Reisverhalen: Hoi An, Hanoi, Sapa, Bac Ha !!!

Hello everyone!

 

I hope you all had wonderful christmas's with your families and are enjoying the first weeks of the new year.

 

Pieter and I havnt written for a while! So as you can imagine we have many adventures to tell you about! ppppffftt!!! where to start!?

 

Well after we left Nha Trang we took a bus to Hoi An. We arrived exhausted and then realised we had left our passports in our  Nha Trang guesthouse! we managed to sort that out , and organised a bus company to pick it us and deliver it to there office in Hoi  An for $5. Phew!! Thank god for that!  Hoi An a big tourist destination in Vietnam but never the less it was still very exciting and interesting! The centre of town lies next to  the river and all the buildings are quite old and very beautiful. It has a really historic feel about it and has many many taylors! thousands! and they can copy of make just about anything you want or see in a magazine! Its true! and they are every where you look! During our time there Pieter and I did get some clothes made and belive me its very tempting to buy a whole wardrobe of new clothes! Some how i managed to restrain myself and 'only' got two dresses, a pair of wrap around pants and a knee length charcoal coloured woolen winter coat! The were all fitted perfectly and cost $65 all together! (USD) Pieter had been seriously thinking about a suit, but then decided not to and got two pairs of trousers a shirt made for $30 which he was very happy with i might add We had some lovely seafood meals while we were there but made sure we checked out the markets and local food too which is cheap and pretty adventurous to try at times! 

 

After Hoi An we took a bus to Hue and the folowing morning we did a tour that took us to the DMZ tunnels which were home to a village of 300 vietnamese during the war.  It was a rainy day but it was still enjoyable! The tunnels we very interesting, but not quiet as small 130cm high, but as others in the region! We could see there were craters and damage to the grounds from  US bombs but they actually never got found and lived there lives hidding for 6 years!! We also got the chance to see the river that devided the north and south during the war, and also the american base camp which was 70km away and on top of a large mountain.

It was a bit  of a shame we didnt get time to see the old city of Hue, but thats just the way it worked out. We were woprking our way north of new years in Hanoi.

 

We arrived in Hanoi on the 31st at about 9am. We caught up on sleep and recharged our batteries after a 12hour bus ride! And then set out into the city to welcome in the new year. We had made firends with an Australian couple, but we didnt end up finding that night. We wanted to try 'Fresh vietnamese Beer' so we took off to a local drinking spot that was in a small dirty alley way! Woohoo! the beer was about $0.25 for a pint and we had quiet a few, we must have looked a bit out of place because everyone else was vietnamese, and im pretty sure i was the only female there! We played cards and pieter tried a traditional meal of Goat! which i happily watch only HIM eat!

After that we went to the more touristy part of town with a bar called 'Funky Monkey' it was european priced but had good music and a party atmosphere. We went else where to drink for a while where it was cheaper and then took a taxi to 'the bar' to party at. It turned out to be dead and we met up with and guy from the Uk and his Thai girlfriend. By this time it was 11.35pm so we all went to a  bar called 'R&R' and saw in the new year there which was enjoyable  

 

 

Our next destnation was Sapa. We took a train for 12hours north to the chinese border. We had a choice of a  hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper or and soft sleeper. We figured we had spent that long in a bus so a soft seat would be ok. The 'soft seat' was more like a rock seat! so the journey wasnt the most comforatable but we survived WE were the only foreigners in that carage, and a family of 6 that were sittng around us had a few laughs at us i think. All in good spirit though! We got a taxi van from Lao Cai which is a town right on the chinese border. we drove around for 30mins rounding up locals to take to Sapa, in the end we finally left with 13 of us packed in but it was a good deal for $1.25 each. Sapa is 1600m above sea level so it was definaltly on the chilly side! the coldest we had felt yet! it was also very misty and cloudy and constantly damp which made it hard to dry anything!

We took a one day tour aroud 3 villages, it was very muddy and there were alot of other tours doing the same thing. Sapa is full of hill tribe people only 10% of the people here are vietnamese. The hilltribes have different dialics and dress very traditionally especally the women. We walked down through very slippery muddy slopes the views would have been specatcular if the mist wasnt around. Anyway we made friends with two girls who walked the tour with us, they were from the local village we were walking to. They spoke some good english from what they had been taught at school and told us they had were spending the day off school to come and sell things. and after our lunch we did buy two braclets off them

 

After Sapa we took another taxi van to Lao Cai (this time with 20 people in it!) and caught a local bus tpo Bah Ha, another hill tribe community. The bus we took was soon packed with supplies and stocks for the villages along the way. Food, fridge, blankets, tissues, and even a large lounge suit cabnet roped tot he top of the bus!

Bac Ha wasnt quite as cold as Sapa but definatly less touristy during the wekk. Tours from Sapa come with people on sunday to visit the huge market that attracts all the hilltribe people and locals to sell anything from a buffilo to chillies and 50% rice wine ferment!

We went to the market early to miss the swams of tourist. thast arrived at 10. Even then there wasnt quite as many as we had expected but it was nice to wonder round by ourselves first. There were alot of pigs shreeking there little lungs out the whole time as they were bound up and put in sacks or draged and pulled along by one foot. We brought a side bag each from some local women. I had thought to get a blanket they were sooo beautiful but very heavey of course!

At 11am we took a tour guide and walked 15km around the sourounding villages. This was sooo different to sapa the whole way we didnt see any tourist. WE stopped of at a local school ground where the children were playing outside. The young girls had younger sibliings on their backs and most of the boys were paying witha soccer ball or wizzing around pushing a wire ring about balancing it with a wire rod. WE stped of on the top of a hill for lunch and a rest then walked around the valleys and saw alot further than we did in the misty atmosphere in Sapa!

 

On the 8th ( Our one year aniversary! ) we spent 12 hours traveling by bus and train! super romantic dont you think W got back to Hanoi around 8.40pm and then went for dinner together in the dinning part of town. Pieter picked up his trousers today, (taylor made) which he was really happy with. And we have been organising our trip to Hanlong Bay which is next of the list. We plan to spend 2 nights \ 3 days and then make our way  south-west to the Laos border because we only have till the 17th in Vietnam. 

 

 

 

 

Met ons gaat alles goed!

 

(en ook Nina's Nederlands)     ... slowly

 

 

 

P.S

 

Sorry no photos at this stage somethings not working right with our camera. But hopefully sonme time soon i hope!

 

 

 

Take care everyone!

nice to hear from you in our guestbook too.

 

 

Love from

 

 

Nina & Pieter