December 7, 2006 - Report from Vietnam
by George & Merima

We recently spent five weeks land-cruising Vietnam and Cambodia. Here is the first installment of logs from the trip:

October 8

One of the great things about being based in Langkawi is that the airport is just a 10-15 minute hop from the marina, and there are regular connections via Malaysia Airlines to Kuala Lumpur or "K-L". From there we popped down to Singapore. The three-hour layover was enough time to collect bags, check in again and catch up for a relaxing lunch with a mate living in Singapore. From Singapore, we caught a Tiger Airways flight to Hanoi. The fare was advertised as $99 Singapore, but after fuel surcharges, taxes, license, dealer prep and all those other add-ons, it came to just a little over twice that. Still not too bad for a 3-1/2 hour flight.

Reflecting on the trip, I think the first thing one needs to do when heading to Vietnam (particularly for Americans), is to erase your mental hard drive of all those old 6 o'clock news images of that war on the other side of the world, as well as preconceptions/misconceptions of the Vietnamese people. Out of its population of 84 million (making it 13th in world rankings) 70 percent of were born after the "American War" ended. It is not something they have any memories of, and their sights are aimed directly into the future. Those who are old enough to remember have chosen or are trying to forget. That said, they are extremely proud that they won the war and are not afraid to give us a friendly reminder of this fact. The Vietnam of 2006 is a rapidly developing country, embracing "capitalistic communism" in a fashion similar to China. It is bursting at the seams with potential and has become a major tourist destination that offers something for nearly everyone - history, architecture, art, culture, beaches, cuisine, night life, trekking, extreme sports, ecotourism and warm hospitality. With its recent acceptance into the World Trade Organization, Vietnam is on a fast track to being one of the powerhouses of Asia. And for the tourist, prices are something we haven't seen since Mexico in the 70s and 80s.

We were greeted at Noi Bai International Airport by a driver from the hotel, amidst a sea of touts trying to whisk us off to someplace willing to pay them a "commission." The 45-minute ride reminded us of Chinese driving rules - that is, there are no rules. On the road we were overwhelmed by horns honking, near misses, constant chaos and surprisingly few traffic signals for a capital city. We checked into the Camellia II Hotel. We had previously booked a "superior" double room but when we arrived, only a twin "standard," - actually quite substandard - was available. The not-so-friendly nor helpful staff did not seem to be at all concerned that we weren't pleased about the situation. They wanted us to hand over our passports which I flatly refused to do. I think they sensed that we had just about a gut full of their "hospitality" and were preparing to walk out of their establishment, so they finally settled for photo copies. We decided that we would change hotels as soon as it we could. We chucked our bags in the crappy room they gave us and headed out to see some of Hanoi.

Hustle and bustle in the Old Quarter.

Walking out of the front door all our senses were immediately subjected to a full frontal assault and pushed into overload. We spent a couple of hours wandering around Hanoi's quaint Old Quarter and had a light dinner at a French Bistro across the street from the hotel. I went to an ATM and got about US$100 worth of Vietnamese Dong, the local currency, and became an instant millionaire. The exchange rate is about 16,000 Dong to 1 US Dollar. All those zeroes would most certainly add to the confusion.

October 9

Surfing through our trusty "Lonely Planet" guide, we found a much nicer hotel, the Viet Anh, located just a couple blocks away, for ten bucks more (US$25 incl. breakfast), and shifted there after breakfast. We were given a large, clean, modern room with a balcony and rooftop views of the surrounding neighborhood from three sides. We then organized some tour and travel arrangements for Halong Bay, Cat Ba Island and Sapa.

The streets of Hanoi are very busy, mostly with small motorcycles and bicycles, and just a few cars, trucks and buses. With very few signals and a nearly constant flow of traffic, crossing the street (as we know it) was nearly impossible. The technique is to simply start walking, slowly and steadily, and the traffic will avoid you. You hope! Seeing two or three persons riding on a motorcycle is common. Four or five crammed onto the seat is not too rare. The sidewalks are chock-a-block with parked motorcycles, work in progress from the various crafts and trades people, and tables and chairs of the local street cafes. The local kitchens are small and lack ventilation, so many people take it to the streets and cook on the sidewalk over gas or coal-fueled stoves. Food was cooking everywhere!

The seating of choice is a tiny plastic stool about six inches high and with an area just big enough to accommodate a full set of Vietnamese buns or just a half set of mine. Some places have the types of small plastic chairs that have arms, ones we would consider "kid's size." We could sit in them, but they are low, small, and very snug. When I stood up, most of the time the chair would be affixed to my bum and attempt to follow me out the door.

