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Entry from: Sapa, Vietnam
Entry Title: "Sapa, Vietnam"
Entry:
"The train to Sapa departed at 8:15pm on Sunday evening. We found our seats and couldn't believe what we saw. Four lovely made up beds with nice sheets, pillows and duvets, air-conditioning, lamps and a door with a lock. 5 star hotel compared to what we had traveled on in India. We settled into our compartment 1 hour before departure and were joined by a crazy Vietnamese kid who must have been 2 years old at most. Hyperactive is and understatement, his mother was staying in the compartment next door. Then we were joined by a French-Canadian couple who were just on a 2 week holiday in Vietnam. They were nice enough but very quiet. We locked the kid out and got a good nights sleep on the train. We arrived in Lao Cai at 5:30am where we took a mini-bus for one hour to the hotel that Aido and Isabel arrived in the day before. The hotel gave us a room to shower and get changed in. Then we went for breakfast with Aido & Isabel before meeting our guide - Mai, a local 19-year-old tribeswoman - for our two day trek. We drove by jeep for the first 30 minutes and the scenery was amazing. When we got out of the jeep we were surrounded by local tribeswomen, all in their traditional dress. Most of them couldn't speak english but they were holding our hands to help us with the hiking! We trekked for about 3 hours in ridiculous heat, stopping off to see the odd traditional house here and there. We came to rest at a waterfall where hard selling started from the locals. Isabel and Lydia bought a couple of bits and pieces to keep them happy. Most of the stuff they had was girlie, handbags, bracelets etc so I didn't buy anything, I just threw my Hobbit Guide (see the size of her in the picture) a few Dong for free. She obviously wasn't happy with this and I think she must have pinched the baby that was attached to her back to make him cry to guilt me into giving her more free money - didn't work! Aido, by the way bought some obscure musical instrument that nobody knew how to play - more about that later. So we had lunch around 2pm then trekked for another 1.5 hours til we got to the house where we would spend the night. It was a traditional house made only from bamboo and string. Didn't feel to sturdy upstairs but it did the job. We relaxed for a few minutes then went to some hot springs. They were lovely, sitting in the hot water with a cool beer after a long days trekking - nothing better. That night the local family made us a delicious dinner, 4 curries, one with beef and pineapple, one chicken, one vegetables and one tofu, couldn't finish it all but it was the best meal we'd had in a long time.
After dinner we got the deck of cards out. Mai joined us later into the night and introduced a 1.5 litre bottle of rice wine (a whiskey tasting home-brew) into the game. Loser had to drink a shot, plus many a shot just for good measure. We ended up polishing off the bottle of rice wine and 23 large bottles of beer between the four of us. Also at sometime during the night, it's all a blur, Mai asked us to sing a Backstreet Boys song, not only did me and Aido sing her one, but we played it on the obscure musical instrument from earlier which we know had figured out how to play. The four of us were in tears, I couldn't catch my breath I was laughing so much - had to be there I guess but I think there's some funny pictures to come! Next day we weren't feeling too good. Our guide was in a pretty bad way too, felt a bit guilty for that! So we went to a nearby river and waterfall, which was freezing, and we sat there trying to get rid of our hang-overs for 40 minutes or so. Didn't really work so we payed some local lads 2 euro each to drive us to the next village on the backs of their motor-bikes instead of doing the 2 hour trek. Our hotel jeep had arranged to pick us up there at 1:30pm. So we had a grand handy day, got back to the hotel and slept for a couple of hours, went out for baguettes and then started into the beer again around 5pm. Started by drinking Bia Hoi (local home-made beer) on a ..."
Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/staffyandlyddy/1/1212030060/tpod...
Photos from this trip:
1. "Scenery from Trek"
2. "st Karaoke Bar!"
3. "Birds nest"
4. "Kids working"
5. "Local women working"
6. "Karl, Aido & Lydia on Bridge"
7. "Kid on Buffalo"
8. "Mai on Trek"
9. "Aido, Mai & Karl"
10. "Lydia & Mai"
11. "Crazy Kid from Train"
12. "Vietnamese Karl"
13. "Vietnamese Lydia"
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Viet Nam 2011 HD - Part I/ 3 Saigon et Nha Trangby opusmang1,636 views
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