As the issues I had at the Chinese Border weren’t enough… The Vietnamese Immigration took 5 hours to let me enter the country as I didn’t have any Chinese stamp on my passport. After spending all my nice words and sweet smiles trying to convince the officer that it was fine, they let me in!
From all the countries I have visited on this trip, Vietnam is so far, the one I liked most. I know… people will say… Laos’s people are friendlier… Vietnamese people are quite confused … but there are so many different things to see in Vietnam: beautiful trekking, relaxing beaches, Halong Bay, etc.
My trip in Vietnam started in Sapa. It is a small mountain village located 30 min by minibus from the Chinese Border. Sapa itself isn’t very special, but the landscape and mountains around the village make it a very beautiful place. Sapa is a great place for trekking, I can honestly say that I liked my trekking on the Sapa Mountains as much as I liked the Nepal one (maybe because it was only 2 days trekking hahahah!) . The most special thing about my Sapa trekking was my guide. My guide name is Lily, she is 13 years old and she is from a tribe mountain village. She is indeed a very special girl, very outgoing, talkative, sweet. She was telling me that she is still single and she doesn’t want to get marriage as she things marriage and slave ship is the same thing ( ohoh !!!! I cannot say that my point of view is different from hers!)! The marriage age on her village is around 11 years old, most of Lily’s friends are already married. She works hard as trekking guide because she wants to save a lot of money and it is also an opportunity to her to practice her English. Her goal in saving some money and improving her English is to be able to go to study in Europe. She has already finished her studies on the village, as schools over there are available only for children till 12 years old. But Lily wants to go to the university in Europe. I felt a bit sorry for her as her dreams are far too difficult to be achieved…
from Sapa I got a train to Hanoi ( very good train…. the train was good enough to make me to slept so deeply all night that people had to shake me to wake me up to get out of the train in the morning ( well…. it is not news… as all of you know… I may sleep even when I am standing.)
Hanoi should be called “motorbike city”… or “do you want motorbike lady?city “ So many of them! It is quite easy to find your way around Hanoi, the difficult thing is to cross road in Hanoi – there is no traffic lights – the only thing you see is 100000 motorbikes going every direction per minute! After spending one day in Hanoi I had a very useful strategy to cross the roads without being stuck in the same side of the road for 30 min – It is: glue yourself on the first local you see. It means…. when you go to cross the road, search for the biggest local next to you… hold the local arm as tide as you can so he won’t escape… if the local look at you strangely, thinking you are crazy, just ignore it, act like you don’t understand him, but don’t leave the local arm anyway! If the local scream … you scream too… so the police won’t think you are bothering the local. Only leave the local after you have crossed the road with him… I know it is a bit embarrassing but it always works!!!
After spending 3 days in Hanoi, time to go on…. 3 days boat trip to Halong bay.( bought a package in which we sleep on day in the boat and another day on the island.)
Halong Bay scenery is very similar to Guilin in China. But it is so beautiful that it cannot be missed anyway! It is really amazing! We always meet so many nice people! I had so much fun! The highlight of my Halong bay as you cannot imagine… wasn’t the wonderful scenery, neither the new friends I met…. it was my first motorbike riding experience! hhahaha! It was the funniest thing happened to me on my trip!
After 1 day and half on the boat, we finally arrived on the island. As the beach we were wasn’t very nice…I and my new friends decided to rent a motorbike and drive around the island searching for nice isolated beaches. Yes… it is true; I haven’t got a driving license and I had never driven anything before…. as you can imagine… my driven experience was the funniest ever, although it wasn’t that successful!
I don’t really know what happened… things happened so fast that was hard to see anything! I think I got a bit confused and mixed the accelerator and break so I thought I was breaking but I was accelerating … I don’t know !!! ahahha! As I couldn’t stop the bike myself, the bush stopped it for me! The next thing I remember I was lying down on the bush, on the floor and the motorbike was like 50 meters far from me…. I also remember my friends running in my direction, with that veryscaryohmygod face!!! But I was there on the floor, having a good laugh! It didn’t hurt at all, luck me!!! My friends said that it went so fast that I was even driven only on 1 wheel!!! Can you imagine that ?! At least it made me laugh for a week, it was very funny!!!
As one accident in one day wasn’t enough…. I had a second one…. but now I wasn’t the one who was driven the motorbike… that this one I hurt myself a bit – quite bit – but it was ok! I couldn’t walk for 2 days – but it what holiday is about! ahahh!
Oh no !!! Going back to Hanoi and get the bus to hue in the same night! Oh no !!!! 11 hours on the bus with my painful leg!!!! Bit nightmare!!!
I cannot say much about Hue as I haven’t seen much of it!!! The bit I remember wasn’t that fun! It was raining all the time I was in Hue ! There was a typhoon going around on the time I was there… so you can imagine !!! I had to move to the second floor of the hotel because the first one was all under water…. all the city was floated! My initial plan was to go to Laos from Hue, I bought my visa and the bus ticked. But the bus was cancelled for 4 days…. no way to leave the city…. no way to go anywhere… everything destroyed and the entire city under water. After being stuck in a hotel room for 5 days, Iit wasn’t still possible to go to Laos. But I was so crazy that I decided to change my plans and get the first bus to anywheredoesn’t matterwhereidontcare… I went to Hoi An!
Hoi An is a lovely place, the most welcome city in Vietnam, I really loved the place, even it was under water (as it is only 1 hour from Hue, all Hoi an was also under water)!!! But Hoi An ( even under water) was a great place for relaxing after my paranoid days in Hue!!! It was even hard to leave the place and the friends I met there!!!
next stop: Mui Ne… I went there to stay at least 4 days !!! It is a very “lazy” beach on south Vietnam. I ended up staying only 2 days… too many couples… no fun… time to go!
Saigon. Most of the people I met like Hanoi much more than Saigon. I quite liked Saigon (well I liked Hanoi too!!!) Saigon isn’t as charming as Hanoi but at least there are only 600 motorbikes on the road per time!!! So you take only 30 min to cross the road! The best thing is that you can finally give peace to the locals and do not grab them whenever you need to cross a road!hahahah!
next stop? 2 days trip on the Melkon delta … going by boat to Cambodia!!! Ph … I forgot to say… as you can see on my pictures I even ate snake on the boat trip! It was so yammy ( word for very very delicious!!!)