The sidewalks of the old quarter are literally so jammed that in most places, it is simply easier to walk on the edge of the street. Life here is a hive of activity, chaotic to Western eyes, but over time, we could begin to see the harmony of it all.

We spent the remainder of the day taking a walking tour of the Old Quarter, browsing the shops and taking in the hustle and bustle of life in Hanoi. It seems that each street in the Old Quarter is named after the types of products sold by the businesses clustered on that street. I can't remember all the real Vietnamese names and directions, so don't quote me on this, but starting from the hotel, we walked down "Plastic Products Place," where everything from plastic bags of every conceivable shape and size, to raincoats and plastic flooring, rope and cellophane tape were on offer. We turned left down "Sweet Tooth Street" where every imaginable chip, cracker, lolly and candy bar were displayed in boxes, baskets and bins flowing out onto the street. Another left and we were on Blacksmith Boulevard. If the sidewalk wasn't chocker with stainless steel items from coat racks to bird cages, range hoods to shelving units, it was a flurry of activity like welding, grinding, tapping, cutting and polishing of goods in process. Turning right on Souvenir Avenue, there were endless shops, narrow and deep, displaying Vietnamese handicrafts, art, t-shirts and the like. Another right and we were on Herbal Medicine Lane, where the strong exotic aromas of Chinese herbal medicines overwhelm the senses, and the items on display are mostly unidentifiable if not unbelievable. It is here that we came across an interesting concoction called "Snake Wine." Bottles range in size from about a half pint to perhaps 5 gallons. In each bottle of strong corn or rice spirits is a real cobra, pickled, coiled and propped up with his hood open and tongue extended, looking as if ready to strike. But wait! There's more! Some had the added bonus of a scorpion with the tail clenched in the jaw of the snake. The locals tout it as having "mystical sexual simulative properties". I think it would be an excellent cure for drinking! The same shop also sold dried lizards and dried mushrooms the size of a wide-brimmed sombrero hat. Some other "infusions" that we encountered were:

• Ginseng wine with some ugly roots in the bottle.
• Various fruit wines with rather old-looking fruits on the bottom.
• Honey wine with real honeycomb in the bottle.
• Lizard wine, with a few lizards swimming around.
• Bird wine, with fully feathered birds flying in alcohol.
• Beetle wine with the bottle half full of bugs.
  
• And the worst of all, cat wine, with a kitten resting on the bottom in a fetal position.

I think I'll stick to Absolut Vanilla.

Wine with a bite.

Hanging a left on "Beverage Boulevard" the storefronts are stacked to the ceiling with cases of the local brews, Bia Ha Noi, Halida and Tiger Beer. Dingy shops displayed dusty and apparently well-aged bottles of wine and spirits from throughout the world, including some made in Vietnam. The local brand of Scotch is called "Wall Street" and the brand of Gin is "Harpoon". No thanks! Bearing left down "Motorcycle Seat Street" there were a row of shops offering a plethora of seats and replacement seat covers. Based on the number of motorcycles, or "motos" as they are called in Vietnam, this would have to be an excellent business. One can display their taste and individuality by having their moto seat upholstered in their favorite designer fabric. Clearly, some Vietnamese don't want their buns resting on anything less than the material found on those ubiquitous handbags made by Louis Vuitton, Chanel or Gucci. Veering onto Sun Glass Street, one can find seriously convincing knockoffs of all the latest designer styles, most pair costing from just US $5-$10. We finished the tour on Headstone Alley, in the dead center of town, where marble and granite carvers were busy at work crafting intricate monuments for the dearly departed.

Ever-present was the lovely aroma of freshly baked baguettes, sold on street corners, in shops, and on the street by conical hat-wearing women carrying them in two baskets suspended from the ends of a long bamboo pole balanced on their shoulders. Ya gotta love the French! Hanoi also has lots of cafes, and superb coffee, brewed in small metal drip devices, served up strong and sweet.

According to the locals, the very best Vietnamese coffee is one called ca phe chon. The coffee beans are fed to a particular species of weasel, that "process" the beans, apparently adding a unique flavor along the way. The beans are recovered from their droppings, cleaned, and packaged. I ponder how that process was discovered; I doubt it was intentional.

