Boating in Tam Coc

Another of the day trips I managed to go on was to a scenic area called Tam Coc. It's about a three hour drive from Hanoi and could not be more different. I get the impression that the area doesn't see a load of international tourists as no-one and nothing was in English, generally the signs are in English even is the people don't speak it. However they clearly get lots of people going there as there were hundreds of the little boats that we hired and miles of parked bicycles for hire.

As I was on an organised tour I was expecting a certain amount of shopping stops and people trying to sell us stuff, however it was clear that the guide had deals with particular shops as he would march us past many that were identical to get to one he approved of.

We first stopped at the ancient Capital of Vietnam which was a time filler as otherwise the day would have been a little empty, there was nothing there just a car park which apparently was the spot the old palace was on. A little disappointing and very little time was spent here.

Next we went for lunch and then to the boats. The boats were rowed by locals who were keen to make some extra money in tips. They fussed about us in the sun, if our seats were comfy enough and panicked if they thought we were thirsty.

The trip took about an hour and a half in which we travelled down a little river, thought some caves then turned back. The area is famous for its Karsk mountain formations which seem to be all over the place in Vietnam and South West China. The stone forest is very similar and (for avid readers of Claire vs China) the GuiZhou scenic areas in visited a few months back.

After the boat trip we were given bikes, pointed in a vague direction down a dirt road and told to be back in 40 minutes. Our guide was very little above useless, he didn't want to know and later confessed to it being his last day. However without supervision we managed to cycle through some much nicer 'off-the-beaten-track' walkways around some rice field. We were very lucky to be going past them as the sun was setting making it really rather pretty. Myself and a few others from the tour were lucky enough to get half decent bikes so the uphill part of the journey was easy, some others were not so lucky and ended up pushing their one speed death traps back to the meeting point.

All in all the place was beautiful but the tour was terrible, if I can help it I don't use organised day tours but this place would have been impossible to get to without speaking the language. Never mind it can't be helped.

Motorbiking round Mai Chau

I left Sapa and made my way back to Lao Cai to get the overnight train to Hanoi. Somehow I managed to pay for a hard sleeper bunk (cheapest) but got given a ticket for a soft sleeper which was a nice little bonus. The train takes about 10 hours and gets into Hanoi at 6 in the morning. I was lucky and bumped into some fellow Kunming holiday goers who knew the way from the train station to the old quarter so I didn't have to fight with taxi drivers telling me my hostel didn't exist (the current scam sweeping Asia).

Regular readers (always wanted to say that) will know that I have already been to Hanoi so I should still vaguely remember where the hostel was and managed to get there with only one slight mess up in directions. Hanoi Backpackers, cheap and chaotic, has become known for its tours and so most people seem to be staying there just for those. consequently the people in my room changed every night and no-one seemed to stick around for more than a day or two. I however was there for 5 days as I was based in Hanoi and just did one night or day trips out of the city.

My first trip was to Mai Chau valley where I stayed in a "home stay" which turned out to be a dormitory style room on top of a local families house. they cooked for us and took us out on tours, and we all chipped in with the chores so all in all it worked pretty well. The first day was a bicycle tour around the farms and local villages in the area. Again it was a painfully hot day and I was constantly adding suncream desperate not to burn more than I had managed on the bike in Sapa. the family and the hostel have a stock of mix matched bikes that they lent us for the tour, mine was a bright pink think that had no breaks, instead you had to pedal backwards to slow down. we cycled for about 2 hours in a huge circle and by the end of it I still wasn't used to the breaks.

The evening was spent having terrifying motor bike lessons (in Vietnamese) and eating the evening meal. Our lessons were basically a introduction to the bike and a drive down a straight bit of road and back again. As this was my first time on a motorbike driving for myself I was a little nervous and all over the place. I went to bed repeating what to do in my head not feeling very confident at all.

There was literally nothing for about half a mile so we were attacked by every bug and ended up in the mosquito nets upstairs still drinking and talking in the dark.

The second day consisted of a 40km motorbike ride to a lake and a well needed refreshing swim. we had to take the ride pretty slowly as we were all still getting used to the bikes and changing gears. I had taken to practising going up and down gears on the flat main roads, until I got told off of course. We went past a waterfall and stopped for a break and some pictures before carrying on to the lake.

We all piled into a very small fishing boat that had been hired for the hot and tired foreigners to take a swim and did just that. The water was beautifully warm if an odd colour and we spent nearly half an hour just clinging to the side of the boat and chilling out.

Sadly this was the end of our mini adventure in Mai Chau as we had to get back to the room, grab our stuff and pile back into a bus heading for Hanoi. The bus journey back was not at all relaxing as the driver seemed to be in a very bad mood and a hurry. We zipped around the side of mountains and flew down teh main highways all the tiem with huim shouting out of the window at the poor people he had just forsed off the road. Needless to say we were all very glad to get back and out of his bus!

