February 21, 2006
Met up with Tim in Hue and booked our flight to Hanoi for the next morning since we weren't into another uncomfortable 12 hour bus ride. We went out to a western bar and ran into a bunch of other solo travelers who hooked up along the way from Wales, Australia, America, and Sweden and had draught beer all night exchanging stories and tips and possibly meeting up with each other along the way since our itineraries were similar. Celine from Switzerland who went with the Aussies to Hue before us recognized us in the bar as she passed by on the street and had told us the Aussies left on the bus for Hanoi and that they didn't really see anything in Hue. In the Morning we caught our flight which took 55 minutes and once in Hanoi we booked our night soft-sleeper train ride to Sapa (9:30pm- 7am) so left our bags there at the booking office and went out to explore Hanoi. Hanoi has a lake in the middle of town with a little island in the middle.
We went to Kangaroo cafe that serves the biggest cups of coffee where I saw the perfect shirt for Vietnam. A week earlier I was mentioning to Tim after being hassled by book vendors, cyclo drivers, postcard sellers, etc... that I would like a T-shirt that tells them all I am not interested. At Kangaroo cafe was that perfect T-shirt that advertised the shirt by saying "Tired of your "new" friends? Why don't you tell them with your new T-shirt". On the front it is advertising the Kangaroo cafe with a kangaroo and a huge cup of coffee and on the back it says in english and Vietnamese:
I DON'T WANT... Toi Khong Mien
Postcards - Bu Thiep
Cyclo - Xich lo
Shoe shine - Danh gioy
Chewing gum - Keo cao su
Motorbike taxi - Xe om
PLEASE GO AWAY!!!! Xin moi di cho!
I couldn't have said it better. Vietnamese are the pushiest when it comes to selling you things you don't want and will constantly pick up everything in the store as you browse thinking that maybe you didn't see it or that you are blind. Very annoying! In Hanoi the stores are all on the same streets so if you are looking for tires then there is one street where all the tire shops are and looking for TV's, silk, etc.. there is a street for that particular product which makes it very convenient for shoppers.
After walking around we read in our Lonely Planet guide that there was a bar called the "Halida" that sold the cheapest draught beers in town so we naturally headed over there. As we entered the place Jim the Australia spotted us and brought us next door where they were eating and told us about their nightmare 12 bus ride with no sleep. I told them their bus was luxury compared to ours because their seats reclined where ours didn't at all. They went out to purchase their tickets to Halong bay since they didn't have much time left and we were to meet in two hours a couple blocks up the road where Leon spotted cheaper home-made beer so we met there. I wore my new Kangaroo cafe T-shirt and drew a bit of attention from the people in Halida bar who sat behind me for awhile just to read it. A cyclo driver was constantly badgering me to take a ride with him as we walked the two blocks to the home brew place so instead of saying "no" or trying to communicate I just pointed to the back of my T-shirt so he could read the Vietnamese and he laughed and left. We had a lot of beers right on the street of this place where they just topped up our beers.
The washroom was a couple stores down from the home brew place where I had to walk past another beer joint and down a long hall where I guy in his home would wait until I was done before charging me $500 dong (3 cents) for the use of the bathroom which was a small closet with a hole in the floor. He made big money off me that night! A Vietnamese women came by with her pastries and told me they were $500 for two and when I took them she upped the price to $5000 (typical vietnamese sales tactic) when a 10 year old kid that had been filling our mugs with the home-made beer came over and pointed at each item to tell us what the true price was ($500 dong) and the vietnamese woman got mad and chased him off and left (And she didn't even give back my change of $1500 dong-9 cents!).
The Aussies were a lot of fun and everytime I would run into them I would laugh immediately just seeing them. Jim is very extroverted and was constantly hamming it up with the locals or tour operators and then they would joke around with him like one Vietnamese woman on the beach in Hoi ann when he agreed to a manicure of his toe nails and gave her a hard time with the price and while he was relaxing on the beach and she finished the manicure she brought out the nail polish and began painting his toe nails as he slept and looking back at us winking about the joke until he heard the laughing and quickly woke up.
