THE RACHELEN PROJECT
HANOI
Hue and Phong Nha
29th May, 1pm
We arrived in Hanoi at 6am this morning on the nightbus. It was a fairly good sleep until our driver decided to start blasting some Vietnamese dance pop at 5am, then turn up the volume every 15 minutes (to make sure everyone was awake for arrival??).
We ended up spending two nights in Hue. There wasn’t a lot to do aside from visiting the Citadel, which we decided not to do in the end. Instead we walked around the local streets, ate food and took a boat down the river to see the Thien Mu Pagoda, a temple built in 1601. There was quite a lot of French style architecture, and our hostel was opposite an old Olympic stadium.
We were quite excited to move onto Phong Nha. It was the first place we’ve been that isn’t coastal and it was beautiful. There are lots of mountains but they’re unusual in the way that the ground around them is flat and they are very consistently covered with trees.
The day after we arrived we booked onto a tour called the National Park tour. We were picked up from our hostel at 8:40am and driven right into the national park. We were told to watch out for snakes and tigers, and if we see one to run away screaming rather than stick around.
The first cave we visited was the 8 ladies cave. During the war, 8 people stayed in this cave and would repair army vehicles along the route into Cambodia. The entire area of Phong Nha was bombed during the war as the Vietnamese people were hiding in the caves. In 1972 the 8 people were killed inside the cave and their bodies were not recovered until the 80’s; all of them were under 20 hence the naming of the Highway 20 through the national park.
The second cave was called Paradise Cave. It was huge, well illuminated and no text will do it any justice. It was like being on the set of an Alien film. Several cathedrals would have fitted inside it. I’d left my phone in the van so unfortunately don’t have any pictures to show.
After this we ziplined into a third cave called the dark cave, swam into its mouth and followed a narrow passageway round a corner and into a giant mud bath (this was a bad time to realise that I was claustrophobic). You could float in the water and if you lost your balance you’d get stuck flipping around on the surface. Everyone put it on their face as apparently it’s very good for skin.
After we left the dark cave we got to splash around in a river and go kayaking and use the swing rope. Lunch was also included in the tour, which was incredible. We made some good friends and might potentially meet them in Hanoi.
The next day we took a boat to Phong Nha cave for a self directed tour. Again, it’s impossible to describe. The first part was an underground rriver so we took the boat around, then we climbed up 250 steps (“steps” is an understatement – they were about 300mm tall) to view another cave by foot. A great thing about the caves is that they are naturally cold, so once you’ve walked in the heat to get there it’s like stepping into an air con room.
We debated spending another night in Phong Nha to learn to use motorbikes on the quieter roads, but our time in Vietnam is limited and there is still a lot that we want to see. We spent an afternoon lazing by the swimming pool and then boarded our sleeper bus to Hanoi after an incredible meal sat outside a restaurant with cows wandering past.
Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa
4th June, 7pm
HA LONG BAY
I did intend to do Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa as two separate posts but we've been pretty busy so I'll try and remember as much as I can.
On the 30th May we woke up at 8 to catch a bus to Ha Long Bay. We decided to book a tour for this part as it works out cheaper and we're quite tight for time now there's only a few days left on my visa. Our tour guide started off a bit too party party for what we had in mind, but we were with a really nice group of like minded people and eventually our guide calmed down a bit.
We got to Ha Long Bay at about midday and took a shuttle ferry to our boat, a painted wooden ship with comfortable cabins, a large reception room and seating on the top deck. Ha Long Bay is made up of about 2000 limestone islands which were formed when mountsins were flooded in around 10,000BC and were gradually eroded to make the pointy forms today
Lunch was the first thing on the agenda and we had a lovely seafood meal. The boat left the dock and started moving around the 2000 islands of Ha Long Bay so we had an amazing view while we ate. After thus we had a few minutes to settle in our cabins before all 20 of us got into kayaks and rowed around a bit ourselves. We went through a small cave and came out into an enclosed bay where we expected to see monkeys but none came out to play. After we kayaked back to the boat (the way back was against the current and much more difficult) we jumped into the water and swam for a while. It actually wasn't too deep; only 3 or 4 metres.
After dinner we had a few drinks on the deck and went to bed around midnight. A few of us woke up at 5am to see the sunrise but sadly there were too many clouds to see anything. In the morning we had bacon and eggs for breakfast, followed by a quick cooking demonstration (with questionably hygiene) where we learnt how to make spring rolls, and we had an early lunch at half 11.
