Sapa -> Hanoi, Vietnam - 25 Nov 2009, Wednesday

Victoria Hotel breakfast was alright... ended up with some beef pho to warm up before venturing out again. The hotel's main building is pretty with many fireplaces. Very cozy and comfortable.

We had to check out before the trek but we could use the facilities before leaving for the overnight train back to Hanoi.

An old army jeep, very spartan, drove us down to the 2+km of concrete road we were supposed to walk down from Sapa town to the path to the Black H'mong tribe, stopping along way to snap beautiful shots of the terraced rice fields.

As we got off our jeep, Ha said to speak Mandarin in light of the groups of Black H'mong women just outside the vehicle. There were so many, Ha had to ask them to move back to just open the jeep door. :P

Ha was right! A smattering of Mandarin ensured no touts followed you more then 3 meters.

Walking down a bumpy path, lined (often on both sides) all sorts of poo... buffalo poo, piggy poo, doggy poo, chicken poo, ducky poo... lots of poo... Then Ha told us about this plant that grows from pig poo, how appropriate...

We were also showed a plant & leaf which was used for making indigo dye, and if you look around some locals indeed had blue stained hands. There were also a houses which were drying freshly dyed fabric.

At the first school we came across, there was a bright red banner welcoming 'Pasir Ris Secondary School', a school in Singapore. And to think that only a half hour earlier, Ha said that he had a cancelled trip with a group of 40 students from Singapore, who wanted a whole BBQ black pig for their homestay in Sapa, but they had cancelled with him.

It was very interesting to see how the local people lived, that black h'mong village was home to about 3,000 people (according to Ha). The 2nd village was the Tay (pronounced: tzai).

Lunch was at a homestay, where Ha said he was going to cook. It felt that we got there really early, 'cos he had us sit in the bedroom-kitchen area (where the homestay owners lived, the main larger area was for homestayers) to watch Vietnamese dubbed televisions programs.

Note: up to 20 bed spaces, only one bathroom and only one toilet. Sounds like half of Kaleebso, but Sapa weather at this time of the year feels like in the low to mid 20 celsius in the day, dropping to maybe 10 celsius or lower in the night. The homestays do not appear to have any heating, just lots and lots of blankets :)

Ha carried the stuff for lunch in his backpack, little plastic bags of sliced carrots, sliced lemongrass, cut tomatoes, sliced chicken, sliced pork... Food was in the form of 4 steaming hot home-cooked Vietnamese dishes. :)

Chatted with an American couple, the guy is originally from Colorado, and the couple were staying in Penang for work. They also referred to Fransipans as Fancy-Pants! hahaha...

It was another short walk out of the valley to our jeep, and the same 'dancing road' back to Victoria Hotel. We used the hotel's shower at their heated pool & sauna room at the top of a hill.

Cleaned up, Ha took us to the Wild Orchid in Sapa Town to buy silk cushion covers. :P Be careful what you buy where, 'cos the same silk purses I bought the day before (14 for US$20) were also there for US$3 each :P but we didn't see the US$5 silk cushion covers anywhere else. But, if we walked around a bit more I'm sure we would've found them...

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Mountain View cafe. If only the sun was out like the day before, it was all foggy... We said out thank-yous and good-byes back at the Global Sapa cafe to Ha. With our tip, he left with a smile that went ear-to-ear. :)

Dinner was not great, again... oh well, need to fill up for the overnight train back to Hanoi...

The drive back to the Cao Lai station was in a packed medium-size bus filled with lots of very tall Europeans & Australians... good thing is wasn't a long drive :P

With over 2 hours to waste Pea and I sat at one of the local drinks stalls with a hot sandwich from a street stall.

On the train we met a pair of American ladies, one from Chicago and the other from Texas. They recommended the Water Puppet show, front seats are best. And we should try the Orient Express :)

The rest of the trip back to Hanoi was restful, no dining cabin to hang out in :P

I wonder how the 40+ students in Sapa did in the wintery cold...

Sapa, Vietnam - 24 Nov 2009, Tuesday

We rolled into the station at Lao Cai Town at about 6am? Was drowsy and it was chilly & foggy... Ha, (hahatrekking@gmail.com) our Sapa tour guide, met us with a smile.

We rolled over to a beef pho breakfast with Vietnamese tea (a strong green tea) at a local cafe.

