December 31, 2010
Somehow the new year is just hours away! I’ll be celebrating in Sapa, a gorgeous mountainous region in northern Vietnam. It is very chilly – about 20 Celsius – and I so wish I had my fingertipless gloves as I type this. So I might have more errors than usual so I’ll apologize upfront. People keep walking in as I write this and if they are local they just leave the door open!
You’ll also have to excuse the lack of photos as I’m having more issues. I think I’m going to have to invest in a netbook otherwise I’ll end up losing pictures and wasting more time. And over the course of a year I’ll probably pay just as much in internet cafes. …I might have just cleaned the files with a software I downloaded so maybe you will get pictures. :)
Since I last updated the blog I’ve seen Halong Bay (part of the Gulf of Tonkin) and this mountainous area. I did a three day/2 night tour of the bay, which was really fun. We took a bus about 4 hours from Hanoi to catch the boat and as usual the bus rocked me to sleep. There were only 13 other travelers so it was a great size and they turned out to be really fun. One is from NYC so we had fun “talking NY” and it turned out we were roommates for the one night on the boat.
After settling in on the boat and having a yummy traditional lunch we visited a MASSIVE cave of stalactites (stalagmites – never know which). The cave just went on and on and had huge open spaces. There is even a huge turtle shaped rock that people (including me) touch for good luck. I didn’t leave any money with it though like some – what is a turtle going to do with dong! The visit required many many stairs yet I still saw a determined woman in high heels. At that moment her boyfriend was trying to carry her down the stairs. I don’t’ know if she was Vietnamese, but many women in the cities seem to like high heels. But they are like me – they don’t know how to walk in them.
After the cave we headed to an island where we could walk to the top for a beautiful view of the bay and sunset. Halong Bay has nearly 2000 islands –most small land inaccessible unless you start rock climbing from the boat. The islands were formed from the earth plates shifting and pushing up the land. After making it to the top out of breath (but proud I only stopped once) I ran into my French friends again. I knew they were on another tour so it wasn’t surprising to run into them.
The bay was chilly, but we were extremely fortunate that the skies were sunny and clear. The third day was overcast and that is common this time of year. The chill though reminded me of camping of being in a cabin in New Hampshire. I had no jacket and just bundled with what I coiuld. The bedrooms fortunately had a heater though – and hot water (standard in the north this time of year).
Before dinner was served we had a brief class on rolling spring rolls. One guy suggested we make a race out of it so you can see me competing with him. With all my burrito wrapping practice I swiftly beat him :) The rolls turned out delicious as did the rest of the multi-dish meal.
The next day we had to move from the sleeping boat to another boat and unfortunately a group of three Chinese women realized one of them had money stolen. It likely happened while we were at dinner the night before. This delayed our start, but the rest of us were quite content to relax on the sundeck. We felt badly, but fortunately she didn’t loose too much. Of course the culprit wasn’t found.
Our first activity was bicycling several kilometers to a village on Cat Ba island. It’s a large island with a national park and a town in one section. I love bicycling, especially in nature because the quiet of the bike and slower speed lets you take more in. At one point I had to dodge a family of goats. So far on this trip, whether bicycling or motor biking, I’ve had to swerve for dogs, giant lizards, chickens, cows, goats, water buffalo, and pigs. :) I almost collided with another bicycler who was in my lane riding towards me with his head turned to his friend. Brillant. The ride ended at a little restaurant, of course. No organized tour activity is complete without trying to get you to spend money. On the ride back I knew I was ahead of some people so I stopped near a deep cove so I could dip my feet in the water. It was swimmable, but I didn’t have time – or my suit. The water was so clear and lovely against the green trees. When the guide caught up to me he got all nervous about me walking on a rocky beach. It seemed so unsafe! It tickled me that walking on rocks that aren’t even slippery made him nervous. Anyway, back to the boat we went.
We motored a bit and then anchored off shore. A few of us opted to go kayaking. There were no single kayaks so I paired up with another woman. She fears the water, but is trying to face here fears and I applaud her for that. She hadn’t kayaked before so I took the steering position. I got quite a workout because though she paddled she mostly just dipped the paddles in the water. This was better than a partner I had in Turkey though who paddled hard in the opposite way than we needed while also drenching me with sea water (which burned my eyes to no end). She and I turned back so as not to be late, but we returned with 20 minutes to spare. She asked if I wanted to keep going. I got a kick out of this considering that would be great for her, but more work for me and additional pain in my side muscles. I don’t think she had a clue how little she contributed and that is fine. I didn’t mind, but at that point I was ready to relax on the sundeck.
We rode then headed to our hotels on Cat Bay Island. Depending on your level of payment you were at different hotels. I was the only one to choose the cheapest option so off I headed to Princess Hotel. Actually the van transporting us was overfilled because a family of 3 had opted to extended their one night to the two night trip. So I rode the motorbike with the guide and a woman who would take the bike back to the harbor. So I was sandwiched and hit my new record for how many people I’ve been on a motorbike with. I think three adults is my max! My hotel was more luxury than most of my accommodations so I was quite content. The only bizarre thing was that that lobby and hallways were dark. The halls had no lights so I took my headlamp around (once again proving what a good idea it was to bring). I felt lazy and the town didn’t seem too exciting to explore so I watched two movies on TV (mostly only old, bad movies from US are on HBO here) and then dragged myself to dinner and an internet cafe (where I did the last blog entry).
