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Moving house - Nha Trang Style.JPG)
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Dry Cleaning - Chau Doc - Big Fan of my underwear
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01.02.09 – SaPa – Hanoi
Today we were found by Chi, one of my friends who decided that she'd walk with us for the day. So we started out with a very invigorating walk. I’m not sure quite where we went up some hill somewhere it was very misty, very slippery, and very cold. James purchased a wall hanging, very nice, from one of the old ladies who followed us all the way up the hill, just to gate a sale of 100,000VND. She was happy. We then found the lake and went walking around that, many many people about especially the younger ones. All of a sudden there were people running past us in a hurry, talking excitedly. Chi informed us that there was a fight and every one was going to see. When we think fight, we think bar brawls, here in SaPa they simply yell at each other, they don’t lay a finger on anyone. However the crowd around them was huge, it was something of an excitement. Chi later told us that they where fighting over a buffalo and a women, I think it was.
So we passed the morning and afternoon, waiting for the 1630 bus (the last one) to take us to Lao Cai, to catch the 2100 train to Hanoi.
It seems that Vietnamese, Cambodians, Loations are no good at holding their food down. There were possibly 15 people on this bus; I think 5 were vomiting the whole hour to Lao Cai. Very unpleasant.
Passed the time, we were on the train by 2030, sharing our 4 berth cabin with7 people. I love how flexible the concept of tickets is here. We settled straight down for the night and had a very comfortable sleep.
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02.01.09 – Hanoi
Arrived at Ga Hanoi at 0545 and alighted ready to start the walk back to the Tin Tin Hotel, not very far but Hanoi’s streetlights go out at 0600, and it’s still dark at this time, so that produced a little of a challenge for us, but before long we were ringing the hotels doorbell. We traipsed in and were allocated the same room as previously. (Thanks for the money Dad, really really helpful!). We had a little rest them went out to do a few errands, including booking a 2 day trip to Halong Bay. This 2 day tour was booked for the next day costing us $USD35 pp.
We did a little shopping, food and such, ordered some wooden stamps, and some clothes. We had dinner at Quan Bia Minh, a nice little restaurant, with lovely food and a fantastic view of a power transformer.
03.01.09 – 04.01.09 – Hanoi to Ha Long to Hanoi
This day, a day when we got up at well before our 8:00 bus trip to Ha Long Bay. The day started well enough and we (and 15 others) trundled off. We arrived at Ha Long bay around 11.00, where we were promptly stripped of our passports and led to a boat. The boat, a Junk, was a completely wooden affair, with two levels and sun deck (the roof with some deck chairs), this was our hotel for the night. So again we set off, now chugging along, in and around the “Limestone Formations” (i.e. Big Rocks) that make up Ha Long bay. Although impressive (well; they’re big, and in the water) the rocks by themselves would be slightly dull, so we jumped out at a few points along the way.
Firstly, the natural limestone caves, with completely natural colored spotlighting and water fountains.
After this awe inspiring natural display, a boat ride through a rock archway (in a littler boat) was in order, for 40 000 ($4 AUD). It took less than 10 minutes, and was much like all the other rock, but oooohed and aaaaahed as was expected of us. And the boatman made a tidy profit.
And finally for the day, a canoe ride, where we actually had to paddle ourselves, admittedly after the other attractions this was quite nice, they ran from a fish farm which stocked Cuttle Fish, among various other sea life.
While boarding the boat from this fish station we encountered a small problem. By we, I mean the royal we. Our tour group consisted of a group of 17 people (despite by repeatedly promised that there would only be 15ppl) there was a clear divide between a group of 5 20-somethings and the rest of us. These 20 somethings, after the canoe ride decided that they would like a beer, so they purchased them, no problems from the little floating convenience stores and proceeded to drink them. However when they tried to get back on the boat, they were told that there was a “corkage” fee of 50,000VND per bottle of alcohol, more than the beverages them selves. There was cries of outrage ect, ect, ect. Well this was only a lead up of things to come. They sculled the bottles and climbed back on ship. Well there was much discussion about this and then it was revealed that one of them had bought 3 bottles of Vodka with them.
That evening, after dinner, James and I retired to our room, while this group retired to the sundeck and proceeded to get wasted, with their bottles. We heard all about it in the morning…
It seems that they had borrowed some glasses in which to consume the vodka, being told that if any were broken it was $USD20 (340,000VND)a glass. Apparently they broke all four that they borrowed. Well there was an actual screaming match between two of these kids and the tour guide. It went on for a good hour, ending with the guide threatening to not return the passports until they paid up (I doubt that that would actually be legal). However they negotiated the price down to 60,000 VND a glass (still about 10 times the glasses total worth) and received their passports.
After this, our guide was in a sulk, it was quite funny, if not very immature of him, as he had started the conflict and caused the escalation. I guessed that he was pretty bummed out over the whole thing. It was actually quite embarrassing to watch.
We did nothing this morning, despite the tour itinerary stating that we were swimming this am. We docked at midday and were bussed to this dodgy looking café. We were herded upstairs (with arm waving) and sat down. We were quickly served a rather bland meal and herded out again.
This café seemed to be an ex hotel, and in each room, was now tables, a tour group to each room. It did give the feel of sheep being feed lotted.
On the way home, in traditional Australian/British (and Swedish it seems) culture, the three guys finshed 2 slabs of beer between them. The conversation starting with things one would'nt tell a nun, skipping the things you would'nt tell your mother, stright to the things you woul'nt tell another living soul.
This group then invited everyone on the bus along to a vietnamese "pub crawl", most of us declined.
Despite this we got back to TinTin, in an imitation of comfort, and had dinner, again at Gecko cafe.
Then, we went to sleep.