They liked my Kangaroo cafe T-shirt so they were going to go there after walking us back to our booking office to catch our train and said our good byes and exchanged emails since we took so many pictures with each others cameras. Tim and I grabbed our 9:30pm train and met up with a Quebecer named Daniel and his spanish wife Gloria and we shared a cabin with them since we had already shared a cab together earlier. There are 4 beds to one cabin. I had the munchies so decided to walk from the back of the train to the front through all the compartments to reach the cafeteria to find out it only sold chips and PIGS FEET!! I was disgusted looking at these pigs feet and just got some nuts and water. We slept really good on the train until the Quebecer Daneil woke us up when we arrived. When we got off a guide grabbed us to lead us to the bus and wanted our train tickets to give to the ticket collector so we could leave so I reached into my bag and grabbed them and attached was our return tickets and I didn't realize it until we were on the bus. We had arrived in "Lao Cai" by train and it was now a 45 minute bus ride to Sapa. I met a guy in front of me from Cobble Hill! What are the odds of that?
We found a hotel upon arrival and dropped off our bags and tried to get our return train tickets back so I jumped on the internet and looked up the phone number of the place in Hanoi that we booked our tickets through and someone at the hotel phoned them and told us to come back tomorrow to pick them up.
Sapa is like being high up in the Himalaya mountains with thick mist and fog where you can't see more than 30 feet in front of you. Tribes people are trying to sell their homemade clothings to the tourists and are aggressive about it. We walked through the Sapa market which sells everything and they always try to rip off tourists by upping the price. Because all the vendors sell the same things and are constantly saying "You buy from me, you buy from me!". So when when they give me a high price I walk over to the competition very slowly as they quickly lower their prices to get me back so by the time I get to the competition the first vendor has brought down the price 60%. Yet that vendor will try to get more but you pretend to walk away to the next seller until they agree to the price. It is cold in Sapa being high up in the mountains so I needed a jacket badly so I got the woman down in price to selling me a jacket for $2.40US. From the Sapa market we walked a few kms to Cat Cat village where there are no vehicles and nothing has changed in 80 years.
Very poor village people with pigs, chickens, digging rice terraces etc... then we walked further where motorcycle guys were ready to take us to another village which I can't remember the name of, then they drove us back to Sapa for $3us. Later on we went out to an english bar that Daniel had recommended at lunch time and we ran into more Canadians who had a clothing designer shop in Edmonton who came to Vietnam every year for business to check out designer clothes to bring back to their shop. Maggie and Robbie were their names and Robbie was a big drinker who tried every alcoholic drink throughout his travels. Many drinks come with snakes or scorpions inside which never interested me but he even had a drink that had a crocodiles penis inside so ya... this was a hard core drinker! We went to our hotel restaurant with them and had moonshine. It had been 20 years since I had tried moonshine and they had an apple moonshine where I had a stronger moonshine that almost made me fall off my chair in shock at how strong it was.
Luckily Robbie was able to finish it for me. It was freezing cold in our hotel room with no heaters so we slept in our clothes and toques and breathed under the blankets to warm them up. Now we checked out and will probably rent scooters to drive out to other villages a little farther out to kill the day. Not a lot to do here but explore on foot and so our timing is right to leave tonight back to Hanoi on the night train where we will meet up with both couples we met from Canada since we all have sleepers. In Hanoi we will probably get bus tickets out to Halong Bay and I just booked my air ticket back to Bangkok for Feb 27th. Robbie and Mag told us about a place in Hanoi called "HWY 4" where they serve exotic dishes like crocodile, shark, and every other type of creature. We might check that out and also go out to Ho Chi Minhs complex where his body has been embalmed like Lenins in Moscow. His final wishes were to be cremated but the people had other ideas about what to do with their leaders body.
