After a month and a half of beaches in Thailand, we were ready for a beach break and excited to get to Vietnam for some cooler weather. We took a quick stopover in Bangkok to do some shopping and take in a movie before leaving Thailand.
When we first got to Hanoi, it was absolutely chaotic. Motorbikes everywhere, cars honking constantly, and there doesn't seem to be any traffic rules. Crossing the street is just like playing "Frogger", but once we got the hang of it, we figured it all out and we were a little more brave. We stayed in the Old Quarter - most travellers stay in this area of Hanoi, lots of hotels and cafes everywhere. We tried Vietnamese coffee for the first time and are now hooked on it :) We found there wasn't too much to do other than go to some museums and temples or just sit in coffee shops, so we were looking forward to booking a trip to Sapa and Halong Bay to get out of the city.
To get to Sapa, we had to take an 8 hour overnight sleeper train to Lao Cai, about 2km from the Chinese border. We hadn't taken a train before in Asia, so didn't know what to expect. It was so noisy and bouncy, we didn't sleep at all. Once we got to Sapa though, the long trip was definately worth it. The scenery was unbelievable and we were so amused by the local Black H'mong women that surrounded us when we got off our bus. There were about 20 of them running up trying to talk to us and were waving and smiling while we were waiting in the hotel before our trek. There ended up being 6 of the tribe women walking with us for the whole 17km on the first day. They were very helpful and nice, and spoke pretty good english - very cute babies a few of them had too. However, we were disappointed at the end of our trek when about 20 of them surrounded us trying to sell us souvenirs. Oh well, we still ended up buying a few things that we'll probably never use, but would've felt bad if we didn't buy anything after they hiked all day with us.
We trekked through a few different villages and saw how all the different village people live. It was crazy to see how simple they live and to learn all about their culture and traditions. We saw soo many little kids working hard all the time too - carrying heavy baskets or logs on their backs and hiking up the mountain, impressive! We finally made it to our homestay - there was four in our group and we ended up having another pair stay with us, along with our guides. We had a good time with everyone - our host brought out some "happy water" (rice wine) to start our dinner.....the "water" kept flowing and it turned out to be a really fun night, haha. Next morning, not so happy, haha, but we still managed to get up and go trekking again. Then it was the night train back to Hanoi that night, this time, we were exhausted and slept almost the entire time.
The morning we got back from Sapa (4:30 AM), we left for Halong Bay at 7:30AM. When we first got on our "junk" (traditional vietnamese boat), we were amazed at how nice it was...not what we would expect when we hear "junk". Our room on the boat was probably nicer than a lot of the hotels we've been staying in. The first day we toured around, went kayaking and went through a big cave that was packed with other tourists. Really busy, but still good to see. The next morning we got up early and hiked up about 400 steps up a mountain to get a good view of the bay - was pretty good, but tiring at 7 in the morning. We then transferred to a smaller boat and went on a jungle trek through Cat Ba National Park. Was really good because everyone else on our boat had only booked a 1 night tour, so it was just the two of us with our guide, Hien. We stopped in and visited an old man who was living in the middle of nowhere in the National Park. Was cool to see how he lived - really basic, grew all his own vegetables, had his own fish farm and chickens. Then we continued on and headed to Cat Ba island, where we stayed in a hotel for the night. Was a cool harbour town, pretty laid back compared to the chaos in Hanoi!
We're now in Hanoi, going to a national park near Ninh Binh tomorrow (about 2 hours south of Hanoi) for a couple days, then we start to head further south in Vietnam to Hoi An.
Thats it for now!
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