Sa Pa, Vietnam: 14th November 09

It’s Christmas!

Not really, but it feels like it! After arriving at the station at 5.40am (ugg!), we had an hour’s drive up the mountains to the small town of Sa Pa, where we’re going to spend the next 5 days. We’re 1,000 metres high here and it’s misty and cold – a very welcome relief from the humidity we’ve experienced lately. All over the town people are roasting chestnuts on small open fires, and some of the local tribal people wear hats that look just like Father Christmas hats – so it feels really festive!

Sa Pa is famous as it sits in the mountains surrounded by lots of villages, each inhabited by a unique tribe, with its own dress and customs. Every weekend people gather from all of the villages for the market to sell their handicrafts – it’s amazing to see all the different types of people. Not only do they wear different traditional clothes, but they come from different ethnic groups, so they look physically different too.

We spent today wandering around the town, which feels like a Swiss ski village! Lots of the buildings look European, and there are loads of pine trees - combined with the chilliness and mist it’s an amazing, and surprising sight. We actually had a Vietnamese lunch next to an open fire in a log cabin – what a culture shock!

We also spent a lot of time walking round the market and chatting to the locals, who are all really friendly. Yes, of course they chat to us because they want us to buy their goods, but unlike some areas of Vietnam, they’re not pushy, they’re actually very polite and very funny – some of them just walked along chatting with us for an hour, and were quite happy when we bought some small embroidered purses off them for only £1 each - we didn’t really want them but didn’t mind as they’d really entertained us!

The town has loads of great bars and restaurants including an English pub, so we’re going to spend the next few days hiking to the surrounding villages during the day and hanging out in town in the evenings.

Halong Bay, Vietnam: 13th November 09

This morning we transferred from the Junk onto traditional bamboo boats to visit a floating village. Back on the junk the crew gathered together to say goodbye to us and sang a song about Ho Chi Minh – we all joined in clapping our hands. At midday we were dropped off in Halong Bay city and said goodbye to our fellow travelers. Marianne is an artist from New Zealand and she’s going to paint a series of watercolours of Halong Bay - we’ve promised to buy one from her!

After the drive back to Hanoi we spent a couple of hours hanging out and then headed for the night train to Sa Pa. The train was fine, we’d booked a whole 4 berth cabin, which meant paying double – but the cabin was so small that it would have been very uncomfortable sharing with 2 strangers!

Halong Bay, Vietnam: 12th November 09

Today was great, we got up and had bacon and eggs on deck and then got back into our Kayaks for a 2 ½ hour paddle around the islands and lagoons, even passing through a couple of caves. It was a really cool experience as sometimes we’d be surrounded by sheer cliffs and other times we’d be on the open ocean with hundreds of islands dotted around. This area looks like it’s straight out of a fairytale.

Lunch was a pretty unique affair, a barbeque in a cave! The cave was really big and the crew had decorated it with candles and placed a fully made up table in the middle – excellent!

In the afternoon we chilled on the junk and sailed around for a few hours, admiring the spectacular views, and then disembarked to visit another cave. This one was really beautiful with stalactites and stalagmites and was really dramatically lit. It had once been home to 3 generations of a fisherman’s family. In the evening we had a great dinner on deck and drank a few too many cocktails!

Halong Bay, Vietnam: 11th November 09

Today we drove for 3 ½ hours from Hanoi to Halong Bay. The bay is amazing, one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen. It has emerald green waters with over 3,000 islands. Each Island juts out of the water with sheer cliffs, many reaching hundreds of feet – a real spectacle. A few years ago it was made a UNESCO world heritage site, so is protected for the people of the world for all time (hopefully!)

We’re going to be here for 3 days, and will be sailing and sleeping on a traditional style Junk. It’s really nice on the boat, there are only 8 passengers and 7 staff, so we’re very well looked after and the food is amazing - even the minced fried clams, which looked more like a snot burger…

Late this afternoon we left the boat to go Kayaking around the islands and lagoons, a nice, peaceful experience. I’ve never kayaked before but it’s really easy and Matt was with me and knew what to do! We paddled back to the boat as the sun set and are really looking forward to the next couple of days!

Hanoi, Vietnam: 10th November

We spent today visiting various sites around Hanoi including the Ethnology Museum, which explains the different tribes that live around Vietnam. The fertility statues were particularly amusing, but aren’t they always? The museum was really well done - in the grounds they’ve built replicas of the various tribes’ houses. Hopefully we’ll see the real thing when we visit Sa Pa in a few days.

We also visited the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, although we couldn’t see his body as it’s away for its annual 2 month’s maintenance.

After a brief stop at the One Pillar Pagoda, one of the most famous symbols of Hanoi, we went to see a water puppetry show. The puppeteers all hide behind a screen and the puppets are controlled from long poles hidden under water. It dates back to the 11th century and was really cool!