Even though the local currency is the Dong, for some strange reason the US Dollar is the currency of choice, particularly in tourist areas. People here are generally polite. Many will look you in the eye, smile and say hello. People hawking "cyclo" or tri-shaw rides or merchandise in Hanoi did not bother us too much. After a "no thank you" or two, they move on. We enjoyed an excellent "hot pot" full of vegetables, chicken, beef, fish, prawns and squid for dinner at Stop Café. We finished the evening at a place called 69 with a nite cap. 69 is located in an old Chinese-style shop house that has been converted to a trendy bar/café and is a block or so down Pho Ma May from our hotel.

October 10

After a nice breakfast in the hotel, we grabbed a taxi to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum. The infamous Hoa Lo prison was known by the American POW's as the "Hanoi Hilton." A few acquaintances of mine who were incarcerated there didn't have anything good to say about the accommodations, food, or hospitality. Even though it has been spruced up, it still looks as if it was a living hell. There are some photos of Senator John McCain, along with the flight suit he was supposedly wearing when he was shot down and began his long stint there. There are also some dreadful relics of the French Colonial era such as original guillotines, leg irons and the like.

We walked back to the Old Quarter and stopped into the Highlands Café, to enjoy an excellent Vietnamese coffee on the balcony overlooking a busy intersection. We sat in amazement, watching the traffic flow below where five streets intersect and there is no traffic signal. This was by far the best show in town. Pedestrians, motorcycles, buses and cars, all crossing paths in random fashion, seldom stopping, reminded me of a machine gun on a WW I airplane, timing the shots so they don't hit the propeller.

We took a long walk back to the hotel, exploring some of the side streets and a large local market. The wet market had many beautiful and exotic fruits and vegetables, and a wide array of interesting seafood, including live crabs, fish, prawns, sea snakes and frogs. The Vietnamese have a widely varied diet, and we've often seen thit cay or dog meat on the menu.

Later in the afternoon, we caught an early performance at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. The puppets perform in a pool of water and are controlled by puppeteers standing behind them shrouded by a screen. The mechanisms are hidden by the murky green water. The hour-long show, which was accompanied by live traditional music, was delightful. The puppets - ranging from people to birds, fish, ducks, water buffalo and even a tiger that scurried up a palm tree - were very colorful and well animated. After the show we enjoyed a nice dinner at the Hanoi Garden Restaurant, and a leisurely stroll back to the hotel, the streets alive and bustling with activity.

October 11

We were up early and caught a bus to Halong Bay where we were to board the Santa Maria for a two-day cruise around the bay. There was a bit of a bait-and-switch to another boat, whose comparable quality was questionable. In any event, it was not the boat that was recommended to us by friends, nor the one we specifically booked for. We enjoyed a nice lunch on board and a leisurely cruise on the nearly flat calm waters of Ha Long Bay. Our room was small but comfortable and reasonably tidy. Halong Bay is dotted with interesting limestone islands, jutting out of the shallow sea. It's not unlike Phang Nga Bay in Thailand or parts of Langkawi, except that the islands are much closer together and more numerous. We visited two caverns - the first was pretty average, but the second was quite large and had some beautiful and interesting formations. In the late afternoon we anchored in a calm, protected area, had a swim and relaxed into happy hour and dinner. What was quite notable about the area is the amount of tourism and its obvious impact on the people and environment, as well as the unrelenting haze, courtesy of fires burning in Indonesia, which seems to be covering all of what we now call "Southeast Hazia".

Ha Long Bay.

October 12

We were up early and enjoyed a nice breakfast on board, then went on a three-hour kayak tour around some of the small islands and through some of the sea-level caves in the bay. It took Merima and me awhile to get our strokes coordinated and find a comfortable position for paddling, but by the end of the excursion we were in sync, albeit suffering from sore arm muscles. The sea kayak was a great way to do some close up exploring of the islands and caves.

For lunch we were taken to a very small and uninhabited beach, where the crew set up a long table in the shade of some trees, and served a beautiful sit-down lunch.

After lunch, we were dropped off at a remote island and began a three-hour trek through the dense jungle. We stopped along the way at a small camp where an elderly couple had been living for the past 20 years, apparently as custodians for the area. They lived in a blue-tarp-covered awning and survived on their garden and from the fruits of the various trees in the area. They also caught fish from a small saltwater lake in the middle of the island. They had a litter of eight very cute puppies, and after a bit of questioning to our guide Duy, I worked out that they did a bit of "ranching" as a sideline to get cash for rice and other staples. For them to get to a market, it was an hour of difficult hiking and then a ferry ride to the nearest populated island, called Cat BA It was quite a physical day and we were absolutely shagged at the end of it.

