The Young Man Odyssey

Train stations in general, especially in Vietnam at night, have a certain dreamike Polar Express type of feel. I had taken one of the last tickets for the train, a “hard” sleeper bunk than was actually quite comfortable. I was on the 3rd floor bunk of a 6 person room, and the orchestral snoring champions of Vietnam saw too it that my sleep was periodically interrupted. However, even with just periodic sleeping, the night train made the time fly by, and at about 6am the train rolled up to Lao Cai, and promptly I got a minibus to Sapa.

This is the view from my $6 hotel balcony, which is somewhat expensive believe it or not. Somewhere in this picture, perhaps just out of it, is the top of Fansipan, Vietnam’s highest peak, at 3500m, which is somewhere around 10,000 feet. After I saw it, I knew I had to climb it.

So that is where I shall be for a few days, I plan to arrange a trek either today or tomorrow, so do not worry when I don’t respond to emails or post blogs. I don’t need ATM’s where I’m going, unlike my first broke hours in this country. All is well, the mountain air is crisp and somewhat chilly, refreshing from the smog of Hanoi. Exhaust from the cars still flies into your mouth as you walk down the street, but after they pass a breath of the mountain air will cleanse your lungs and fill you with vigor once again.
That mountain shall be mine.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 7th, 2006 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Thailand, Laos, Vietnam 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.