October Holidays; SAPA!

October rolled round again which is only important for one reason. National Day Holiday! A whole week of; no kids, no lesson planning, no alarms, no classes and no grown up behaviour of any kind. A week to look forward to!!!!

This year things were a little more last minute than I normally like, my passport was again in the VISA office and there were no guarantees that I would get it back before the holiday started so I couldn't book anything just in case. My plan was to go and visit Tom and Karina in Cambodia but by the time I did get my passport back prices for flights were stupidly high (I could almost get home for the same price) so plan B it was. Back to Vietnam but this time by bus.

From Kunming it only take 7 hours to get to HeKou (which is the China side town on the border) and from there you just walk across a bridge into Vietnam. Passport checks took forever on both sides so the whole process took close to an hour.

Once in Lao Cai (Vietnam side of the border) I headed for Sapa. After a lot of walking about aimlessly I spotted a bus with Sapa written on the back. Fairly certain that was the bus I wanted I ran for it but missed it by only a few seconds. A little post van pulled up and said he was going to the same place and he could give me a ride. 10,000 dong later (about £1.50) and an hours terrifying roller coaster ride of a journey I was in Sapa.

Sapa has become a popular place for tourists who want to experience rural Vietnam and see some very impressive rice paddy scenery. Most hotels offer guided treks and motor bike tours for rock bottom prices, huge competition has kept the prices low. Sadly the town itself is just one huge tourist trap; every restaurant sells western food and street sellers swarm all over the roads trying to get you to buy little "handmade" bags and wallets. I got out of the town as fast as I could and went down into the valley to recommended Cat Cat village. Its only a 3km walk but the roads and steep and hard going, half way down I stopped for breakfast and a photo break.

The village itself is (as I soon found out) a purpose built "rural experience" at the beginning of a trail through the bottom of the valley. Its 40,000 dong entry (about £1.20) and takes close to two hours at a slow and chilled pace. The trail starts by going though a little shopping area and then calms down to a steep path heading for a river and waterfall area. I blasted past the shops not really interested in filling my bag so early in my trip and went straight to the waterfall. I have a real soft spot for rivers, lakes waterfalls anything with water really and so sat there perfectly content, with a beer naturally, for close to half an hour. I had been told the remainder of the trail was a little uneventful so I didn't really see much need to rush.

Having finished my drink I carried on. The rest of the trail followed a small river and was a little uneventful. The bridges were impressive, especially given how old they were but other than that not loads to do or see so I made my way back up the now horribly steep valley side back to Sapa. The walk nearly killed my in the heat and I managed (despite wearing factor 50) to burn my shoulders. Nearly on my hands and knees I crawled back to the main square of Sapa, I must have looked as knackered as i felt because motorbike drivers from all over the square ran to offer me a lift. Annoyingly at the bottom of the hill these smug looking gits were nowhere to be seen!

I hired one to drive me out to the silver waterfall I had been told about that was close to 12km away and off we set.

Mountain climbing(ish) in Dali.

Having been to Dali many MANY times before, finding new and still enjoyable things so do had become a little bit challenging. One of the things I personally had wanted to try was to go up the mountains, I had come close a few times but was normally stopped by bad weather or a landslide so I just hadn't managed it......until now!

Nat, Jacki, Rose and I had decided on a girls weekend away, before Nat and Jacki left for England, which generally means a hop skip and jump on an overnight train to sunny and chilled out Dali. We do the journey so often that it is a really simple and well timed trip. Off the train at the other end, into a taxi to the hostel, a quick nap and breakfast in the Bad Monkey. Easy!

Monday was spent chilling outside the bar watching the world go by and just generally doing as little as four people can do without turning into statues. Shopping in Dali is great if you want something trinkety and lots of them, but for something a bit different its not so great. Nat and I did all of our Xmas shopping there so we know all of the good places to buy things for rock bottom prices. We blasted between a few select shops and then back to the bar for a well deserved beer.

On the second day of our trip we had planned to go up the mountain. Information wise we had none; what we did have was a vague general direction (uphill) and a few hours to kill. We started up a road that looked promising, at one point we could see the track that the path and cable car take up the mountain and just used that as a compass point.

It was blisteringly hot and walk up to the start is fairly steep, about half an hour later we arrived hot and very sweaty to the beginning of the cable car up the mountain. We knew it was expensive (for China standards) but nearly £30 for a forty minute car seemed unreasonable. After getting to the top though we felt a little less ripped off as it was really quite impressive.

The cable car is in two sections, the first took us to the top of the first ridge and the second car took us over a pretty hefty valley and up to the summit.

At 3900 meters above sea level it was much cooler up there and a welcome break from the stiffing heat of Dali. We spent about half an hour at the top before having to head back down for closing. We jumped in a little tuctuc van thing and bounced back to the bottom of the road and naturally headed to the Bad Monkey and yak steak.