We took a short boat ride to Cat BA Island and checked into the Cat BA Plaza Hotel for the night. It was a clean and comfortable two-star accommodation, but the Plaza it was not. After a short rest and a much needed shower, we took a mini bus ride into town for a local meal and a walk along the waterfront.

October 13

After breakfast we boarded a small boat that took us to the Santa Maria Cruiser, the boat that we were meant to spend two days and a night on. We were disappointed to discover that it was, in fact, significantly nicer than the boat to which we had been switched. We enjoyed a pleasant cruise back to Ha Long Harbour and caught a bus to a nearby resort for lunch at a restaurant overlooking Ha Long Bay. On a clear day the view would have been spectacular, but due to the haze, we could only just make out the faint outline of the dramatic rocky islands in the bay. After lunch, it was back on the bus and a three-and-a-half hour return trip to Hanoi and the Viet Anh Hotel. The double room that we had booked and paid for in advance once again seems to have disappeared. After explaining to the front desk staff in no uncertain terms that we wanted a refund and would take our business elsewhere, it seems a double room magically became available. I suppose some other new arrival got the short end of that deal.

In retrospect, the trip to Ha Long Bay was very nice, but having cruised Phang Nga Bay in Thailand and Langkawi in Malaysia on Moonshadow, the only things we would have missed is the spectacular cave, the leisurely cruise on the local style wooden boat, and lots of tourists. We wished we would have opted for two nights on the boat and given a miss to Cat BA Island. We didn't have enough time there to see any of its sights, and wish we could have avoided the pack-and-move.

Back in Hanoi we booked into a lovely restaurant we had seen on one of our walks, called Bobby Chinn's. The owner is an American-born half-Vietnamese/half-Egyptian who punched out of a successful Wall Street career to start a restaurant in Vietnam. He's gotten it right, as the food was incredible, the service impeccable, the décor very hip and the selection of wine extensive. After dinner we shifted to the groovy lounge, where we sipped after-dinner drinks, and puffed on a cappuccino-flavored sheesha or hooka pipe. One can dine here on meals blending the best of east and west while listening to ambient music from the Grateful Dead. This was quite possibly the best meal we've had in SE Asia.

October 14

We had a free day, so did a bit more wandering and shopping in Hanoi, and generally absorbing the local ambiance. At "beer-thirty" we dropped into a brew pub called Legends Pub. We sipped on an excellent microbrew while we watched the traffic show below. That evening we enjoyed a great Eurasian-style meal at the Piano Bar and Lounge Restaurant while listening to a young Vietnamese girl masterfully playing the piano. After dinner we hopped a cab back to the hotel, grabbed our bags, and headed to the train station. We caught the 10 pm train, an overnight soft sleeper to Lao Cai, which is located in the northwestern mountains of Vietnam, just a few clicks from the Chinese border. The train was pretty average, but we booked a whole cabin so at least we had some privacy and room to stretch out. We managed to get a pretty good night's sleep during the long, slow train ride.

October 15

Arriving on schedule at Lao CAI at 0730 we caught a bus to Sapa. The driver had obviously heard about Michael Schumacher's impending retirement and was trying to demonstrate to us that he had the right stuff to fill the opening. His tailgating and passing on blind corners had us a bit nervous so we were very relieved when the grade increased and he was kept to a comfortably slow pace. Miraculously, we arrived safely in the village of Sapa. We dropped most of our gear at the View Hotel and had breakfast. I wasn't too keen to leave our bags in an unlocked room with hundreds of backpackers coming in and out, so I got their cheapest room for US$10 and locked our gear away. In the lobby, we met Tau, who would be our guide for the next two days as we trekked through the rice paddies, mountain villages and bamboo forests of the region. He was quite a character and spoke pretty good English (certainly much better than our Vietnamese) although many letters like G, D, Y, J and a few others seemed to all come out sounding like Z. My name came out as "Zorz"; after the trek we were going to get a lift to the village in a zeep. He was quite proud of his country and particularly how the Vietnamese, with much less in the way of resources, managed to win the "American War".

We started our trek from Sapa, once a border outpost, and now mainly a tourist town. With a European flavor to its architecture, one might think one was in a resort town in the French or Swiss Alps. During the days, the views of the surrounding mountains and valleys are spectacular. In the evenings, a mist descends upon the village, giving it a ghostly feel.

