We arrived back in Hanoi from Halong Bay, late after our bus had a flat tyre. Changing the flat tyre was a very interesting process. The bus driver was unable to change the tyre with the tools that were on the bus. Next minute he had jumped onto a waiting scooter and went off to find a large pole to use as a lever. This didn’t work but a couple of minutes later, a “professional” tyre changer arrived. We were quite a sight standing on the side of the road and many people on scooters stopped to watch. We were just as intrigued with the sights that were passing us by.
Back in Hanoi, we booked our trip to Sapa for three days. The train only left the next evening which gave us another a full day to explore the city sights. We wandered around the main market, which was three storeys and had hundreds of stalls. After the market, we wandered around the streets. With the French influence, Hanoi has many bakeries so we stopped to try some and it was quite good. Next stop was at a local coffee shop to try some coffee. The coffee arrived in a very small stainless steel coffee filters, with the mug in a bowl of cold water. Needless to say, we experienced the mirth of locals who watched us try to figure out how to make our coffee.
Floor, Monika and I then headed towards St. Josephs Church. We went inside and then started to explore around the church where we found a seminary. All the soon to be priests were playing either badminton, football or volleyball. After watching for a while, we were invited to go and play with them. Monika decided to be official photographer but both Floor and I played two a side badminton for about 40 minutes. We were both very hot and sweaty when we had finished. I do think that it was quite a novelty playing with a women and I think that they went easy on me, especially when I kept shouting back “Don’t hit so hard”.
After meeting up with Lauren and Nick again, we headed back towards the hostel for our transfer to the train, stopping first for dinner at one of the local street restaurants.
We arrived at the station and were guided towards our compartment. We walked past some sleepers that looked really nice and new.... however, as we headed down towards the front of the train the compartments became more and more decrepit looking. Our compartment was not great and I struggled to find a bathroom door that closed.
The train journey.... all I am going to say is that there were many card games and much more alcohol.
We arrived at the station very early in the morning, before the sun was up and needed to be transferred to our hotel. The transfer took about an hour, but we had Floor’s music to wind away the time. At the Summit Hotel, we found we needed to be transferred to another hotel down the road. The only reason I mention this is that Floor had the reservation/ receipt for the tour, and when I asked him for it, little did I know he had it in his money belt around his waist. Next minute, he dropped his trousers in the busy reception area. I was in hysteric s (and blushing bright red) and other tourists were taking photos of him standing in his underwear.
Once we had showered, we decided that we needed some food. We wandered down the road and met up with Butch and Megan (Halong Bay cruise) at Chocolate and Baguette. Chocolate and Baguette became our breakfast stop as the food was really good. We decided that we were going to walk to Thac Bac to see the waterfalls. We had some different information on how many kilometres it was; needless to say it turned into a very long but pleasant walk.
Monika also decided that we needed some refreshment along the way and we stopped to buy some fruit from a road stall and almost landed up married to the man who insisted on stroking her palm. We did make it to the falls, past all the many road workers - probably wondering why we were walking. We did catch a minibus back to town.
After dinner, the night turned into a pool competition for Butch, Floor and Nick. They were doing quite well until they were beaten by some very young Vietnamese girls, it dented their egos somewhat. I also learnt my lesson about calling Floor “princess”. Monika and I returned early to the hotel, only for all the lights to go out. There is nothing like trying to go to the bathroom, brush your teeth and wash your face by the light of your mobile. Sorry Gareth, I had left my beautifully pink torch with my pack in Hanoi. I’ll take the deserved abuse for it.
Next morning was the 9am start of a say trek to three local villages. The same three villages that half of the tourists in Sapa were going to. So the road was busy with tourists and local woman who were “helping” us along the way. Their help was more of a hindrance but I didn’t have the heart to tell them to go away. They were too willing to give us a hand down the mountains, over the rocks, over the streams. However, help always comes at a price... we had been warned about the “you buy from me later” scam. The scenery was amazing, mountains, water, rivers and rice paddy fields. We stopped for a bit at a river, Floor went for a swim and our guide, Floor, Butch and Nick then took to skimming and then throwing rocks. Our guide gave me a rock, which I dutifully carried all the way back to our hotel.
At our lunch stop, it was crunch time for buying goods from the ladies who had helped us down the mountain. Apparently, it was quite funny to watch Nick and I make a quick run for it after spreading our spending power between the three village ladies and not buying from each of them individually. They were persistent and continued to follow us after lunch until I told them that Nick and I were together and we therefore bought together.
I will always remember the Vietnamese from this part of Sapa for the:
“Excusa me”
“Where you from?”
“What your name?”
“You how old?”
“You married?”
“You have boyfriend?”
“You buy from me?”
Once back, we had a quick stop at the Pink Floyd bar, headed out for some dinner and then back to the bar for some more pool, mainly so that the guys could try to redeem themselves after the thrashing the night before.
Next day, we decided to hire motor bikes and take a drive into the countryside. I had never driven a bike before so after hitting the wall on my first attempt, I was given a lesson by the owners .... in the main square. I quite enjoyed it and got the hang of it and gave Nick a lift for the day. We stopped at a cave and even though we were caved out after China we thought we would give it a bash. There was no real walkway in the cave and it wasn’t well lit. I use the term caving for our experience because we were climbing up and down, crouched down in tunnels all to reach the middle of the cave.... which wasn’t very exciting. I was quite dirty after the experience. I had a really bad bike with absolute no power and it really struggled. We were passed by everyone on the bike.
Handing the bikes back was a bit of an ordeal. Butch put his helmet down and then it disappeared. He paid the $8 that a new one would cost but we couldn’t work out what had happened. However, a little later, he saw the owner with the missing helmet. Getting angry with the scam, he took the new helmet away from them. Later, once I bumped into them in Siam Reap, I found out that he had traded the new helmet for some tribal gifts from one of the many stalls along the road.
It had been our last day in Sapa and we arrived at the train station but were perplexed as to how to get our train tickets. We had vouchers for the train and everyone kept pointing outside to tell us where to get our tickets. Eventually Floor asked some-one to take us where we had to go as pointing outside into the vast parking lot was not helping.
Tickets safely in hand, we decided that we needed the bathroom. Nick refused to pay the 1 Dong fee, but the ladies deciding their need was greater headed to the bathrooms, where there we no doors, it was kind of like a communal bathroom and as there were only three holes in the ground, Monika, Lauren and I were able to use the bathroom at the same time and still continue our conversations.
On the train and more card games and some drinks. Monika and I bowed out for the night but Floor, Nick and Lauren continued on our behalf.... including drinking the firelighter Vietnamese rice wine Floor substituted into the vodka bottle which Lauren and Nick didn’t see at the time. Arriving in Hanoi, we were given no notice that the train had arrived and were the last to get off the train.
We had a quieter day before our evening sleeper bus transfer to Hue, stopping at the supermarket, book store, lunch and then to Lenin Park to sit in the sunshine for a few hours and watch the sunset over the water. We think that the Vietnamese don’t like to sit on the grass and we were yelled at in Vietnamese a few times, though I think it was directed more at Floor who was sitting with his shirt off. Fortunately, we couldn’t understand what he was saying so we remained where we were.