After a good sleep and woke up to pack and realize I had had money stolen. I have money hidden in different places and locked up, but a 50 Singapore dollar bill was gone. The thief left the small bills – I’m sure hoping I would be delayed in noticing (which I was). This is my first theft traveling ever, but I did expect it somewhere along the way – though of course I hoped I’d get lucky. My other stashes had more money in them so I did get lucky in that way. I wasn’t sure if it happened on the boat or at the hotel, but when I rejoined the group I spoke with another woman who had money stole. She also had to small money left. So we think it likely happened while we were bike riding. We told the tour guide who was upset, but also blaming us for not keeping it all with us. We explained that that isn’t necessarily a good idea either because if our person gets robbed then we are really up a creek. One man on the tour had been pick pocketed in Hanoi on Christmas Eve. Anyway, we didn’t let it ruin the tour, but my first theft.
As we went back to the harbor to get the bus to Hanoi, we all enjoyed the boat’s sundeck. I would have loved more time to cruise around. Instead, we arrived at the harbor early and were told to come down, but then were stuck on the boat nearly an hour. Then we had to wait another 30 minutes on the land while the bus arrived from Hanoi. Basically a new batch of travelers were coming and we’d swap places.
I arrived in Hanoi with just enough time to get my next bus – this time to Sapa. I met up with a traveler I met in Dalat, Ben, and we took the sleeper. It wasn’t full and this company had two “beds” next to each other so we had tons of space. I still didn’t sleep as well as on the other ones for some reason. Anyway, we arrived around 7am and though I had called a guesthouse prior to arriving we opted for a cheaper room. Instead of $15 we paid $8 and the main difference in price is the heat. The cheaper room had none! The air here is very damp with fog frequently settling into the valley. The temp is 12-20 Celsius and my clothes just don’t cut it. I bought a coat later that day and it helped immeasurable, but the nights are still cold and the motor bike rides. I have taken up wearing the cotton face masks the locals do. It serves three purposes that I know of: filtering out the air pollution (important in Hanoi especially), preventing tanning and staying warm.
Sapa is a small town with lots of outdoor markets (where I bought a North Face knock-off jacket that already has a broken zipper). It’s an attractive town and looks rather knew and heavily influenced by French architecture. The view from my first hotel reminded me of a town in the Alps. The people about on the streets though bring in the Vietnamese culture. Some minority groups live in the area and many women walk the town in colorful traditional clothes as they try to sell silver jewelry and bags to tourists. They are more persistent than elsewhere.
The day we arrived the a medium sized fog moved in and out of the valley, but we hiked in a landscaped mountain area as well as other sights that took us above the fog. The mountains are striking and the fog adds a romanticist feel to the scene. One of our treks took us to a beautiful high waterfall. The colors were sharp and at times even neon like. Ben is a bit hardier than I (he is from way north in Canada) and decided it was a good time to take a swim. So while I stood bundled on the rocks (not quite shivering) he dove in and took a 10 second swim. He did admit it was chilly, but felt refreshed.
We came back to our cold hotel room after all the hiking and the cold motor bike ride. We had requested a room with two beds, but out of necessity we huddled in one bed for awhile before we each braved a shower. We had hot water, but it runs out fairly quickly and then you have to dress and stand with wet hair. Thankfully I did bring a hair dryer for just this occasion.
Yesterday (our second day in Sapa), we visited some of the local villages. The fog wasn’t as heavy so we were lucky. Many people walked several kilometers down and around to get to the villages, but we took the motor bike. (I have to say my toes are numb right now!) It turned out to be lucky because when we got to the entrance to Cat Cat Village (where you park the motor bike and walk) you have to give an entrance ticket. Now a weird thing about Vietnam is that you buy your entrance ticket in one place and then, usually, just nextdoor is the ticket checking person. I can only figure the government is trying to create jobs. Anyway, in this case the ticket sale office was way back up the mountain in Sapa. The guard wouldn’t take our money (an honest one) so we rode back up and then back down again. The picture of us on the bike next to a buffalo is on our way back down.
We walked along a lovely stream and another waterfall. We also saw several local people using the trails as part of their daily lives. Then we walked through the small village that teamed with dogs, puppies, pigs, piglets, chickens and chicks. You would think it was spring time here with all the young animals I saw and the pregnant adults! There were also many kids playing and adults selling their wares. Later we rode our bikes to villages that do have small roads and we saw more farms, animals and people. Many of the very young boys wore no pants – cold! There were a group of kids who took an interest in us and we played a bit, but they also kept saying “money, money.” While we were with them we noticed that another group of younger kids were peeked at us, but tried to hide when we saw them. Then we would catch them peeking again.
The rice has just been harvested so though the terrace farms are impressive they don’t have their usual lushness. Near one of the villages we went spelunking. It was fun to crawl around a bit. :) The fog rolled in and we made our way slowly back to Sapa. By the time we arrived the fog had made the lower half of my pants wet. We went straight to an Indian restaurant we had seen earlier and order a hot drink and hot food. Unfortunately, there was no heat and the doors were left open. Why?! The food took an hour to arrive so we were freezing and hungry.
We had moved to the guesthouse I originally called and though the space heater doesn’t make the whole room warm it does help – especially if you sit next to it. The hot water in this room lasts a lot longer so I felt much cozier.
Today has been all dense fog and I haven’t even ventured out yet and it’s 2 o’clock. I’ve been on this computer probably 3 hours. And I still have a couple of hours more to upload the photos, but will probably take a break too go warm up by the space heater. Tomorrow Ben and I are heading to Dien Bien Phu (the site of the last battle the Vietnamese fought against the French for independence). From there we get a bus to Laos.
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