Ok, I know I might sound a bit crazy and schizofrenic at the moment, since last time I wrote life sucked, because of the stupid storm Kammuri...bla bla...but my mom always comforts me with the arabic saying...."when something bad happens...there is always something good that comes with it!" And as always mummy is right!
So maybe I should inform you first that we managed to escape the imprisonment in Lao Cai, and we are currently in a beautiful hotel with ac and clean sheets and even a computer with internet in the room, more importantly back in Hanoi!!!
But before this luxury the last days we were dirty like crazy, stinking, but still happy! Coming back from Lao Cai to Hanoi turned out to be the best adventure I have ever experienced in my life! I guess I can see it that way because we survived to tell the story, otherwise it would have been the first and last adventure, but still the best :-))
We were stuck for 2 days in Lao Cai, which were both fun and boring, Fun when going out with our vietnamese rescuers (Sanh, Minh and Chao), who took us to very typical vietnamese places that no tourist would ever find. And the food...yuuummmii, you can see lots of pictures with them eating, eating and eating! Boring, was the rest of the day since there is not much to do in Lao Cai, except for internet cafes that are filled with annoying kids playing computer games and SMOKING next to you!! So when the rain finally stopped our rescuers said it is time to hit the road, before it gets worse.
Adventure PartI: The Departure and Bumpy Ride to Bao Yen
Monday the 11th of august we got up at 6 in the morning to prepare for the departure. We went downstairs to have a shot of vietnamese coffee, and it is really like a shot...damn strong. Watching the sun rising behind the Lao Cai train station. Our minibus finally arrived. The 7 of us, got in......tension is rising...ok enough bullshit otherwise this will become a book. To make this first part short it was the bumpiest ride of my life for about 3 hours of stomach shaking and head banging in the bus.
We finally arrived to Bao Yen a small town south of Lao Cai. We were supposed to catch a ride on a motorcycle for the next 90km, since we had been told that the roads are not reachable by car. Until now, I am not sure why the hell we continued by bus, since we were relying on Sanh and the rest to take us were ever they go, we never asked. But I am guessing because there were like thousands...ok maybe around 50 tourists there already bargaining with all the motorcycle drivers.
Adventure PartII: The Road of Obstacles...came to an end:-(
The bumpy road was like heaven compared to this part. We were driving either on mud lakes, water, mountains of soil and finally it was getting more challenging so we all had to get out of the minibuss and clear the road of huge rocks and fallen down wood from the storm. After each obstacle that we managed to conquer we felt like heroes, yeaaaha. Until we reached a part...that was completely missing...there was no road left to clear on the mountain, it had gone down the valley.....God have mercy on it's soul. I am telling you everyone was just paralysed at this point, surprising, no panic attacks, like: what do we do now, we are stuck, we are going to DIE! Ok, that is exaggerated. Instead, everybody remained very calm taking pictures and movies, check out mine:-)
So the only thing left to do was to use our legs, we started walking on what was left of the road, a small edge. This was just about noon, so the sun was happily grilling us on our way up-hill with luggage. Fortunately, after only 10 minutes of walking we had some motorcycle riders passing by who wanted to earn some cash so they gave us a ride to a small village....which I forgot the name of....This ride was the best adrenalin kick!
Adventure PartIII: The Village
From here we still had 350 km to reach Hanoi, so motorcycle was no option. From what we were told the roads were better in this area to go by car, so again Sanh saved us by contacting his buddies and ordering another minibuss to come and pick us up. However, we had to wait for like 3-4 hours for the bus to arrive. These 4 hours were a blast! We got to meet some ethnic minority from the Tay tribe. Eventhough we could not speak the same language we still had lots of fun with them. People in this village were extremley friendly and hospitable, and curious, everyone was looking after us and yelling "Hallo!Hallo!", I guess that is the only english they know.
