Sapa and Halong Bay
Sun Aug 5, 10:25 PM
The tours I signed up for allowed for no wasted time and turned out to be pretty fun. I arrived in Sapa on the night train from Hanoi and was told where to go and when I would be leaving. I didn’t get a clear itenerary from the travel agent, so the only thing I knew was that I would be trekking in Sapa. It turns out I was trekking to a Hmong hill tribe village, staying in the village for the evening, then hiking out the next day. Sapa is in the mountains of NW Vietnam and near the Chinese border. We hiked through rice paddies and along a river for 12km. This isn’t a really long hike, but the terrain was really steep and extremely muddy. I rented a pair of rubber boots and several times sunk into mud up to the top of my boots.
My group all got along very well and really made the trip fun. During dinner, the family brought out the rice wine. They insisted that we take several shots of the stuff. It is home-made and similar to moonshine. The word “vile” barely begins to describe the taste of this stuff! YUCK!
The second day was rainy and the mud was even thicker and slicker than before. It was comical just trying to get down the trail. Almost everybody in the group fell several times and we were all covered in mud by the end of the hike.
I really enjoyed the trek in Sapa. The landscape and people were fantastic. The only bad part was the tribal women and girls that would harass us relentlessly to buy their handicrafts.
After the second day of treking, I got on the night train back to Hanoi, then a bus to Halong Bay. I joined a new group of people and started a three day tour of the famous area. Halong Bay is famous for almost 2000 limestone islands that rise out of the sea.
The first night we stayed on a “junk boat” among the cliffs. The only problem is that we had to stay near all the other tour boats. The scenery was beautiful, but the amount of tourists was really shocking. The people on my tour were again fantastic to hang out with. There were a few younger kids from the US and we made sure to keep the tour guide nervous the whole time by jumping off the top of the boat when we had time to swim. The tour was on a strict time frame and our guide would often say “You now will enjoy swimming for one hour” or “We will now enjoy riding bikes.” This became a bit of a joke on the trip as we were commanded to enjoy the activity, but ony for a short time. We stopped to see caves, to swim at several beaches, to ride bikes, and to sea kayak.
After being dropped off from the tour and before my flight to Bangkok (I told you there was no wasted time) I was walking the streets, looking for a bite to eat. I met a local guy, we had a coffee, then decided to get some dinner. He suggested that we go to the market, pick up a bit of dog meat, then head to a beer stall and have a beer with our dinner. I was a bit nervous, but up for the experience. We bought 1/2 kilo of dog meat. It was a bit weird walking through the market. The dogs are roasted whole and when they are setup, you can almost tell what kind of dog it is.
We went to a small street stall for a “bia hoi” and some dog meat. The meat is very fatty and dark. The closest thing might be roast beef. I really didn’t like the skin. I am glad I tried it, but Nelson won’t be on the menu for the Labor Day BBQ.
The next week will consist of travelling south to Singapore for my flight home. I will stop in Hua Hin, Thailand for a day or two on my way down.
I will get pics up soon.
