T&A

We decided to go to the mountain tourist town of Sapa, Vietnam to see rice terraces set amid mountains, and to get there we had to take a sleeper train. The train was actually pretty comfortable since we chose a “soft sleeper.” This cabin had two bunks of two soft mattresses and curtains on the window. Unfortunately, there were no curtains to block light from shining on your face while you sleep. We awoke in the border town of Lao Cai and took a quick minibus to get to Sapa town. Once in Sapa town, we chose one of the touts to show us her hotel, and it turned out to be great with a nice balcony for viewing the mountains. As we were walking towards the hotel, we noticed that some of the local women were dressed traditionally and sold locally made items. The rugs, blankets, and clothing that they sold was interesting because it was dyed naturally. As a result, many of the women’s hands were stained dark blue or green. The rest of the day we spent planning our visit throughout the area. We quickly found a tourist map which highlighted the roads as well as hiking routes, and decided that the following day we would spend visiting two or three of the villages along the main tourist track.

After a quick breakfast the next day, we decided on a whim to rent mountain bikes to see the villages. We thought that if we had bicycles, we could cover more ground, and it would be a bit more fun than using a motorbike. Well… it was very fun, on the way down, but the ride back up was pure hell. We might as well have been training for the tour de france. The ride back was about 12 kilometers, all up, and with 10 degree climbs in several sections. Nevertheless, we had an easy time touring the villages since we could breeze by the locals trying to sell things (if we were tired of the mild harrasment) .

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When we arrived in Hanoi, the weather was overcast and misty, and that’s the way it stayed for the entire week. After a short walk through old town, we found a guesthouse that wasn’t too expensive. It seems that everything increases in price from the south to the north in Vietnam. Hanoi was definitely the most expensive city in all of Vietnam for us. The people also seemed less friendly and less willing to bargain for anything.

The old town portion of Hanoi had a great atmosphere if you can get past the constant honking of vehicles in your ear. In the past there was a tax on wide buildings and so most are built incredibly narrow and reach several stories. This meant that we had to walk up and down several flights of stairs each day. The streets are also very narrow and we always had to keep our heads up or risk being mowed over by passing motorbikes. Most of the buildings had weird graffiti painted on the walls consisting of some words in Vietnamese and then a string of numbers. Later, we learned that this was a form of advertising. “Need Bricks? Phone 9038887.” On one corner in the old town (“beer corner”) several cafe’s offer 3000 VND (less than 0.25 USD) beers, and so many tourists stopped to pass the time and heat there. One cafe was literally a couple of small stools, and a keg with a sign on top that read “cafe.”

A short walk from old town is lake Hoan Kiem which was very nice to take a walk around. The lake has a pagoda in the middle dedicated to a tortoise which we didn’t pay to enter and is lined with several expensive restaurants. We took a walk around old town and this lake the first day while trying to find a FedEx or DHL to send some gifts home. We did find the FedEx, but it turned out that the cost of sending our gifts home was more than what the gifts were actually worth. Instead, we sent our package home with a unkown, but much cheaper company called “EMS.” The tracking number on the package doesn’t work, and so we’re hoping that it makes it back home. After sending away the package, we spent the rest of the day shopping around at the tourist agencies for a Chinese visa. We were left with photocopies of our passports, and told to wait 5 working days for a Vietnam extension visa and a Chinese visa.

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The city of Hoi An is one of Vietnam’s treasures. The ancient city primarily operated as a Seaport, but is now an architechually stunning tourist town, filled with hundreds of shops that line the small streets. This is the site of the first chinese settlement in Southern Vietnam, which becomes obvious when observing the architecture, local cuisine, and beautiful silk lanterns that light up the village at night.

Due to the number of tourists that come here to exploit the cheap labour and materials, Hoi An has an overwhelming number of tailor shops. You can’t walk 10 feet without walking into a shop displaying silk dresses or wool suits. The number of tailors is astonishing, and the quality of the clothes also varies substantially. After reading reviews on various tailor shops on the internet and getting a crash course in how to select well made suits, we were off to get some clothes made.

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