Kevin
Met up with Tim in Hue and booked our flight to Hanoi for the next morning since we weren't into another uncomfortable 12 hour bus ride. We went out to a western bar and ran into a bunch of other solo travelers who hooked up along the way from Wales, Australia, America, and Sweden and had draught beer all night exchanging stories and tips and possibly meeting up with each other along the way since our itineraries were similar. Celine from Switzerland who went with the Aussies to Hue before us recognized us in the bar as she passed by on the street and had told us the Aussies left on the bus for Hanoi and that they didn't really see anything in Hue. In the Morning we caught our flight which took 55 minutes and once in Hanoi we booked our night soft-sleeper train ride to Sapa (9:30pm- 7am) so left our bags there at the booking office and went out to explore Hanoi. Hanoi has a lake in the middle of town with a little island in the middle.
We went to Kangaroo cafe that serves the biggest cups of coffee where I saw the perfect shirt for Vietnam. A week earlier I was mentioning to Tim after being hassled by book vendors, cyclo drivers, postcard sellers, etc... that I would like a T-shirt that tells them all I am not interested. At Kangaroo cafe was that perfect T-shirt that advertised the shirt by saying "Tired of your "new" friends? Why don't you tell them with your new T-shirt". On the front it is advertising the Kangaroo cafe with a kangaroo and a huge cup of coffee and on the back it says in english and Vietnamese:
I DON'T WANT... Toi Khong Mien
Postcards - Bu Thiep
Cyclo - Xich lo
Shoe shine - Danh gioy
Chewing gum - Keo cao su
Motorbike taxi - Xe om
PLEASE GO AWAY!!!! Xin moi di cho!
I couldn't have said it better. Vietnamese are the pushiest when it comes to selling you things you don't want and will constantly pick up everything in the store as you browse thinking that maybe you didn't see it or that you are blind. Very annoying! In Hanoi the stores are all on the same streets so if you are looking for tires then there is one street where all the tire shops are and looking for TV's, silk, etc.. there is a street for that particular product which makes it very convenient for shoppers.
After walking around we read in our Lonely Planet guide that there was a bar called the "Halida" that sold the cheapest draught beers in town so we naturally headed over there. As we entered the place Jim the Australia spotted us and brought us next door where they were eating and told us about their nightmare 12 bus ride with no sleep. I told them their bus was luxury compared to ours because their seats reclined where ours didn't at all. They went out to purchase their tickets to Halong bay since they didn't have much time left and we were to meet in two hours a couple blocks up the road where Leon spotted cheaper home-made beer so we met there. I wore my new Kangaroo cafe T-shirt and drew a bit of attention from the people in Halida bar who sat behind me for awhile just to read it. A cyclo driver was constantly badgering me to take a ride with him as we walked the two blocks to the home brew place so instead of saying "no" or trying to communicate I just pointed to the back of my T-shirt so he could read the Vietnamese and he laughed and left. We had a lot of beers right on the street of this place where they just topped up our beers.
The washroom was a couple stores down from the home brew place where I had to walk past another beer joint and down a long hall where I guy in his home would wait until I was done before charging me $500 dong (3 cents) for the use of the bathroom which was a small closet with a hole in the floor. He made big money off me that night! A Vietnamese women came by with her pastries and told me they were $500 for two and when I took them she upped the price to $5000 (typical vietnamese sales tactic) when a 10 year old kid that had been filling our mugs with the home-made beer came over and pointed at each item to tell us what the true price was ($500 dong) and the vietnamese woman got mad and chased him off and left (And she didn't even give back my change of $1500 dong-9 cents!).
The Aussies were a lot of fun and everytime I would run into them I would laugh immediately just seeing them. Jim is very extroverted and was constantly hamming it up with the locals or tour operators and then they would joke around with him like one Vietnamese woman on the beach in Hoi ann when he agreed to a manicure of his toe nails and gave her a hard time with the price and while he was relaxing on the beach and she finished the manicure she brought out the nail polish and began painting his toe nails as he slept and looking back at us winking about the joke until he heard the laughing and quickly woke up.