After, Ha located our driver & van, we drove to Coc Ly (pronounced: cock-lee) Market of the Flower H'Mong tribe. It was super crowded with lots of people. There was even a small buffalo market on the side. Ha even gave us a quick lesson in selecting buffalo. He said to look at the lick on the buffalo's head, I think he means where the swirly part of the fur. If the lick in in the middle, the buffalo is naughty, not a good worker. And the hooves, the two nails should bend inwards, towards each other, so that the buffalo will have better grip in soft soil & not slip = better worker :) a young buffalo could cost US$150 & up. A mature one, maybe US$700? Anyone wants a buffalo? He also joked that 10 buffaloes = 1 car? :P The trip to Coc Ly was fun, but it only on Tuesdays. There are markets almost everyday of the week, but I heard that the largest one is on Sunday.

At the market, Ha bought ground nuts. Dry ones and steamed ones, he said that they were for the boat ride later. Amidst the commotion it was easy to spot a guy carrying to bags of peanuts. Pea said that it like how some tour guides will carry a flag or an umbrella. our guide was carrying 2 bags of nuts! :P

A short drive from Coc Ly Market, was a ride down a beautiful river in a metal long-tail boat, just, Pea, me, Ha & the boatman. But the tramps down to the boat was a bit far and a wee bit steep. (I'm so out of shape!) The scenery was gorgeous... high slopes with... slow meandering river...

Along the boat ride we stop for a quick village walkabout. We saw people drying corn and casava. Casava, Ha said was some kind of root / tube. Which is fed to buffalo, & the stuff make the animals high... :P so that the buffalo will know their way home. On the way to the boat, Ha bout steamed corn. He said in the village it's 10,000 dong for 5 cobs, in Sapa town it's 1 cob for the same price, and he really likes the stuff.

A piping hot local lunch was at a street side restaurant at the end of the boat ride. Followed by the drive up to Sapa to check into Victoria Hotel, Sapa. The room we had was on the ground floor, with a view of the internal garden. Ha said that he used to work for Victoria Hotel, and it showed. Most people he passed said 'hi'. He said that he had worked his way up to department head, but he left for better prospects elsewhere.

10 minutes to get to our room & freshen up, Ha took us to buy a pair of shoes for me. The pair of 4/5 year-old Salomon boots had part of the base already slipping off, (no amount of elastic bands will keep that part of the sole to the boot) and Ha said that they will not last the walking the next day. After about 20 minutes of hopping shop to shop, with no luck, we also failed at locating the shoe-repair-person. When all seemed lost, Ha took us to Fransipans Hotel to rent a pair of Asics runner for US$2 for a day.

Crisis averted, we were led down another short cut to the lake in Sapa Town. Beautiful, plus we were really lucky to have the sun out with a luxurious blue sky. I felt like I was somewhere in northern Europe. Nice :)

Ha told us about the Fransipans (the tallest mountain in Sapa), he said that the champion did the return route in 1h5m, he did it once in 9 hours with 1 hour of rest in the middle, regular fit people will take 20 hours, but I will take 40 hours... hhhmmm... not impressed... He also said that ChauLong Hotel's really good too, and way less pricey as Victoria Hotel.

With the lay of the land in mind, Ha left us to our own devices. Pea & I wandered around and ended up at one of the cafes along the lake. Then we strolled around the town and I bought 14 silk purses (flat, about hand length with zip) for US$20. Those purses are meant for most of the women in my life :P

We also walked around the few streets and the center market of local tribal-ware. The sun was out so we had great views of the surrounding moutains. Really pretty...

Dinner was at Sapa Global Hotel ('cos our Sapa-based tour was arranged with out Hanoi co-ordinator Minh Tien [Michael]. Not great, but the soup was hot and the rice was hot. :) Ha gave us the rundown of the group trek the next day, we were supposed to walk a total of 12km, starting at 730am and finishing at 430pm.

Uh... I don't think so... We opted to pay him an extra US$40 to drive us part of the way there and back, and trek easy routes to visit 2 tribes (instead of 3). The black h'mong and the tay tribes.

Back at out hotel, we turned in early 'cos we didn't much sleep on the train & we were supposed to start our stroll at 9am.

Before I forget to mention this, Ha was learning Mandarin, so we used bits of it with him, it was fun. PLUS! he said when approached by tribes-people selling their wares, just speak Mandarin, they will back off 'cos they don't understand the language. Ha said that most tribes-people can speak fluent French and English, so Mandarin was our line of defense :) We saw tourists swarmed by 6-8 people at a time and we didn't want to get caught in such a situation.

