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.