The sleeper train from Hanoi to Sapa was a truly Orient Express esque experience - except with a shirtless snoring guard propped outside our cabin instead of champagne deliveries and murder mysteries. The train doesn't get quite up to Sapa - only as far as the town of Lau Cai on the Chinese border, as Sapa is a further 1,600 metres skywards.
The winding connecting bus takes you into a beautiful mountain range. The iconic image of Sapa, which doesn't fail to amaze in person, is the countless carved out rice paddy terraces down every hill - a staple of livelihoods of the local hilltribes along with herding mountain goats, and, in recent years, tourism. In fact, it seems tourism is becoming the ever more prevalent money winner - as you find out by stepping off the bus into a scrum of brightly garbed women, with babies snoozing in back-baskets as they argue and jostle to be the one to take you on a trek to their village.
A trek seemed like the thing to do, and we managed to go a slightly less traveled route; traversing a 14km slippy mountain path that veered slightly into the jungle but mainly skirted rice terraces and trout farms, passing some shy villagers and kids playing with machetes. Our guide was a quiet 17 year old called Sa from a local Hmong village who rocked up with Converse trainers and a sports jacket over her traditional dress.
Sa called a car and bundled us in to see the Love waterfall, which didn't look very passionate but is in the shadow of Vietnam's highest peak Fansipan (apparantly not pronounced "fancy pants"). Also we had a gander at Heaven's Gate which is the majestic nickname for the highest road pass in Vietnam (2,083 meters) and has amazing views of mountains across Laos and China - when there isn't a thick layer of fog between them and you. Ah well. We hired bicycles to have another try - and after an exhausting 2 hours climb we could make out the shadow of a mountain-like thing (maybe). So we had a doodle about on the alpine roads and explored some fun little tracks. Not many people cycle here as it's crazy steep.
Weirdly, Sapa has a very Christmassy feel. As it's notably chillier, especially in the evenings, hearths roar away in the corner of cafes, hot mulled wine is the tipple of choice and roasted sweet chestnuts are dished into bags in the town square - even the Red Tzao hilltribe women wear red and white hats not unlike Santa's own. Maybe Father Christmas comes here on holiday...?
As usual we tried a little bit of food prepared in the local style - a favourite being juicy ash-baked trout wrapped in banana leaf. Definitely one for a future barbeque. However, it's hard to compete with surprise cafe Sapa O' Chau - who do straight up fish and chips as genuine as Scarborough's finest, with imported mugs (well, imported teabags) of Yorkshire tea to wash it down!
A small festival was meant to be happening during our stay, which seemed quite fortunate - but an epic storm drove us indoors. We could actually hear the rain coming down the road towards us! The storm knocked out the electricity to the town, and by the time we dared venture out, the stage for the festival had collapsed. I don't think anyone was hurt, thankfully, and some festivities continued including flute circles and a captivating show of hilltribe women with umbrellas spinning on the spot as fast as possible!
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| We tried sewing our fave hilltribe patterns - the snail and the elusive cucumber seed |
Farewell 2 - Hanoi, again
The old quarter of Hanoi dates at least back to a time when roads were not built for Range Rovers. Shops and houses, often 5 or 6 stories high, tower above the tight maze of roads and alleys - yet the buildings are very narrow - an unusual consequence of a time when tax was based on street frontage. Some buildings, called "tube houses" can therefore be a bit Tardis like and extend far back in a tax-avoidance architectural frenzy. A good example of this is a, now heritage, guild house on Ma May street which doubles as a museum, and has very kind attendants who will teach you the rules of Chinese Chess if you pester them.
Each street in the old quarter is traditionally for a different trade, and this is still somewhat evident. All the bamboo ladder shops are together, as are shoe shops, toy shops, etcetera... One thing they have in common is bustle and noise - a rare moment being the one without any motorbike horns - and all have hazard-course pavements of sitting people drinking lemon tea.
A great little show in Hanoi is at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre, where puppets controlled from under the water get up to all sorts of sychronised, humorous mischief to live Chinese style music - with the occasional bit of fire to keep things spicy. A much more serious show is at the Hanoi Cat Tru Club which is a very avant-garde mix of warbled vocals and off kilter drums for a difficult but rewarding listen. At the beginning of the show they brought out a huge 1.7 meter long guitar and said hardly anyone can play it - and then didn't play it!! Rude. They let me have a go afterwards. I couldn't play it.
On the 11th of April, an eclectic electronic music showcase called the Hanoi Sound Stuff Festival kicked off at the National Museum of History. We went to to see Micachu (a UK alt-pop artist) but her set was fairly tame compared to the sound manipulation of Vietnamese group Dom Dom - turning live harp sounds and percussive noises into a violent soundscape. After their sets things went a bit awry with a train wreck of a show by Belgian singer Benjamin Schoos who led an over-enthusiastic wedding band - the singer climbing through the audience and rolling on the floor screaming "China man versus China girrrrrrl!!". OK, actually it was pretty amazing.
And lotsa good food here; bún chả (cold rice noodles with grilled pork and sweet sauce), chả cá (fried fish with salad to roll in rice paper) and the strangest... insects! We heard about a restaurant called Quan Kien (143 Nghi Tam Street) which serves creepy crawly cuisine so had to try. The fried white crickets and locusts in kaffir lime leaves were actually lovely. After the disconcerting initial crunch the taste is somewhere between crab and duck. Good news for the future of the ever expanding human race.
Farewell 3 - Cat Ba Island
Almost missed the bus here as we were busy snaffling noodles round the corner when the driver decided to leave 5 minutes early (surely a first for South-East Asian buses). Glad we didn't as Cat Ba Island is wonderful.
The big draw is that one might have a chance to spot one of only 70 golden-headed langurs (frizzy monkeys) that are left on the planet - all of whom are in the national park that takes up most of the island. We looked but didn't see any. There is plenty of other life, a lot of which is unique to this ecosystem. In our modest trek through the park we saw some crazy stuff like a tree covered in furry caterpillars, butterflies as big as your face, long spindly spiders that float through the air like a jellyfish (I kid you not) and a giant injured centipede being eaten alive by flies. Isn't life lovely?
A little further exploration on both a bicycle and, finding the island was bigger than we expected, a motorcycle - we saw some of the mangrove forests that line the North-West of the island and forested karst towers like fiercer versions of those seen back in Ninh Binh.
These formations also transform the seascape, most famously in Halong Bay and Lan Ha Bay which we visited in a wooden passenger boat, and kayaked through caves and lagoons under the stone structures. I gave into peer pressure and jumped off the 20 meter high boat into the jellyfish infested waters below (checking everyone jumping before me had survived intact). Our tour of the bays included a quick peek at a fish farm which floats in the bay keeping scuttling cuttlefish and a 60kg monster fish under the floorboards (much like a James Bond villain keeps a shark).
Elsewhere on the island is Hospital cave, so called as it's a cave and was used as a hospital during the war. Chock full of bats - the cave has some rather spooky acoustics and an indoor swimming pool (now unfortunately drained). Also used during the war was Cannon Fort (again, appropriately named) which stands above the town with astounding views over the harbour (all the better to keep the Americans at bay). On Cat Ba there are always birds of prey circling above and geckos scampering past below - the island being full of life as it is.
- Jon
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