Hanoi -> Sapa, Vietnam - 23 Nov 2009, Monday

Our Hanoi tour agent got us from the Melia hotel lobby at 7:30pm, plonked us into a cab and headed for the train station. We were so early, the Victoria Train staff weren't even there yet, the train was at 9:50pm, but we had to be there an hour ahead to collect the tickets. But! we were there at 7:50pm :P

We were handed over to another guy at the train station who had pointed to a couple of seats, and said 'don't go anywhere', he was supposed to tell us when the Victoria Train was ready. Good thing Pea and I are quite good at doing nothing, so the couple of hours went by quite quickly.

The time came for our overnight train to Sapa, and the train station guy lead us out of the waiting area, across several train tracks and down a long platform in the chilly night. The Victoria Train is actually just different cabins hooked on the existing train line. There were 2 bed cabins and 1 dining cabin.

We took full advantage of the dining cabin 'cos we already know that the trip back will not have a dining cabin. :) It was all very pretty, the menu prices were similar to Green Tangerine & Five. We sat there for as long as we could keep our eyes open.

As the train pulled out of the station, Fata and I were SMS'ing each other. Then Fata calls asking if we were already on the train and if the train had set off. Just then he said he was looking at the train, & for about 5secs, Pea and I saw Fata standing below the train line, north of the Dong Xuan Market, on the phone and waving. So romantic... :P

We shared out 4-room cabin with newlyweds, the bunk was so tiny, but managed to squeeze a large-frame (I think he us Australian from his accent), and a small-to-medium-frame (I'm certain she is Vietnemese cos she had no problems communicating with the local train staff) into one bunk! :P

The night was restless 'cos I couldn't get over the clickety-clack of the rails... oh well... at least the loo was spacious and clean :)

Hanoi, Vietnam - 23 Nov 2009, Monday

The day started slowly. Heard lots of good thing of the Green Tangerine at 48 Hang Be. Got there an hour before they opened, so we walked around the Old Quarters. That one hour left like an entire afternoon... it was the noise and the exhaust fumes that really got to us :(

Anyhow, Green Tangerine was cozy quiet alcove away from the consistently honking traffic. Highly recommended by TripAdvisor.com and a friend, we had high hopes for this pretty french restaurant.

Set lunch was US$8.90, including 1 main course and 1 dessert. Pea had the beef cheeks, which came out warm and tasting like homely stew. My duck reached me less-than-tepid :( so i had asked for it to be heated up. We then shared a creme brulee & a mango cake dessert. Pea like the creme brulee, but I wasn't a fan of the chilled yougart. The mango rolled in cake was soaked, so it was soggy... (but I think it was meant to be soggy).

The service was good, and the food was okay, but the portions were dismal. What we had wasn't even to fill 2 small girly-tummies :P

After lunch, we decided to walk towards the Revolution Museum and the Vietnam History Museum. Sad to neither was inviting enough to wander into :P But we did walk through a 'nineteen 11' restaurant, with a large al fresco area, just behind an opera house. Prices are steep, about 45,000 for a latte, but it looked like a good place to while away a slow afternoon :) there was a set lunch menu for about US$9.50 too, will try it out if we're in that area again.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for ice-cream, & are now napping / blogging before venturing out for a street food dinner, and buying back sandwiches for tonight's train trip to Sapa :)

---- Update ----

Found that yummy french bread sandwich store with the grouchy lady, which was a short walk from the cathedral near Melia Hotel. This time, after the grouchy lady had served a local, she caught sight of Pea & I, turned around and started mucking around with the meat slicer at the back of the machine. :( lame...

So another lady, who was way nicer, got up from a nearby table and got up our sandwiches for the Sapa train later tonight :)

Dinner was at Pepperoni's, a pizza & pasta place just a few doors (on the same side of the street) as the sandwich shop. We shall pho-on on Thursday after we get back :P

Hanoi, Vietnam - 22 Nov 2009, Sunday

Fata, Pea & I took Singapore Airlines flight SQ 176 from Singapore to Hanoi, 10:05am. Fata was in business class so he was way more comfortable then Pea or I who had separate seats in economy :P

Landing in Hanoi, we had problems locating my name on the sea of cards at the arrival area. Spotted it in the hands of a half-hearted tall, think young man who looked like he didn't want to be there.

