Northern Vietnam (5th Sep-18th Sep 07) Part 3

13th Sep 07 – Lao Chai and Ta Van Village
A visit to the Hmong village in Lao Chai and Ta Van was our last itinerary in Sapa. We transferred by minibus to from Sapa town to Lao Chai. Once we got down from the minibus, the Hmong women and children approached us to sell the walking sticks, handmade bag etc. We ignored them and trekked down to the valley. But they were not easily gave up, followed us for quite a long journey and bug us with the phrase “You buy from me?” .

We trekked through the rice terraces. The landscape is quite impressive. We visited the primary school and having lunch at one of the Homestay in Ta Van. Besides Hmong, we also met other hill tribe in Ta Van, eg: Red Dzao. I will recommend those that interested to visit Sapa to trek at Lao Chai and Ta Van village. The trekking took us about 4 hours including the lunch time. But the scenery it offered is definitely worth the visit. The trip ended around 3pm. We took the train from Lao Cai back to Hanoi at night.

14th-16th Sep 07 – Halong Bay – Cat Ba Island – Hanoi
The train reached Hanoi at 5am. We took the taxi from train station to the agent office. The office is not yet opened. We took our breakfast at the stall beside the road, and then sat beside the road from 6am – 9am, watching streets from quiet become very busy. 套用海波的一句话- 我们看着河内渐渐苏醒.

We board the minibus to Halong bay at 9am. Halong bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site which consists of around 2000 islands. Halong bay has become a “must go” destination for tourist that visited Hanoi. We get on the boat and enjoyed the cruise. In the afternoon, we visited the Sung Sot Cave – the largest cave in Halong bay. Then, we stopped at one of the island for swimming. I did not swim but trekked up to the island to get the view from the top. We stayed overnight at the boat.

The next day, we pack our things and move to a smaller boat that will take us to Cat Ba Island. On the way to Cat Ba island, we stopped for kayaking. Halong bay is very suitable for kayaking. We didn’t feel it’s in the ocean because the water is very calm. I didn’t know how to kayak but luckily I have Lai as my partner. She loves kayaking. So, due to my laziness, she did the kayaking most of the time. I am just resting and enjoying the scenery. :p

We reached Cat Ba island at noon. After lunch, we went for a short, relaxing hiking trip and visited a cave in the island. After the trip ended, we rented the bicycle to explore the island. We went to the beach, the pier and red light district of the island. I enjoyed the day very much.

We left Cat Ba and Halong bay the next day. Accommodation is the first thing that we need to settle once we back to Hanoi. A young man approached us, gave us a hotel brochure and offered the room at his hotel for USD 5 per person. So, Tack, Liow, Karen, Lai and I followed that young man to check out his hotel. The hotel is located inside the small street, different from the brochure stated. Then we found out what he offered is different from our expectation. He only gave us 2 double rooms and 1 triple room for 10 persons. We spent a lot of time to bargain with him. Just before we would like to give up and find other hotel, he agreed to give us 5 double rooms includes breakfast with USD 5 per person.

At night, we went to watch the water puppet show. I think all of us doze off during the show. Well…..what I can remember about the show is some puppets moving in the water, with the Vietnamese traditional music as background. I don’t know what the story is behind and slept most of the time. For anyone of you that would like to visit Hanoi, I will advise don’t waste the money to watch the water puppet show unless you really know how to appreciate the art.


17th Sep 07 – Perfume Pagoda
Perfume pagoda is located 70km from Hanoi. We walked in a tour agency and booked a private tour for perfume pagoda day trip. The package costs USD 11 per person which include the transport, guide, entrance fee and lunch. Perfume pagoda is not only one temple but a cluster of temples located on the limestone rock of Huong Son Mountain. We were surprised by the golden-yellow paddy fields along the way. It’s the harvest season. The villagers stacked the harvested paddy beside the road. They still use the traditional way to harvest the paddy.

About 11.30am, we reached a small village where we have to sit into a boat and row by the locals to the perfume pagoda. The weather is not too hot, which made the boat journey very nice. After about 1 hour and 15 minutes boat ride, we were told to get down from the boat. There is cable car service to take the tourist to visit the pagodas uphill. But we decided to trek up instead of sitting in the cable car. We visited few pagodas on our way up. It took us about 1 hour to reach the highest pagoda. To our surprise, we met Yeap – one of our hiking friends at the highest pagoda. He was traveled with his family. I knew that he is traveling to Vietnam but it’s such a co-incidence to see him there.

