Endless Summer Tiny World

Sapa is absolutely beautiful! We did a very fast brief visit but our trek made it worth it. The morning as we were coming into Sapa it was raining and we were so happy that later it cleared up and became beautiful! We had a group of about 8 people and we all took off in the morning and did about 4 hours of trekking above rice terraces and rivers while local girls walked along with you to help you or try to sell you something. We had dinner by the river in the local village and luckily clumsy Chelsy and I only fell once each! haha! It was really really beautiful and I do wish we could spend more time, but I’m just happy Chelsy toughed it out for the day since I know she was in pain!

We took the night bus back to Hanoi – night buses are always interesting since they stop so much, play loud loud music, and turn on the lights here and there all in the middle of the night. We made it back to hanoi with enough time for a brief nap and a shower before we were picked up to go to Halong bay.  Halong bay is also extremely beautiful but we definitely got what we paid for when it came to the tour since we booked the budget tour. It was a quite a drive there and we got on our boat (also called a Junk) just after 1 pm. We then sat down to have some lunch and while we were eating someone outside had an altercation with the tour guide in which the tour guide punched him!!! Kinda crazy but everything that we have heard about the north vietnamese is that they tend to be really aggressive. So that definitely put a little cloud over the trip just from the start. The rest of the day went well though, we sailed through all the cliffs and went through a cave. The caves here are interesting as they are all lit up with neon lights which make it look like a disco instead of a cave. And we also went to a fishing village and kayaking for a bit.  That evening we stayed on the boat and luckily we had two really good groups of people on the boat with us so we just sat around learning new swedish drinking games and having a good time. The next day after breakfast we got onto Cat Ba island – the biggest island in the bay- and just after we got off the boat it started downpouring!! We were meant to go for a hike up to a viewpoint in the national park but since it was raining it was not really safe so we just headed to our hotel in town and had lunch. That afternoon it drizzled most the afternoon but we just hung out with our new friends and wandered the town enjoying the view of all the fishing boats and the cliffs.

The next morning we were up and headed back on the boat for our beautiful cruise back to the harbor. As I said we definitely got what we paid for and I just wish we would have decided to spend the extra money and go a little nicer as we had to do sooo much waiting over the couple days. But no doubt about it the bay is beautiful. Hindsight is always 20/20 though right?

We got back to hanoi and we were so happy when we found our canadian friends – Jeff and Lindsay, who we met in Laos and hung out with in Siem Reap-  waiting for us at our hotel! We ended up having a good night out with them and had planned to leave the next day but decided instead we wanted to have one last day with them before we left.  So the next day we all hung out and wandered around Hanoi. We went down to an awesome ice cream shop- expensive but awesome. They had all kinds of awesome ice cream concoctions, some even with alcohol! We also enjoyed Pho 24 with them, which is a fast food restaurant for Pho! We spent lots of time wandering and also had another good night out with them and some of our friends from the Halong bay cruise! We said goodbye to them last night, which was sad, but I definitely see a trip to Vancouver where they live in my future.

Today we just hung out and actually went to a movie since we feel weve seen most things we want in Hanoi. Chelsy and I are headed off to Hue tonight on a night bus. We purchased an open ticket that will take us to five different stops in Vietnam, so most our stops between here and Ho Chi Minh City are already paid for we just have to decide when we wanna stay in all places.  I’m very excited for something new though and a new city!

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