Vietnam North

On October 23 we start our personalized tour with Indochina Pioneer. I can highly recommend Mr. Lam and his company to anyone looking for a private tour.

Tuesday, October 23 – To Ha Noi

There are no direct flights from Chengdu to Ha Noi. We have an early morning flight to Hong Kong followed by an early evening flight to Ha Noi. We decide to waste the day at the Hong Kong airport rather than rushing to visit Hong Kong [which we have seen before and did not really want to explore again].

After food grazing all day, including two airline meals and airport food in two cities, we crash without dinner at the Hanoi Boutique Hotel I. We have a very nice room with 10 English channels on the TV.

Wednesday, October 24 – Ha Noi

We spend the morning chilling out with a nice breakfast in the hotel. The breakfast seems more French oriented than Vietnamese. No complaints from me.

We take our first walk in the old city area, eat some street barbeque served on a banquette [25000 dong; 1.25 USD] and some street sugar coated donuts.

While walking we need to dodge the street vendors and motor bikes. Hats, t-shirts, pineapples etc. are vying for our money. While Marsha stops to get some buns, a guy starts gluing her sandals, supposedly fixing an imperfection he saw. A couple of times I was bombarded with requests to shine my sneakers. Lastly we found Citibank to get some local currency and then head back to the hotel.

Our local tour guide, Mr. Linh, took us on a cyclo (rickshaw) tour through Hanoi's Old Quarter.

They park their cycles on the sidewalk. Most times you have to walk in the street.

A normal intersection. When you want to walk, just start going and do not stop!

This is a bustling area with narrow streets and thousands of small family businesses. The streets are loaded with motorcycles and scooters with a smattering of cars and trucks. Sidewalks are used by store owners as parking for motorcycles. You just walk in the street dodging motorcycles. There are 1.5 millon motorbikes for 4.5 million people.

Next we watch the Hanoi Water Puppet Theater show to see a cute play about the Vietnamese minority populations performed by puppets in a water pool. All the puppets are controlled from underwater. It is unique.

Thursday, October 25 – Hanoi City Tour

We begin the day at the wholesale flower market. We arrive during first light. Hundreds of flower merchants are prepared to serve the retail flower sellers and middlemen. The middlemen are buying for the merchants, hotels and street vendors. The secondary trade at the market are the food providers for the wholesalers, middlemen and the retailers.

No one told him a smile helps sales.

Loading her cycle.

After breakfast back at our hotel we start the city tour.

We see Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum

and his private home, a wooden stilt-house surrounded by lush gardens. Even though Ho Chi Minh was Western educated he preferred a simple lifestyle consistent with his years in the jungle. I have never seen such a plain residence for a national leader.

Off to the Museum of Ethnology to learn about the 54 ethnic groups in Viet Nam. This will be helpful for our trip to Sapa.

Fish traps

After lunch we head to the Temple of Literature. It is an old 11^th century Confucius Temple which is considered the first university in Viet Nam. This one is less impressive than the Temple of Confucius in China.

We came during a party for graduating students.

Finally we visit Hoa Lo prison, known to Americans as the Hanoi Hilton. They do a good job comparing their treatment of GI prisoners to the French treatment of political prisoners. While they certainly overstate how well they treated the Americans, they do look gentle compared to the French.

Mural at the entrance.

Statues of Vietnamese prisoners in shackles under the French.

Friday, October 26 – A day of rest

Saturday, October 27 – Van Giang Village

We depart to Van Giang village for a countryside excursion.

On arrival we go for a walk around the village.

All over Vietnam bananas are served green.

Mr. Linh buys desert

Explains this strange produce to Marsha.

We visit with Mr. An and Mrs. Mien at their 300 year old home. We enjoy tea with Mr. An and

a cooking lesson with Mrs. Mien. She shows us how to make Hanoi spring rolls

and then we watch her cook the meal in the kitchen. The lunch is very good with plenty of rice wine and good company.

In the home they have a shrine to their ancestors.

We have time when we get back to Ha Noi, so we add a visit to the

Women’s Museum. Three floors feature ethnic attire, women’s work and one floor for military honors to women during the Vietnam-American War. Most interesting is the lack of mention of the South Vietnam desire to stay free from North Vietnam. It is only the American War.

After dinner we take the overnight train to Sapa. We got lucky and were upgraded to a private sleeping room.

Sunday October 28 – Sapa Market Day

After we are met at the train station at 4:30 AM, we take a little nap, shower and breakfast at a local hotel. Our guide, Mai, takes us on a 70 km, 2+ hour drive over several mountains to the Sunday Market in Bac Ha.

Flower H Mong

Selling peppers

Stripped H Mong (above) and Black H Mong are also present.

The market is over 90% Flower H Mong. The Flower H Mong are the most colorfully dressed of the 54 ethnic groups, or tribes that populate the northern interior mountains of Viet Nam. The market is nearly as large as the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, but is just temporary structures like the Maxwell Street Market in Chicago. You name it you can find it at the Market. From greens to fruit,

butchered meats including buffalo, dog, pig, beef and poultry. Also, they sell clothing from tee shirts to traditional dress and clothing for local children. Then comes the tourist goods. Surprisingly no slaughter is done at the market.