Leaving the main road we began a lengthy descent into the valley, following narrow roads, paths, and at some points, the narrow borders that hold the water in rice paddies. Sometimes the whole area looked like a giant three-dimensional topographical map, with the rice paddy borders perfectly defining the contour lines of the steep valley slopes. The timing was in the middle of the harvest season, so some fields were green, some flooded, some dried and yellowing and some trimmed of their rice. As we wound our way around each corner, another unique and gorgeous panorama would spread out in front of us.

Trekking in Sapa.

Along the way, we stopped and were invited into a local farm house inhabited by people from one of the "Hill Tribes" of the area. This one was described to us as quite typical, having three rooms, a large one in the middle, and two smaller ones off of each side. The construction is roughhewn wood with a roof of corrugated tiles. The floors were hard-packed but damp earth. Each of the end rooms have an open fire in the middle for cooking and heat, and the beds are situated in corners of these rooms, some out in the open, some behind curtains. Two or three generations may live in the home, and most had six to nine people in residence. Furniture is quite spartan and usually consists of roughly crafted wooden stools that stand perhaps 6 inches above the ground. Many of the homes had electricity, but only used one or two clear-glass antique-looking light bulbs suspended from the ceiling by wire, offering only dim light. By the looks of it, nobody here seemed to be aware or concerned about electrical wiring codes.

Additional light comes in between the wall boards during daylight hours, but with unpainted, rough hewn boards for walls, the amount of light indoors is minimal. Above the cooking areas are lofts where the rice, corn and other dry goods are stored after the harvest. Each family seems to have enough land to grow rice and corn to last them for a year. Much of the cooking is done in a large wok over open fire. Fuel consists of dried sticks and bamboo, although some of the nicer homes may also have a gas- fueled portable cooktop as well. The ceilings of the kitchens are shiny and black from the cooking oil smoke, and the rooms have a smoky odor that seems to stick to one's skin and clothing. In the main room is an altar, usually decorated with red strips of paper containing Chinese writing. The house we visited also had a small stone mill for grinding rice and corn into flour, and a large barrel of indigo dye for coloring the hemp cloth that is hand woven by the local women. Most homes have "running water" which is channeled to the house via aqueducts and/or bamboo pipes from one of the many streams cascading down the hillside. The same water that may have been used for washing and carrying away waste from the dunnies uphill, is used for cooking, cleaning and drinking at a village lower down the hill. We opted for bottled drinking water, which seemed to be available in small stands set up along the track, usually about a half-hour's walk apart.

The only negative aspect of the trekking was the annoyingly persistent hill tribe women and girls who continually followed us and badgered us to buy their handicrafts. While many of the items were interesting and quite nice, living on a boat limits our ability to collect knick-knacks. The words "No thank you" either fell upon deaf ears or perhaps translated in Vietnamese into "Yes, I'm very interested; please show me more because I want to buy everything you have."

The first day we covered about 15 kilometers, or just less than ten miles, and thoroughly enjoyed the gorgeous and exotic scenery. We stopped for the evening to stay with a family of the Zay tribe. They are quite wealthy by local standards and have much nicer homes than most of the other villages we encountered along the way. That said, they still have dirt floors, but the home we stayed in had a proper bathroom attached to the outside of the house with a flush toilet and a cold shower, and a concrete porch out front. You would literally wipe your feet on the way out. Our hosts were a delightful family consisting of Lee, a widowed mother, her two sons in their late teens and a daughter-in-law. We arrived in the late afternoon and chilled out while they went about their business. We took a stroll through the village to the "bathing river" and then returned to the house and had a much-needed shower in what appeared to be cleaner water.

Across the street was the "local" which was also a home stay. The young man who ran it had escaped the hustle and bustle of Hanoi and was enjoying the peace and quiet of the mountains. Well, almost, as he had quite a loud stereo which he played for much of the day. Unfortunately he only appeared to have two CDs in his collection. We dropped in to sample his home-brewed rice wine and have a chat. Tau joined us for happy hour. We inquired about the rates for his establishment and were told that it was "same same" as all the other home stays in the village - US$1.25 per person/night including dinner and breakfast. No, I didn't misplace the decimal and yes, it was worth every penny of it.

After happy hour, we wandered back to our home and sat around the fire in the kitchen while dinner was prepared. There was certainly no shortage of food. Ours consisted of spring rolls, stir-fried beef with veggies, fried tofu, stir-fried chicken with veggies, french fries with fresh garlic and, of course, rice. Dinner was accompanied by Lee's homemade rice wine, which I must say was excellent, and very strong. As much as we would have enjoyed savoring and sipping it, it seems the local custom was to skull each little glass that was offered. We enjoyed the company of our hosts, our conversation being translated by Tau and lubricated by numerous shots of this ricey rocket fuel. As hard as we tried, we could not finish all the excellent food. Weary from the day's walk and the rice wine, we retired early. Our accommodation was a cushion on the floor of one of the lofts - basic, but dry, warm, and comfortable.

