Ollie and I decided to do a bit of a mission up to the mountains of Vietnam, close to the Chinese border. Originally we planned to do a remote border crossing into Northern Laos, then travel down to Luang Prabang from there. When we actually looked into it though, we discovered there were only 3 buses a week, and it would take us 5 days to do rather than the 2 we actually had.
Oops.
Undeterred, we replanned (see, I can do spontaneity and stuff) our trip, still making it to Sapa, but returning to Hanoi afterwards and (whisper) flying onto Luang Prabang (see, I’ve turned Ollie into a Flashpacker now)
This was my first overnight sleeper train. We got to Hanoi North station ready for the 9 hour trip to Lao Cai. We’d managed to get sleeper berths for the journey up there, and after a bit of a gossip, we managed to get a great night’s sleep before arriving in Lao Cai at about 8.00 am - very civilised.
We thought we’d best book our return ticket straightaway, as we needed to come back on the Sunday - which was the last day of the 5 day New Year holiday (hence the trains were rammed). Unfortunately we could only book onto an attractively named ‘Hard Seat’. Hmmm.
We jumped onto a local minibus up to Sapa - the journey was absolutely amazing, and I could already feel my jaded spirits being restored - first off: it was actually SUNNY, the mist and clouds were rising over amazing paddy fields that were terracing up the hillsides and for the first time, I was in love with Vietnam.
We found ourselves a guesthouse which had a great roof terrace from where you could see Fansipan - the highest mountain in Vietnam. The whole area had a real Alpine feel to it - it felt like I could have been in Switzerland.
We decided to go for a bit of an explore. Peeling off the layers for the first time in days, we followed our noses into a local village, stumbling across a few cows and dogs, until we found a handy ledge with a sheer drop overlooking the mountains and valley. Absolutely gorgeous.
We paused there for a while for a chat (yes Ben, it was yet another personal conversation, cos that’s how we roll) and managed to get sunburnt in the process. Beautiful. But I was so glad to feel warm, I didn’t care that I looked like Rudolph’s two-legged sister.
Later that afternoon, we decided to have a bit of an adventure, and head out on a moto to a local waterfall. Neither of us had ever ridden one before, but we were unfazed. Until Ollie actually tried to ride one, and promptly had to do an emergency stop with the use of his feet to prevent driving into the back of a parked van (I feel I assisted in preventing the collision by putting my hands over my eyes).
After a couple of attempts (“Sir, sir, we drive on the right here” “I know, I just can’t steer it”), we decided to have a go at him riding with me on the back. Ollie was terrified he was going to break me, and I had a couple of slight concerns myself, so we decided to do the sensible thing and have a little practice - we’d just go to the top of the road, then turn round and head back.
We start off, slightly wobbly, get to the top of the road…..
….and carry straight on. Well. We hadn’t fallen off, so we figured we may as well continue.
It turned out to be a great afternoon - Ollie quickly got the hang of riding the moto, and we soon covered the 15km up to the Silver waterfall. I had my photo taken by some Chinese tourists (“Look! She’s so white! And look at that hair! I can’t believe someone would go out like that - quick, take a picture!”) and we had a scramble up to the waterfall. After stopping for a quick snack (unidentified meat & local tea) we decided to press on to a national park, which had the impressively named ‘Golden Dream’ waterfall.
We made it to the park, and took a walk down the trail, looking for tigers (there aren’t actually any there, but you NEVER KNOW). I began to have a bit of trouble breathing - I was pretty shocked that I’d managed to lose ALL my fitness within a couple of months. We failed to find the Golden Dream waterfall though. But we did have a lovely sing song to some Cure songs instead.
Jumping back on the moto, we started to head back down to Sapa, needing to hurry before the sun set and the cold really kicked in. Ollie felt that the bike didn’t feel quite right, but we pressed on until a passing moto passenger started pointing at our back wheel. Yup. You guessed it. Puncture. And we’re about 20km from Sapa and at least 6km to the nearest village.
Drat.
