To Hanoi and beyond

Location: Bangkok
Weather: Very humid

Getting To Hanoi
18th April - Next was a night-train 12 hours north to Hanoi. I did have a night bus ticket, but decided to pay the extra for a 'hard sleeper' bed on the train, as I'd heard the bus journey was terrible. The bed was indeed hard, but I slept pretty well and enjoyed a full day wandering around Hanoi. It has a famous 'Old Quarter' where there a lots of old shops selling general rubbish, where it's extremely easily to get lost, even with a map. There's a street selling very cheap silk clothes and a large lake called Hoan Kiem which is the centre of the city, like most places in 'Nam there's a million motorbikes and every one of them asks "moto-buy" when you walk past, but the city doesn't have the same buzz and hecticisy(invented a new word there) as Saigon, it's a bit more relaxed. The only annoying thing was that every museum closes on a Monday, so I couldn't see any of them the first day, but I ended walking across the massive Long Bien bridge which spans the Red River. I spent the night in The Green Hotel, which was a total rip-off at $8 a night, considering it was on the 4th floor, didn't even have towels in the room or a remote control for the TV, I moved the next day to the $6 Nam Long Hotel which was vastly superior and much more centrally located.

What Was Meant To Happen...
On the 19th April I was first supposed to leave Hanoi, but I got to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum too late, the cretins close it at 10:30am and this was the must-see part of Hanoi, however, I managed to con Thai Airlines into changing my flight and got to see Uncle Ho lying in state(much like Lenin in his mausoleum in Moscow) the next day. I also got to see his house on stilts plus the grounds in where he worked, lived and ran the country. Also saw the excellent Army Museum and History Museum - the museums in Hanoi are the best kept in the country, I reckon.

...And What Actually Happened
After much contemplation I decided to alter my plans and visit the last 2 highlights of Vietnam that every traveller hollers on about - Sapa and Ha Long Bay.
A 9 hour night train north on an excellent 'soft sleeper' bed got me to Sapa - a small town famous for its 1500m altitude, surrounding hill villages and their hill tribes. I was glad at doing this, since I
think it's one of the top 3 places I've been so far - awesome views, mountains and countryside - I'll have to put some photos to show what I mean.

A Tough Trek
Thanks to a Norweign bloke called Espen, I ended up climbing the highest mountain in Vietnam - called Fancipan or Phan Xipan- clocking in at 3,142m's high it's also the highest in Indochina. It took 2 days and involved the hardest trek I've ever known - 26km's and 9.5 hours of very hard going the first day. We had to go with a guide and I know why. Up hill to the top was tough - but worth it, as we got to see mountains in Laos and China from there, but downhill to the basecamp at 2000m's was worse - there was hardly a path, it was covered with tree roots and other hindrances. Half the time we were literally swinging from trees like monkeys over various obstacles as the path twisted and turned and/or climbing up/down big rocks. Sometimes you had to use tree roots or bamboo shoots to stop yourself sliding down stream beds or to hoist yourself up to the next level. Next day it was 8km's of more of the same, by then we were both near total exhaustion - the guide, however, went off to play football with a rival town!
Most people take 3 days to do this, but allegedly you can do it in 1 day, it must be a different route, because I reckon you'd be dead otherwise.

But I Kept On Going
Immediately afterwards I took a 7pm night-train back to Hanoi - arrived at 4:10am and then went on a 7:30am tour/cruise to Ha-Long Bay(4 hours from Hanoi). Ha Long is supposed to be an 8th wonder of the world - it has hundreds of rock islands and in my view was ok. It did have the best caves I've seen - Hang Thien and Dau Go - both lit with rainbow colours and with glorious stalactites and stalagmites, but the bay itself was much the same as I've seen in Phang Nga, Thailand. The boat trip took a few hours more than was really needed, I was exceptionally tired at this point, but we eventually arrived at the island of Cat Ba, where we stayed the night in a hotel. I ran into my friend Jos there whom I've met almost everywhere else in Vietnam!
Next morning we cruised the bay again for 4 hours which was very pleasant and refreshing, after another good free lunch(part of the tour) and a bus trip we got back to Hanoi at 4:15pm. I then went to the airport and caught my 8:45pm flight to Bangkok.
Fun At The Airport
Checking-in at the airport was great fun, talk about the slowest processing in the world - I got there at exactly 6:45pm, then queued as the check-in girl checked-in about 1 person every century, 45mins later I get within metres of the desk, only to be stuck behind some stupid woman with 100kg's of overweight luggage. Of course the check-in girl has to phone everybody in the universe to sort this out, 20mins of just standing there yawning and some other airport woman tells me to go to the Royal Executive Desk, where it takes me 2 seconds to check-in. I had to laugh when this girl tells me "you lucky, normally you be too late to do this, next time I won't let you", like it was my fault.
Anyway, Hanoi airport was good, they must have one of the best Duty Free's in the world - $11 for a 20 pack of Benson & Hedges(Vietnam has the cheapest cigarettes in the world, you can get a pack for 2300dong - that's 7pence - and both Espen & Jos said they weren't bad), $8 for a bottle of Gordon's Gin(whereas a beer is a pound in Malaysia, it's a dollar or less in Vietnam), then they charge $1 for a flippin can of Coke which usually costs half that! The aeroplane left about 15mins late, but was excellent, I thoroughly recommend Thai Airways!

By JamesReed on 27.04.05 @ 06:39 AM GMT