Hanoi & Sa Pa

Yesterday - 22 March:
Last evening we went to the Seasons of Hanoi restaurant.  This restaurant was in a colonial villa and the food was good.

On our own!!  The four of us spent the entire day walking around the Old District and French Quarter parts of Hanoi.  We got turned around and lost a couple of times down narrow and  crowded streets, but Mike and Karel got us back to our hotel without a problem.

We walked past the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum again and continued through the French Quarter to West Lake.  We also walked past some of the other sites that we had visited the day before, so we were really able to get a good grasp of the city.

There are a couple of big lakes in Hanoi that were a good rest for us away from the hustle and bustle and continuous stream of traffic on the streets and street markets.

After a quick meal at the hotel again, we got ready for our 8:30p train departure.  The train was a narrow gauge railroad and we were unable to get any pictures.  We will try on the return.

This was quite an adventure.  This was an overnight train ride that felt right out of a cold was movie.  It was dark and rainy the entire time and luckily we each had a cabin to ourselves while others had to share 4 to a cabin. 

Today - 23 March:
We arrived in Lao Cai at 4:30a in the morning and it was still dark and rainy!  We met up with our new guide and driver and proceeded to Sa Pa - a one hour drive up the mountains.  It was quite foggy at the mid-level elevation and the driver seemed to have problems with the windshield wiper blades.

We arrived a bit too early to be able to get to our room so we walked around the center of town looking for a place to have breakfast.  The restaurant we wanted to go to didn't open until 7:00a so we walked around the market and watched the different tribal women start setting up for the day.

After a yummy breakfast of croissants and coffee we went back to the hotel to see if we could take a shower.  Yippee!! Our rooms were ready!  We got cleaned up and headed out for our "easy half day trek" to Matra and Taphin.

Matra is one of the nearby minority Black Hmong villages that does not have electricity - even today!  We walked through the rice paddies and beautiful mountain scenery.  We had a picnic lunch in the middle of a field that looked out on the valley.  As we were eating we seemed to be sitting near a walking path for the local people and they would stop and watch us.  We now knew how they felt to have tourists staring at them!!

We then continued to the Red Dao village of Taphin.  These ladies are a bit more aggressive in selling their tapestries and purses.  They have been known to follow tourists the entire day if you give them any hint that you would purchase something from them.  A couple of them started to follow us toward the end of our trek and thought I was a bit crabby!  (Me?!)

The trek took a total of 5 hours and was very nice.  The weather was not too hot nor too sunny and it was DRY!!  It was at the lower elevations that it was rainy and foggy.  We are about 5000 feet above sea level.

The hotel is a very nice resort.  There is a pool in which I think we might try that tomorrow after our "full day" excursion.

We are now going to check out the restaurant and bar as we don't want to venture out too far today since we did not get a good night's sleep on the train.

Until tomorrow ~
Deb & Karel