The drive from the airport to Hanoi was done by another guy, who was consistently on the phone... actually... on 2 phones! But we made it ok to the Old Quarters where we met our Hanoi co-ordinator at his inn to re-confirm and pay for our Sapa tours (ex-Sapa) and Halong Bay overnight cruise on Phoenix Cruises.

It was uncomfortable when we were told that we had to change cars for the rest of the drive to Melia Hanoi. Switched from a private car to a cab. Still don't way we had to change cars... hhhmmm...

Anyway, Fata's room at Melia Hanoi is comfy. While he had to sort out some work for the conference organizers, Pea and I walked to Hoan Kiem Lake, passing Fanny Ice-Cream Parlour. Looking for pho, we left a cafe 'cos they hadn't any local food.

Strolling along the lake, we saw the red bridge and the little gazebo in the middle of the lake. Then we caught sight of Pho 24 cafe, there we had our very first Vietnamese beef pho :) we also bought some back for Fata. Good thing there was a guy at Pho 24 who spoke English, 'cos we couldn't get any of the helpful staff to understand that we wanted to take-away :P

When Fata was done with his work, we walked out towards the Old Quarters. Passed a pretty old church during Sunday mass. Pass the church was a yummy sandwich shop which had a straight-faced young lady running the counter. We had pate with 3 different types of ham in a crunchy/crispy french baguette for 35,000 dong. Yummy!

We walked to Dong Xuan market after reading online reviews that it was a good, cheap place to get stuff. We walked through the bustling market and walk right out, didn't get a thing! hahaha... we wanted to get lacquer Tin Tin pictures for a friend, but the prices quoted there were double the shops outside :(

Evening traffic was challenging, if the pedestrian crossing are not controlled, you just need to look straight and walk forward. All the traffic will navigate around you. It was harrowing the first few times, but I think we have gotten the hang of things now.

Based on Trip Advisor, we headed to Five restaurant at 5 Hang Be. Honestly, it was not what we were looking for. When in Vietnam, we wanted to eat Vietnamese! Oh well, we had a Vietnamese street food sampler, a few drinks and headed to the street. The 'Flu Buster' drink was good with the honey and ginger and lime...

Many of the local food stalls have low tables and even lower stools. Good thing Fata found one pho store with regular height tables and stools :) yummy! :)

Then we had glutinous rice balls stuffed with coconut & ginger, in a steaming ginger broth, dotted with chopped nuts. Yummy!

Heading back to the Old Quarters for a walk. It was Sunday so the streets were closed and lined with lots of stalls selling all sorts of things. We just walked and soaked up the atmosphere. Even found a food street in the middle of it all. And there was a hot plate street stall that took up an entire street corner. And it looked yummy, we tourists said that it was! :) Will try when we are in that area again.

The street market was long stretch, the fatigue of travel was getting to us, so at the end of it, we took a cab to Fanny Ice-Cream Parlour for 50,000 dong. Fata said that the ice-cream was like Haagen Daz, & Pea said that it was 'quite good'.

Back to the hotel, we're googling for Hanoi's best breakfast & lunch! hahaha... already thinking about the next meal :) Kumxia Pea & Fata for a fun first day in Hanoi :)

My Credit Card Bank Messed Up

This little pretty MasterCard was the first credit card I have ever had, and 12 years later the issuing bank messed up.

I called very late Thursday night to block the card due to a dubious transaction [which I have since cleared up :(], & the lady from the bank had told me on the phone that they can rush a replacement card to me Friday afternoon [yesterday] between 2:30pm and 6:30pm at my work address.

Reasons are that this is my PayPal card & my only MasterCard card, I was hoping to re-set PayPal and bring it with me to Hanoi tomorrow [Sunday].

Work was a blur yesterday [Friday] 'cos I was rushing through the day so I don't have to go in today [Saturday] (need to do laundry for the trip), I didn't realize that the card didn't arrive 'til well into dinner time.

The call over last night's dessert was that the speedpost service had only collected the card at 5:05pm, and there was no delivery advice, meaning the card was still with the postal service... :( and the earliest delivery will be Monday :( when I'm already out of the country :(

This morning I called the bank again asking if the old card can be reinstated and they said the block is permanent :( no solution pre-Hanoi :( they messed up :( this is the 2nd local bank that has disappointed me the last few months :( no happy...

BBW - Warm Vanila Sugar

Kumxia Fata for the lovely bottle of Bath & Body Works Warm Vanilla Sugar Body Lotion. :) Used it to the very last drop :)