HANOI
After getting back on the bus and arriving in Ha Noi at about 5pm, a few of our new friends decided to go to a restaurant serving dog on our tour guide's recommendation, but helen and I showed them pictures of puppies and decided not to go. Instead we checked back into our hostel, rescued the floor from a huntsman spider, scoured the nearby hostels for free beer and got a great nights sleep.
We didn't make any plans for the next day and instead woke up late to explore Ha Noi at our own leisure. Helen stayed in bed and I walked down to the post office to post some things home. There is so much street food in Ha Noi, especially in the Old Quarter where our hostel is. I went to a place called Banh Mi 25 on our roommate's recommendation and had a great chicken sandwich. At the centre of the city is a large lake which is surrounded by shops, markets and cafes. In the afternoon Helen met me at the Women's Museum on the other side of the lake.
It was fascinating to read about women in family life, working life, how women's fashion has changed, and most interestingly their role in the war. Women made up 40% of the body of the guerilla movement and some signed up to the cause when they were as young as 14. Destroying enemy bases and vehicles were just a few of the acts done by the guerilla movement. The museum displayed profiles of women who fought; some were captured and executed whereas others survived. Many of them received hero status for their efforts.
Sa Pa after the break!
SA PA
We had some lovely new American roommates but decided to get an early night. The next day we got up at 6am to catch a bus to Sa Pa. We arrived at about midday to some breathtaking scenery. We'd heard about 'mamas' who are women who take you in and feed you and take you on treks for a price. We hadn't booked any accommodation so we're relying quite heavily on this, especially as wifi is scarce in the mountains
Luckily several women approached us, and we went to chat with a quiet looking one at the back. All the mamas wear hand embroidered black clothes and something that looks like legwarmers, with a lot of jewellery and stretched ear lobes. They have their hair done up with a pin on top and some wear colourful scarves on their head.
This is when we met Mama Saan and Mama Me. They turned out to be cousins and took us to a market for food while we waited for another bus to arrive (for potential new tenants). Two German girls joined us and after giving our bags to Mama Saan's husband we took a taxi to a point somewhere in the mountains. We walked with Mama Me for two hours, saw some incredible views and arrived at Mama Saan's house in time for dinner.
The house is about halfway up the hillside overlooking a valley covered in terraced rice fields, and full of creepy crawlies. Looking at a map we estimated that we were at an elevation of 2,500m. At one end of the valley you could normally see Mount Fansipan which has a peak of 3,200m but for the time we were there the summit was above the clouds.
The house had a very simple layout, with a central dining room, a kitchen to the left and a large bedroom to the right. It was entirely open and made from wood, with a tin roof. There was a mezzanine level for storage and a covered terrace overlooking the valley. We spent some time sitting on the terrace; we met an older Australian man and a French girl who had been there for five days. I walked to the nearest shop with the Australian man to buy some water. Walking anywhere in this little village was an adventure; you walked through cornfields, across waterfalls, down rivers and across rice terraces. We passed a school and some other houses where everyone smiled and waved.
Dinner was an incredible, locally sourced hand cooked feast made by Mama Saan. There were hand made sausages, butter fried runner beans, boiled morning glory, rice and even some potato wedges. At first I politely declined 'happy water', being well aware what happy pizza was in Cambodia, but after learning it was just locally fermented rice whiskey I decided to try it and it was surprisingly nice.
We went back onto the terrace after dinner where we saw fireflies - one landed on my hand - and after the clouds cleared there was the most spectacular night sky. The lack of lights in the village and the valley made it appear as if there were three times the amount of stars there are usually, twice as bright. We also saw several shooting stars.
This morning we woke up at 8 for a delicious breakfast of pancakes, local honey, bananas, omelette and watermelon. We hiked over to the next village to meet Mama Me's daughter who has just given birth to a baby boy. She is 17 years old and married her husband at 15. The baby was very cute but didn't have a name yet. We weren't prepared to be ambushed by 3 tiny puppies and dozens of baby chicks as well and it was all a bit much.
We had a simple lunch of fried rice and three girls no older than 10 kept trying to sell us their bracelets in broken English. We've read and heard that supporting child sellers isn't good as it encourages the children to skip school and devalues the importance of education, but it's still difficult to continuously turn them down. Another mama came and tried to sell us things and kept mimicking us whenever we said 'no thank you' in a silly high voice.
After lunch we got back to Mama Saan's to pick up our things; then we were picked up by motorbikes to have the most incredible ride through the mountains back to the bus station. We're definitely glad we made the time to go to Sa Pa and chose to stay at someone's home rather than in a hostel. Tomorrow we'll be flying out to Singapore and it will be strange to be leaving this part of the world.