Floating down the Mekong
I crossed the border into Vietnam through Ha Tien which was not the best introduction to the country... The Cambodian-Vietnamese border had just opened here not too long ago and everybody in town was looking at me as if I had landed from outer space.... I'm not sure if people thought that I was a Vietnamese prostitute traveling with a white man (Which is not a rare thing in these parts... but it is usually a big ole white guy with a super young little Asian girl (unfortunately the sex tourism thing isn't limited to just Bangkok)) Anyways, I received cold shoulders and a disdainful looks from many people traveling through the Mekong Delta. However, I enjoyed the floating markets and the floating villages and managed to have a lovely time. It was incredible going to the Floating Market in the morning where the local farmers sell and trade their goods. The cacophony of the vendors trying to sell off their pineapples, rice, dried fish (anything you can imagine) mixed with the fumes from the boat motors is an experience I will never forget.
Uncle Ho posthumously keeping Vietnamese people in shape
After the Mekong Delta, I ended up in Saigon for a few days. My main goal in Saigon was to fetch my ATM card from an HSBC bank branch there (My card was stolen in Koh Tao in Thailand and I was sans ATM card for two weeks....I won't get into the details here....) the bank was nice enough to send a new card to Saigon. The city was hot, humid and I had to stay through the weekend until Monday when the bank was open... I have to say, I was lucky to get out of the city alive! Being a pedestrian in Saigon is a crap shoot. You have to take a chance crossing the street at every intersection and after three days of battling the heat and the traffic I was ready to leave.
I flew out of Saigon into Hanoi and I spent two days there. One of the days I went to Hualong bay. The limestone formations there were breathtaking and the sea food was excellent! In the city of Hanoi my favorite part was the "Beer Hoi Ha Noi." Beer Hoi-s are places where you squat and sit on a child size plastic stool and you can get a glass of the local micro brew. The beer smelled a bit soapy and tasted really hoppy and watery (if you can even imagine that) but at the price of 4000 dongs (Less than 25 cents a glass) who can complain? I figured out that if you held your breath right before putting the glass to your lips it was not so bad.
Sapa
The rice paddies in Sapa dominate the landscape
Black Hmong ladies
The apple cheeked sweetie pie at the Homestay
I took a night train from Hanoi to Sapa and immediately started a trekking trip the morning of my arrival. The Trekking trip included three days of trekking and two nights at a homestay. I was expecting to have the same sort of rustic trekking and homestaying experience I had in Mae Hong Son. However, I was disappointed to find that Sapa had been tainted by the insane amount of tourism that had turned the Black Hmong, the Tay and the Red Zhao tribes people into really pushy sales people.... While trekking, the hill tribe women and girls follow you the entire way until you buy something from them. During the trek, you pass the impoverished villages where these people come from and you can understand their desperation.... The landscape was amazing! But... the fact that the only interaction you have with the hill tribe people is though commerce... that was very sad and disappointing... I did have an amazing homestay experience on the first night where I ate dinner with the family and drank some home made rice wine (it tasted like a love child between Sochou and Moonshine) .
After my time in Sapa it was time for me to head to Laos. I decided to cross the border at Dien Bien Fu which was the last hold out of the French army against the Vietnamese. This is where the French was defeated and so was I......
I had a horrendous bus ride... I attached a video clip I took whilst hanging onto my dear life riding on this bus (Below). Just to give you an idea, there were 25 people crammed into a 12 seater bus. The aisle and the floor of the bus was loaded with rice, stinky produce and motorcycle parts. The woman behind me was puking for about 2 hours out of this 10 hour bus ride and her little baby boy was bottomless... not sure if he went to the bath room in situ... the bus almost capsized crossing a river, the man two seats next to me had a massive head wound and he was bleeding everywhere... There was a Viet Cong vet that had a tattoo with the date 03/09/1966 inscribed in his arm and he was staring at me and deliberately touching my legs the entire journey. I kept on telling him not to touch me... it was terrible. To Top it off, I was wearing my shirt over my face to block out all the dust coming in from outside and it was about a hundred degrees inside the bus... Enjoy!
Okay.... The connection here at thisplace is really bad I will post the video separately very soon! You will not diappointed!