We didn’t spend much time there and decided to trek down to have our lunch. After lunch, we visited the Thien Chu pagoda before took the boat back to the village. The perfume pagoda is not special but the journey is remarkable. The boat ride and the golden paddy fields had made the trip memorable.

September is the raining season but I never expect to experience the flood at Hanoi at the last night of my trip. Rains started to pour when we walked back to hotel after dinner. The rain was getting heavy. Ah Ming, Tuck Seng, Liow and I were having bia-hoi at the street, seeing the water rise up to the knee level within an hour time. We wait until the rain was getting smaller, then wade through the water along the flooded street to go back to our hotel.

18th Sep 07 – Back to Malaysia
Tuck Seng and Foong Kiew took the morning flight back to Malaysia. The rest of us took the night flight. So, we have more than half a day to go for shopping. We went to Dong Xuan market. Dong Xuan market is mainly for the wholesalers to get their supply. So, not all of the shops will entertain us as they only sell to wholesalers. We had quite a bad experience of shopping in Hanoi. The sellers are not friendly and scold us when we did not buy from them after take a look. Actually I had a bad impression of the Vietnamese attitude. From the 2nd day until the last day of the trip, we had encountered quite a number of rude treatments from the hotel staff, tour guide, post office staff and the sellers. I don’t like Hanoi and also don’t have the intention to visit it again.

However, the trip is still full of laughter, especially the drama between Hai Poh and Karen which had given us lots of fun. I appreciate the travel moments with you all. Hope all of you enjoyed it as well. ;)

Northern Vietnam (5th Sep - 18th Sep 07) Part 2

10th-12th Sep 07 – Mt. Fansipan

Mt. Fansipan is the highest mountain in Indochina, at 3143m. It’s the main focus of our trip. The minibus brought us from Sapa towards Silver waterfall and stopped at the starting point of the climb. Just before we started the climb, it rains. It was very misty, visibility was low. We were not able to see the beautiful view of forest. We felt disappointed and prayed that the weather will be good for the next day.

Our package includes porter service. But the porters only carried our food, not our backpack. We had trekked for 6 hours before reached the campsite. A simple bamboo hut was built at the campsite for hikers. As we were the only group there, we occupied the whole bamboo hut. It’s still raining out there. But surprisingly it wasn’t very cold. The dinner was prepared by porters. After dinner, we played cards until the guide urging us to bed.

11th Sep 5.30am, we took our breakfast, carried the light backpack, put on our headlight and started to hike up to summit. The weather was bad, still raining and misty. The trek was muddy. After 4.5 hours trekking, we climbed up a vertical wall (straight up at an almost 90-degree angle) using rope. All of us were excited because we thought summit should be within 5-10 minutes journey after climbed up the wall. But apparently we were wrong. After half an hour hiking, summit is still not in sight. The trail seems like endless. Initially, Lai, Ming, Tack, Karen and I were together. But after a while, Lai, Ming and Tack were disappeared. They were too fast, I couldn’t cope with their pace. Karen and I were exhausted but kept on pushing ourselves to move forward. Finally, I had reached the summit at about 10.50am, took me 5.5 hours from the campsite. 9 of us had arrived at the top. The weather was not good, very cloudy. We really regret to have not seen the spectacular view across the peak of Mt. Fansipan. While waiting for Tuck Seng and Liow to arrive, I recorded a video at the summit. My friends, still remember what did you say?

Tack : 这么容易的山，下次不要叫我来爬。没有比我想象的冷。
Lai : 我觉得不容易 lor, 看我的脚。(point at her muddy leg)
Hai Poh: 我们蠢事做尽，终于上来了。因为我们有罪。
Karen: 终于给我过关了。
Ming: 很高兴，可以和他们一起来爬山。
Soo Ching: 来，我拿国旗。越南国旗， Mt. Fansipan, yeah!
Joshua: 我要感谢国家，感谢上帝。
Ah Kiew: 我希望快点吹走那些云，爬得那么辛苦，坐飞机来到这里。
Jing Yee: 好辛苦啊。刚才爬的时候一直不到顶的，终于到了。

At last, Liow and Tuck Seng had arrived. We welcome them by singing the songs. http://travel.webshots.com/video/3099187230066465503bHhjXZ

The journey wasn’t ended as we still have to trek back to the campsite. We started to descent at 12.30pm and back to campsite at 5pm.
12th Sep 9am, we descended after having breakfast. We chose to descend to Sin Chai village instead of following the original route. Although the Sin Chai village route is longer, I think we had made the right choice because the scenery there was very beautiful. Sin Chai village is isolated and seldom visited by tourist compare to the commercialized Cat Cat village. Our Mt. Fansipan hiking trip was ended at Sin Chai village.