Walking through the village we happened to run into the only english speaking person, who was an english elementary teacher from Hanoi, Mr Nguyen. He was kind enough to invite us to his home. However, it was still hard to understand him. His english was like my spanish, which is not good. He told us that he had moved to the village so he could earn more money teaching english, which was 2 million vietnamese dong per month (80 euros!)
The best part was getting "stoned" with the old Tay ladies. I spotted this ladies across the street and from a distance it looked like they did not have any teeth, but still wearing RED lipstick. I approached them to take a picture with them, and then to my surprise I could see that their teeth were dark red, because of some green plant they were chewing on, so of course I just HAD to try it. They took out this huge green leaf for me put in some white paste..made of GOD knows what, some tobacco and again..some GOD knows what, but I figured if they have lived so long using this I should survive it as well. According to Sanh, they chew this to keep their teeth strong and at the same time the "drug" has a relaxing effect. It tasted quit bad, but I have to say I did not really get a strong trip from it, maybe cause I could not stand chewing it for too long...blleeeee, and the most dissapointing thing... my teeth did not turn as red as theirs, obviously you have to keep it up for years before you can get that "beautifully" coloured teeth :-)
Adventure Part IV: The True Beauty of Vietnam and snake luck!
On the way from "the village" we saw the most beautiful scenery driving on the top of the mountain! We even ran into some buffalos blocking the road it was like in a discovery channel documentary.
Then all of a sudden the driver hit the break and the guys were yelling something in vietnamese and all go out...it turned out that the driver had run over a snake but it was still alive. So my initial naiv thought was that they wanted to spare it a painful death and kill it, but they were totally excited that they will have snake for DINNER tonight! One of the guys just placed his foot on the snake's head and killed it with a stone. I don't think I have experienced this many adrenalin kicks on one day. And considerate as they are the placed the snake in a bag right infront of my feet in the car, and it was still moving!
According to vietnamese superstition meeting a snake on a trip, brings you luck, so I guess we should be happy to have met it.
Adventure Part V: Birthday Parrrrrtttyyy!
It was pitch dark on the road, now and then we passed by bikers or kids walking just next the cars. Everytime I was getting an heart attack thinking we were going to hit them any moment.
Then we stopped at somebodies house, which turned out to be some kind of restaurant. The son of the family was turning 9 so we had the great chance to take part of a kid's birthday party vietnamese style. The uncle seemed very happy to see foreigners so he was making us drink shots of home made spirit, I don't know how many brain cells I killed from drinking that stuff, it was deadly. I have learned some more vietnamese now..."mot,hai,ba,hoi!!" (meaning 1,2,3 drink!)
Then we finally arrived back to civilization, to a small town called Tuyen Quang, were we spend the night at a nice hotel. It was soooo great to have a shower, but then again we only had our dirty, stinky clothes to put on again :-)
Adventure Part VI: The Final Destination!
Tuesday morning we went for another taste bud exciting eating session with Chao, every meal that these guys took us to was a new experience full of taste and pleasure! I am talking about food now...don't think anything else;-)
And then we hit the road to Hanoi, but again stopping for eating lunch on the way, and the guys were fooling us all the time that they had ordered dog meat, so we were a bit suspicious, since that is a specialty in the north of vietnam. You could see several restaurant signs, with the word Cho (=dog). There were soooo many dogs in this area I was amazed they were not getting run over by cars, or maybe they were and that is when they have them for dinner, like the snake. There were even traffic signs warning for dogs!
We can not describe the joy and relief we felt when we finally arrived to Hanoi, eventhough it was noisy, crowded, dirty, it was almost like coming home!
I guess it is not possible to book a tour like this, in case you would like to experience it, check for tropical storms before heading to Sapa.
Today I basically spent the day having 4 hours of spa treatment from head to toe and then relaxing at the hotel room. Tomorrow will be our last day in Vietnam and friday I will fly to Bangkok....yiiiipppiiii!!!!!
Until next time!
mot, hai, ba..hoi!
