This will be the last blog post for my time in Vietnam. We have been here 2 months and I’ve loved every minute. Everything has been an adventure (including writing this post being squashed into 16 seater minivan with 19 other people including their luggage).
The first place I shall talk about is Hanoi we made several trips here to commute to other places and to get an emergency passport and visas sorted. Sorting out a passport and 2 visas was relatively straight forward but time consuming and was a bit of a faff. It involved 2 trips to the British Embassy, around 5 trips to the Laos Embassy and 3 trips to the travel agency who dealt with our Vietnamese visas. The whole process took around 8 days. However we didn’t wait around in Hanoi too long as we visited Cat Ba island in between this.
During our time in Hanoi we had some great food, Vietnamese and western (including McDonald’s and an amazing Pizza at Pizza 4P’s).
We ventured to train street which is literally in the name. It is a narrow street that is home to a train track running through the middle. The train runs twice a day and fits snuggly when coming through the street.
We visited a night market which had a lovely vibe. They had closed the streets off around the market. So first of all it was a relief not to feel like you might get hit by a motorbike every 2 minutes. Second of all, there were so many people playing games and socialising it was lovely to see.
We also went to a water puppet theatre. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before but I was mesmerised. The puppeteers are very talented and control the puppets by wooden sticks in the water.
Whilst the city showed us some exciting things it is much to hectic and fast paced for me. Anybody who knows me knows that I like to go at my own pace.
So we move on now to Pu Luong- the place that’s known as mini Sapa without the tourists. We found this to be very true, only bumping into around 10 other tourists whilst we were out. The village had an unspoilt feel to it. The villagers were very welcoming with every single person that we went past either waving or shouting hello (it almost makes you feel like a celebrity)!
During our time here we hiked around the village (14km) saw a waterfall and got to soak up the scenery whilst reading. We even went for a walk one night and a family invited us in to their home to have food. We were served rice, cabbage, pork and bacon bits (I’m calling them bacon bits but in reality I think it was finely chopped fat 🙄). It was lovely not to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city. We got the true feel of rural Vietnam.
After our peaceful stay in Pu a Luong we headed to Sapa. We got a 5 hour bus back to Hanoi then a night bus at 9:10pm to Sapa. The roads were so windy to get to Sapa so between this time and 6am I managed around 1 hours sleep. The night buses aren’t built for tall people (me being 5’7 which isn’t exactly tall) so you spend most of your time with awkward leg space.
We arrived in Sapa and got a taxi to Ta Van a local village. The 10km journey took around 30 minutes due to the shocking condition of the road but we made it safely. During our stay here we hired a motorbike to get into Sapa town. After driving on the road back to Sapa I can now successfully say I’ve mastered off road motorbiking! Our first stop was to the bus station to try and get a ticket to Laos. My emergency passport stipulates that I needed to cross the border on the 3rd of February. We were out of luck however and could only get a bus to Dien Bien Phu which is 30km to the border due to the celebration of the new year. So we purchased that with the thought we would sort something in DBP.
The next day we hired a motorbike and drove around Sapa and to Lai Châu which is a local town 70km from Sapa. The scenery was amazing. The traffic on the roads, less so, the bus and lorry drivers seem to think that the whole road is theirs. We also saw many motorbikes carrying cut off bits of trees which we think may have some significance during the celebration of Tet (new year) on the 5th of February.
When we arrived in Dien Bien Phu we were disappointed to find out there was no buses to Laos due to Tet but we weren’t surprised. We did successfully manage to find a taxi that would take us across the border. With much debate at the Vietnamese border control we managed to leave the country!!!
I shall write about this in my next blog. Cheers
X
JessTashandBobby-SEAsia 