Northern Vietnam (5th Sep - 18 Sep 2007) Part 1

5th Sep 07 – Fly to Hanoi by Airasia
I went to northern vietnam at September with my friends and spent 14 days there. We were altogether 10 persons, fly to Hanoi in 2 groups. 6 of us (Lai, sook ching, liow, tuck seng, karen and I) reached Hanoi on 5th Sep 8 something at night. The remaining group members (Hai Poh, Tack, Kok Ming, Foong Kiew) will arrive at Hanoi on 6th Sep. The agent had arranged a driver to pick us up at airport. We changed the vietnam dong in airport with the rate 1USD = 16200 Dong. We stayed at Camellia 2 Hotel for the 1st 2 days in Hanoi.

6th Sep 07 – Old Quarter
On 6th Sep, 6 of us explore around old quarter area. Started from our hotel, we walked towards Hoem Kien Lake which located at the center of old quarter. The traffic at Hanoi is very messy. There are a lot of motorcycles. You can never find a time that is suitable for road crossing. So, to cross the road, just walk across with consistent speed. The interesting part is the motorcyclist will automatically adjust their speed and avoid us. We went in post office to send the postcard. There are a lot of small streets in old quarter area. These streets are named as “36 Pho Phuong” (36 streets). Each street sells different category of goods, which mean there is a street that every shop is selling shoes; another street every shops is selling glasses, clothes, toys, Chinese medicine, junk food, rope, steel etc. We visited museum of revolution and cathedral church. Both places are free entry. We discovered a place that sells pure fruit juice with only 5000 Dong (about RM1) just beside the cathedral church. We walked from day till night, almost walked through every part of old quarters.

7th Sep 07 – Hanoi City Tour
All group members had arrived in Hanoi. We bought the Hanoi city tour package with USD10 per person. There are a lot of travel agents in old quarter area. I can’t remember I had seen how many travel agents with the name “Sinh Cafe”. Since Sinh Cafe travel agent is quite famous among the travelers, so there are a lot of travel agents use this name to do the business. Who is original and who is pirated? We really cannot differentiate. In fact, what we do is just compare the prices, services and itinerary of the package of every agent and opt for the cheapest. Hahaha…..It’s the private tour for our group. The services include a tour guide, transport, lunch and entrance fees. We visited Museum of Ethnology, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, One Pillar Pagoda and Van Mieu (Literature Temple). Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is closed on Friday. So, we just took the pictures in front of it. At night, we took the train to Lao Cai.

8th Sep 07 – Lao Cai – Sapa – Cat Cat Village
We reached Lao Cai train station around 6am. From Lao Cai, it took us about 1.5 hours to reach Sapa – a hill town, very similar to Cameron Highlands. Then, we met up with our mandarin speaking tour guide – Xiao Chen. We thought the weather at Sapa will be very cold. But it turned out to be quite warm. Xiao Chen brought us to visit the Sapa market and walk around Sapa town. In the afternoon, we visited Cat Cat village which is about 2-3km away from hotel. It’s a very relaxing and leisure walk within the village. We climbed up a small hill that doesn’t have obvious path. Tour guide didn’t follow but wait for us down the hill. We assume that is the highest point in Cat Cat Village. The scenery is beautiful up there. Shouts and laughter fill the air. After we came back from Cat Cat village, 7 of us rent the motorcycles to explore the other part of Sapa. We had steamboat as our dinner.

9th Sep 07 – Bac Ha Market
We went to Bac Ha, which is 80km away from Sapa to visit its Sunday market. The road condition to Bac Ha is not so good, which made the 3 hours journey quite painful. Once we arrived at the market, the ethnic minorities in colorful costume catch our eyes. In this market, not only the clothes, handmade craft, vegetables and food are sold, but also horses, buffalos and pigs. The visit to Bac Ha market gave us the chance to see part of the lifestyle of the mountains community.

We went back to Sapa after having lunch and reached in the evening. Then, we met up with Joshua and Vince in our hotel. Joshua is one of our hiking friends. He was in Vietnam because of the company trip. One day before we departed to Vietnam, he found out that we will go for the Mt. Fansipan climbing. So, he decided to meet us at Vietnam and join us for the hiking after his company trip. At night, we met up with our hiking guide – a 22 years old guy that speaks good English for briefing of tomorrow itinerary.