You either buy pre-butchered meat or the live animals, which you take it home for either immediate slaughter or to fatten up for future use.

Buffalo are sold at the top of the hill. A buffalo and a small cycle cost the same amount.

Buffalo are used to work the field. They are only killed for meat after they can no longer work in the field.

Chicken being taken home on a cycle.

Dogs are kept as pets until they get old.

A pig.

After hours of walking, we have lunch at a local restaurant which caters to tourists. The food was Vietnamese and good. The locals tend to go to dinners under tarps at lower prices. Most store restaurants have western toilets.

After lunch it starts raining and we are exhausted from the over-night train ride. We begged to go to our hotel in Sapa. Little did we know it was a 100 km drive over more mountains. We drove nonstop for a few hours except for a quick stop at the Chinese border. Vietnam roads are not meant for speed, in Hanoi because of the congestion, in the Sapa area because of road conditions. Around any turn may be a new landslide or water destroyed pavement.

On the plus side we saw the most terraced rice farms that we have ever seen. It made me sad that we climbed so hard to see Longi in China. Here it goes on for miles and miles; visible from the road.

Our hotel in Sapa, the Sapa View Hotel is beautiful.

Our room had a great view, once the fog lifted, but it was a fourth floor walk-up.

Monday October 29 – Trekking in Sapa

After a hearty breakfast of crepes, we meet Mai and three ladies from the Black H Mong tribe and started trekking. We did not know why they were joining us. At lunchtime it became obvious as they try to sell us goods. After some success, they leave us.

After several minutes we left the main road and started our basically downhill trek to Y Linh Ho and Ta Van. By map it is only 6 km, however we are not in a helicopter. Down and up a dirt road, over a hydro dam top, across a 2 m wide bridge with no railings and a long drop. Toilet facilities exist all over, just lower your draws and go. After trekking around rice paddies for 3 1//2 hours we reach a bridge with several stores for lunch. As Mai was not sure they would have more than noodles, she has been carrying some pork she bought in the Bac Ha market yesterday. Food does taste better after a long walk.

An unbelievable number of rice paddies. Each paddie is owned by a family.

The bridge

Buffalo

Y Linh Ho is Mai's village with around 13,000 residences [a typical size for the area]. She shows us her home. She does some homestays but finds being a tour guide more to her liking.

Mai was born in 1982. She is a widow, her husband died in a fall three years ago. She has three children, a boy and two girls. The oldest in 9 and the youngest 3 ½. She owns 10 rice paddies in her husband’s home village. And works 15 paddies with her close family in Y Linh Ho. Last year she had a sharecropper for the paddies in her husband’s village.

Back on the trek for another 2 ½ hours. This time more uphill than down.

After some reservation problems we ended in a lovely home-stay with the Gi family. Our room had concrete walls and a flimsy see thru cloth for a door. Like all Asian beds, it is quite firm. Being pros now, we helped make and eat the required spring rolls. Dinner was too much chicken and pork, plenty of veggies and lots of watermelon. Mai’s cousin, Su, joined us. This led to a nice conversation about religion. Mai considers herself a Shaman Buddhist. Strange that the word Shaman is used both in Asia and Central America. In both cases it means a healer.

Left to right, Marsha, Su and Mai.

The view from the back porch is a vista over rice paddies, topped by fields of corn, then bamboo forest and conical forest. All of it is flooded. The babbling creek finishes the feeling.

Nightfall from the back patio of our home-stay.

Tuesday, October 30 – Trekking and training

After a breakfast of more crepes and banana we trek out of the valley village.

Cooking is done over a 2-3 trig fire in the kitchen.

The prep table with rice cooker. Electricity just reached this valley 5 years ago.

Today's trek is basically uphill. As we leave the village we pass more loose animals dogs, pigs,buffaloes, ducks, geese and chickens.

Past more rice paddies and corn fields.

Sometimes a helping had is needed.

Sometimes we meet local peole.

We share the road with animals and cycles.

After lunch we try to visit a Red H Mong village but rain makes us turn back. Even during a rain storm a roadside umbrella only cost $2 USD.

We waste the rest of the day, then onto the 7:30 PM train to Hanoi. We are educated now. Before 9 PM we are asleep.

Wednesday, October 31 – Halong Bay

Arrive back in Hanoi at 04:30 AM. We have a short nap at hotel and then onto Halong Bay. Only way there is a 4 ½ hour bus ride. In approximately 5 years there will be a train.

Upon arrival we take a launch to our boat. The boat is very nice with around 12 cabins. Lunch is served and it becomes obvious we will have more protein on the boat than we normally have in three days in SE Asia! Lunch and dinner and the next lunch each have 10 courses. The food was very good.

But the reason to come to Halong Bay is to see the rock formations. There are over 1900 islands. They look like the mountains around the Li River in China.