October 17

We were up with the roosters, which actually sleep in quite late by Vietnamese farm standards. By the time we sipped our first morning coffee, most of the household had already been at work in the fields for a few hours. Over coffee, we sat out on the front porch and watched the sun evaporate the mountain mist left from a heavy rain during the night. Soon after we emerged from the house, local girls and women were hounding us again. How do you say in Vietnamese "Not until I've had my first coffee?"

Rice farming in Sapa.

The locals eat steamed rice for breakfast, but for us tourists they prepared the most excellent crepes, which they call pancakes. We enjoyed them sprinkled with a bit of sugar and lime juice. After breakfast we donned our knapsacks and were on our way again.

It had rained during the night, so the trails were muddy and slippery. A walking stick or ski pole would have come in very handy, particularly when we were walking on the narrow edges of the paddies designed with much smaller feet in mind. Two hill tribe women attached themselves to us and were walking literally inches from our heels, or weaving in and out between us. A number of times I stopped to let them pass. They are surely more sure footed and adept at walking these trails even in their flimsy plastic sandals. But when I stopped, they stopped. When we started again, there they were, almost tripping us. After an hour or so of this continued annoyance, I finally had a gutful of it and stopped. I told them that their "assistance" was not wanted or needed and asked them to PLEASE leave us alone. They stared at me as if I had just arrived from Mars, completely ignoring my polite request. I insisted to Tau that we were not moving from the spot unless they left and were prepared to stay until they went home for the evening. I asked him to explain our displeasure to them. After quite a few minutes of conversation between them, the two ladies reluctantly left and we were once again able to enjoy our trekking.

Most of the morning was uphill walking until we arrived at a river cascading down hundreds of feet of steep smooth rock. After a short rest/photo break there, we made our way to yet another tribal village. This one was by far the most primitive of the villages we had encountered. We were invited into one of the homes and our guide explained to us about the house and how the people live. If it wasn't for a couple of dingy light bulbs hanging from the ceiling by cob webs and wires, we could just as easily been transported back a thousand years in time. We couldn't imagine that modern day life anywhere in the world could be much more primitive than this.

Backtracking a bit, we made our way down to the canyon floor and crossed the river on a suspension foot bridge. On the other side was a home where Tau prepared us an excellent lunch of noodle and cabbage soup, topped with a fried egg, which we enjoyed at a small table by the river's edge in the shade of a huge ficus tree. After lunch we walked for about twenty minutes up to the main road and were picked up by a mini bus (the zeep was busy) which drove us back to Sapa. The second day's walk was shorter, only about 10 kilometers or six miles, but much more challenging due to the grade and the slipperiness of the trails. It was worth every step, as the scenery was spectacular.

Back in Sapa, we collected our luggage and checked into the Royal View Hotel, a three-star accommodation with panoramic views over the valley. Our room was quite nice, with all the mod-cons, and in stark contrast to the home stay the night before. For ten times that price we got our own fireplace, a terrace with a view and three included meals a day. We cleaned the mud off our hiking shoes, then had a rest, a hot shower, and a good meal in the hotel dining room. After dinner we strolled around the town of Sapa, now draped in fog. The town was quiet and we were happy to call it an early night.

October 18

We spent the morning lazing around the hotel and getting ourselves organized. After breakfast, we wandered around Sapa for a few hours and then returned to the hotel for lunch. We caught up on email, downloaded photos, reminisced on how much ground we've covered in just one week, and starting planning the next part of our journey. After an early dinner we caught the bus back to Lao CAI where we boarded the night train back to Hanoi.

October 19, 2006

The train ride wasn't very pleasant and we didn't get much sleep. It felt more like sailing to weather in 25 knots of wind and 3 meter seas, rather than riding on a set of tracks. To make matters worse, the group in the next cabin was up most of the night drinking and talking. I don't know why they spent all that money on a sleeper berth! In Hanoi we caught a cab back to the Viet Anh Hotel, where we had a shower and breakfast. It was a very pleasant morning in Hanoi, so we strolled around the Old Quarter for a few hours, then collected our bags and headed off on the next leg of our journey to the south of Vietnam.

Enjoying a quiet moment in Hanoi.