going to cost us but I was too tired to care. So he walked us over about 5 different train tracks to our train. Felt a little unsafe just walking blindly over all these tracks but he did get us to the right train and right into our soft sleeper bed berths. Cost was only 50,000 dong which is about $2.50. I was fine with that. We were on the train and that was all that mattered. We were sharing out berth with a couple from South Africa, Chris and Crystal. Really nice kids who were on a guided tour throughout Vietnam. The train left on time and off we went. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep so I took half a sleeping pill and nighty night it was. It was odd sleeping on a train. You get moved around a lot. Just felt strange to me. But I was glad to have slept a little bit at least.

We arrived in Lao Cai on time. As we came out of the train, we saw our names on a sign. We had arrnaged with our hotel for the shuttle to take us to Sapa. We piled into the van and off we were. Scariest drive ever. It was very foggy out and the road is essentially all up hill with a cliff on the side. Our driver insisted on passing everyone and sometime coming close to drivers coming the other way. I was petrified!! But we arrived safe and sound at our hotel. Sapa Eden Hotel. I highly recommend this hotel to anyone who is visiting Sapa. From management, to the hotel rooms to the breakfasts. Everything was fantastic!

We wanted to book a private trek for the day but there was no guides available so we ended up joining another guided tour. But first we needed more clothes as it was so cold in Sapa. We walked up the hill to the market and bought a North Face jacket, gloves and warm socks. Clearly we were not prepared for the weather being as cold as it was. Having bundled up we were ready for our hike. We met up with Kay and Tony who were on the same shuttle with us from Lao Cai. Such a nice British couple.

It was very foggy out. Basically could only see right in front of us.

 

As we hiked lower though, we finally got a better view of some of the rice fields. Simply stunning. Apparently they only have one rice harvest a year here in Sapa. They have to make that rice last as long as they can.

The one thing about Sapa is that the women of the various hill tribes follow you on your treks. They want you to buy something from them at the end so they will try and create a relationship with you on the walks so that you will buy from them. They ask you your name and where you are from. They speak very good english. Our guide was saying that because as babies they are carried on their moms backs as they trek with all the visitors, they pick up english very early on in life. The kids do go to school but if the family is struggling for food, they will stop school in order to help their family out by selling their trinkets etc. The image below shows, the women as they walk with us on our trek.

As we got closer to the village of the H’Mong we saw how much they rely on rice. The rice fields blanketed the hillside.

And a picture of Sue and I.

Some pictures that I took when we were in the H’mong village.

The women surround visitors as they come into the village. As I said, they want you to buy from them. I didn’t need anything that they were selling so I just gave the girl the equivalent of $5 and she ran off. I am assuming to take the money home. As much as they hound you, I understand that this is how they feed their families so I can fault them for it. The women are the only ones who wear the tribe dress that is unique to each tribe. The men wear regular clothes.

It was so interesting walking through the villages. Their homes are open, bare and cold. There are chickens, dogs, pigs, ducks and buffalo roaming around everywhere. It makes you think about how we live. With hot water, beds and heat. Is that better though? They live simple lives but I don’t think the complications that happen with living the life I do is better at all. Just different.

Some other pictures from our trek that day.

 

After a day of trekking, we couldn’t wait to have hot showers and have a little nap. Love Sapa Eden hotel for having heated blankets. It made my day!

We went to a little place called Natures Bar and Grill for dinner. It is on the main road (Cau May). We were the only ones in the restaurant as we were eating quite late. We sat next to the indoor firepit. So enjoyable and so cozy and the food was once again fantastic! It was February 14th so Happy Valentines Day!!!

Day 2 on Sapa was more trekking. Again, Tony and Kay joined us. This was their last day in Sapa. For this trek we went to Cat Cat village which is just a short trek from our hotel. Another foggy day so as we walked along our guide would stop and say this is the view of and tell us how great it was. We would laugh and play along.

A great example of how thick the fog was.

We walked slowly through the village. I took lots of pictures along the way and tried to capture a little bit of village life.

We were lucky enough to go inside one of the village houses and see how they live. As I have said before, they live simply. They are not unhappy people though. This is just the way it is for them.

This is the woman who’s house we visited and her cute little baby! They have a clinic set up in Cat Cat village that has been teaching them about birth control and how it would be better for them to only have one or two children. They are just not able to feed more than that.

We walked through Cat Cat down a ton of steps to the waterfall. A picture of Sue, Kay and Tony.

Instead of walking to the next village our guide asked if we wanted to walk through the national park instead. Of course we did! What an amazing walk. Tough at times though. Lots of steps and some precarious moments climbing up some steep hills but it was great to see.

We then walked to a little village for lunch, over the below bridge that was way too wavy for me to be comfortable with. Lunch was shared with the pig, the dog and the monkey.

After observing the interaction between the three, this is what we discovered. Dog trumps pig. Monkey trumps dog. But sometimes dog trumps monkey. So funny.

Our feet were sore from another day of walking around so after the trek, we went for a 45 minute foot massage. Was just what the doctor ordered. Our feet were happy campers after that!! And ready for a final day of treking.

 We woke up the next morning to sunshine. I yelled at Susan to grab her camera and we took some pictures from our balcony. We couldn’t see anything the days before but to wake up to this was a miracle! We watched as the fog rolled in and out. So incredible!The manager at the hotel recommended since it was sunny (which he had been telling us since we arrived that this day was going to be sunny and was now saying “I told you so!”) that we should climb Hamrong Mountain and get a great view of Sapa. We headed off and before we knew it we were stripped down to just our tank tops. We went from wearing three layers the previous two days to tank tops! So amazing! The view from the top of Hamrong Mountain was incredible!

We had a little snack at the top. So relaxing. We sat for about an hour and just soaked up the sun.

Since our guide had gone on about how amazing the view on the way to Cat Cat village was the day before, we decided to walk down again. The view did not disappoint. You could clearly see the view of the valley and Fansipan Mountain.

We then strolled through Cat Cat village again, seeing things that we had missed the day before because of the fog.

This kid was the cutest. With his little teddy bear back pack!

We did not wanted to walk back up thr 3km hill so we hopped on the back of this bike and off we went to the market in Sapa. Cost us $2. I laughed the whole way up. As we went over bumps etc I thought I was going to fly off the back but we got to the market safe and sound. We had to experience the motorcycle taxi before we left Vietnam and doing it in Sapa seemed like the safest of all the cities!

 The rest of the afternoon we just walked around and I took some pictures of the local tribeswomen. When I took a picture of the one shown first, she asked if she could see the picture. Her comment: I look old. She was the cutest. I told her she looked fantastic!

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the hotel, shower, pack and get the shuttle back to Lao Cai so we could take the over night train back to Hanoi. We were meeting up with my brother Jason in Hanoi and heading to Halong Bay.

Final thoughts: If you come to Vietnam you have to experience Sapa. It is a lovely town with incredibly friendly people. Although you get a bit tired of having the tribes people say “Buy from me”, you know it is the way they feed their families and you get used to it. Regardless if it is foggy or sunny, you will see things you haven’t seen before. I was so happy to have experience it!