We started pushing the bike (the royal we - clearly I’m a girl and therefore carried the helmets) down the hill, when a friendly moto rider stopped to help us. Whilst he struggled to get the wheel off, Ollie hovered in a manly fashion and I ate tangerines with the moto rider’s girlfriend. For some reason, our tyre wouldn’t come off, so another guy was flagged down who then put a call in to what we assumed was a local garage.
Our friendly helpers drove off, leaving the two of us waiting optimistically by the side of the road. Our stoicism remained - yes, the sun had set and it was absolutely freezing, but we were convinced help wa on the way.
And it was. Our knights in shining armour (on a bright pink moto to be precise) appeared, and managed to fix our tyre - yippee!!
We then had to make it down to Sapa in the twilight. To keep us going, and to keep us warm, we decide to alarm the villagers by having a sing song. I think our version of Wonderwall was particularly tuneful, as was Pulp’s ‘Sorted for E’s and Whizz’ and we managed to rock out (whilst on a moving moto) to Muse’s Knights of Cydonia. We provided huge amounts of entertainment to the locals.
We treated ourselves that night to a proper dinner and a bottle of red wine (I appreciate that wine is appearing a lot in this blog recently - but it’s a BIG DEAL to me) in a restaurant that looked like a Swiss Stube, with a huge log fire and ‘Take me home country roads’ and ’California Dreamin’ on repeat play, which all felt slightly bizarre.
I just couldn’t get warm, and the cause of my breathing difficulties earlier became clear - I was coming down with a chronic cold - my throat felt so swollen, I could barely drink my wine (I soldiered on though). I wasn’t too hopeful about the chances of me trekking the following day.
Next morning, I still felt pretty dire, but I trotted to the pharmacy and got some Asian Wonder Drugs ä and some Strepsils. A couple of pills later I felt a million times better - god knows what was in them, but they were GREAT.
We met our trekking guide - a local Hmong girl who was hilarious (and very small - I kept standing next to her to make myself feel tall for once in my life). Unfortunately we had a bit of a cloudy day, but the valleys were beautiful, and it was amazing to see the ingenuity of the rice paddies - the way the water flows between the terraces to prevent stagnation. The trek was pretty busy - it didn’t really feel like we were off the beaten track, but I did love Sapa. Probably my favourite place in the whole of Vietnam.
On the trek I was also introduced to two great tracks which will always remind me of that trip - Sigur Ros’ Hoppipolla and Sufjan Stevens’ Chicago. Both fantastic, and it was a great travelling moment listening to Hoppipolla watching life go on in a tiny rural village, knowing that whatever our Western, capitalist, self-indulgent issues are, life here will always go on in much the same way.
That my friends, gives you perspective. Something I’m gaining more of every day.
We headed back down the mountain to Lao Cai, ready for our Hard Seat back to Hanoi. After whiling away some time in a café, we jumped onto the train. Hmmm. Hard Seat really does mean hard seat - a beautiful wooden bench with a window that helpfully doesn’t close. In classic style, the aisle was also filled with fellow passengers on plastic stools.
Gamely trying to convince ourselves that this would be a Great Travel Experience, we settled down for the journey. And shifted positions. And tried another one. And hunched over double. And leant against each other. And had many head lolling moments. Until 5 hours in, Ollie had a (small) strop and decided to sleep on the floor. Amazingly he crashed out, only waking when the tea trolley ran him over at about 4.30am.
By the time we arrived in Hanoi, we were both knackered, and it’s amazing we (OK, ok, I) didn’t have a complete tantrum - especially as we couldn’t even crash out for a couple of hours. Undeterred, we returned to our previous hostel, dumped our bags for a few hours, had some brekkie and set out to ’Do’ Hanoi properly, now everything had reopened.
It’s actually a really great City - the old quarter is great, loads of French Colonial architecture, and what they call ’Tube Houses’ (although I wasn’t sure why). I impressed Ollie with my knowledge of various sites and temples (Ollie: “I know you were getting it from Lonely Planet and weren’t just clever”. Foiled.)
After a final hair straighten (just me, not Ollie) we headed for the airport for our luxury flight to Luang Prabang. My first time on a propellor plane. The onboard cuisine was typically Laos - ummmm a cold beef burger. An interesting introduction to the famed Laotian specialities…..