They liked my Kangaroo cafe T-shirt so they were going to go there after walking us back to our booking office to catch our train and said our good byes and exchanged emails since we took so many pictures with each others cameras. Tim and I grabbed our 9:30pm train and met up with a Quebecer named Daniel and his spanish wife Gloria and we shared a cabin with them since we had already shared a cab together earlier. There are 4 beds to one cabin. I had the munchies so decided to walk from the back of the train to the front through all the compartments to reach the cafeteria to find out it only sold chips and PIGS FEET!! I was disgusted looking at these pigs feet and just got some nuts and water. We slept really good on the train until the Quebecer Daneil woke us up when we arrived. When we got off a guide grabbed us to lead us to the bus and wanted our train tickets to give to the ticket collector so we could leave so I reached into my bag and grabbed them and attached was our return tickets and I didn't realize it until we were on the bus. We had arrived in "Lao Cai" by train and it was now a 45 minute bus ride to Sapa. I met a guy in front of me from Cobble Hill! What are the odds of that?
We found a hotel upon arrival and dropped off our bags and tried to get our return train tickets back so I jumped on the internet and looked up the phone number of the place in Hanoi that we booked our tickets through and someone at the hotel phoned them and told us to come back tomorrow to pick them up.
Sapa is like being high up in the Himalaya mountains with thick mist and fog where you can't see more than 30 feet in front of you. Tribes people are trying to sell their homemade clothings to the tourists and are aggressive about it. We walked through the Sapa market which sells everything and they always try to rip off tourists by upping the price. Because all the vendors sell the same things and are constantly saying "You buy from me, you buy from me!". So when when they give me a high price I walk over to the competition very slowly as they quickly lower their prices to get me back so by the time I get to the competition the first vendor has brought down the price 60%. Yet that vendor will try to get more but you pretend to walk away to the next seller until they agree to the price. It is cold in Sapa being high up in the mountains so I needed a jacket badly so I got the woman down in price to selling me a jacket for $2.40US. From the Sapa market we walked a few kms to Cat Cat village where there are no vehicles and nothing has changed in 80 years.
Very poor village people with pigs, chickens, digging rice terraces etc... then we walked further where motorcycle guys were ready to take us to another village which I can't remember the name of, then they drove us back to Sapa for $3us. Later on we went out to an english bar that Daniel had recommended at lunch time and we ran into more Canadians who had a clothing designer shop in Edmonton who came to Vietnam every year for business to check out designer clothes to bring back to their shop. Maggie and Robbie were their names and Robbie was a big drinker who tried every alcoholic drink throughout his travels. Many drinks come with snakes or scorpions inside which never interested me but he even had a drink that had a crocodiles penis inside so ya... this was a hard core drinker! We went to our hotel restaurant with them and had moonshine. It had been 20 years since I had tried moonshine and they had an apple moonshine where I had a stronger moonshine that almost made me fall off my chair in shock at how strong it was.
Luckily Robbie was able to finish it for me. It was freezing cold in our hotel room with no heaters so we slept in our clothes and toques and breathed under the blankets to warm them up. Now we checked out and will probably rent scooters to drive out to other villages a little farther out to kill the day. Not a lot to do here but explore on foot and so our timing is right to leave tonight back to Hanoi on the night train where we will meet up with both couples we met from Canada since we all have sleepers. In Hanoi we will probably get bus tickets out to Halong Bay and I just booked my air ticket back to Bangkok for Feb 27th. Robbie and Mag told us about a place in Hanoi called "HWY 4" where they serve exotic dishes like crocodile, shark, and every other type of creature. We might check that out and also go out to Ho Chi Minhs complex where his body has been embalmed like Lenins in Moscow. His final wishes were to be cremated but the people had other ideas about what to do with their leaders body.
Kevin
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