Catch Up

Sorry for the sporadic blog entries. We've been racing time as of late, trying to see as much of Vietnam as possible before our 30 day visa runs out. The countdown is now T-minus 16 days.

After our motorcycle trip in Sapa in the North we headed to Hanoi (btw mom, they fill you up with gas and oil at the same time when you drive a shitty old Russian motorcycle-- they just pour both into the gas tank at the same time and shake it around). Hanoi was, well, busy. I loved it! We took an overnight train which arrived in Hanoi around 4:30 a.m. Of course there was nothing open, and nearly every guide book we had read warned travelers of the rip-off scams that people do to weary travelers arriving in the early morning hours. Mostly they just drive you around in circles before dropping you off to a hotel that will later pay the taxi driver commission for giving them business. It was hilarious to look around the train station after all the locals had hopped into a cab and all that were left was a large group of around 20 or so foreigners huddled together, too scared to attempt a taxi ride, but not sure what the alternative would be. Apparently they had read the same warning as us.

Luckily, we had a master plan. Share a taxi with 2 other people (hey, if we're 'ginna get ripped off anyway, we might as well split the cost with others) and get dropped of near the general vicinity of where hotels are located. Turns out it wasn't as genius a plan as we had hoped. We forgot to compensate for the fact that absolutely nothing would be open at that hour. We ended up wandering the streets for a while until we stumbled upon an open street vendor selling pho', and ate our breakfast while we watched the city wake up. It was a great way to start. You can't imagine the transformation the streets of the Old District in Hanoi make changing from zero occupancy to being literally packed full of motor-bikes and pedestrians.

We found a great little hotel right near all the action and posted up for 3 days, exploring the city, eating, and dodging motor-bikes. We also managed to find a theater playing the new James Bond movie and got our Hollywood/pop culture fix :)

The women in my family may be surprised to hear that I didn't buy any clothes in Hanoi, despite all my years of training as a Fjeld! We did buy 2 silk sleeping bag liners (of questionable quality) and ditched the heavy sheets we've been carrying around with us, which was good. Not that I've become a saint and rejected all worldly possessions...I'm mostly saving it for Hoi An. All the other travelers we've met say it's the place to have clothing tailored for you. Even Shane is thinking of having a suite made, though I keep telling him that Amish Men with beards like his just wear suspenders to work the fields :)

From Hanoi we wanted to go to Halong Bay. Again there were dozens of warnings to watch out for rip-offs. We decided to skip the Lonely Planet's advice of booking a tour of the Bay from Hanoi and took a local bus on our own, figuring out the details along the way. It worked out surprisingly well! The only problem was being overcharged for our bus tickets (sidenote: when the women selling tickets to you says "I'll give you a deal but don't tell ANYONE else how much you pay because it's WAY less than usual, the joke is on you, dumbass).

Once we arrived at Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay we booked a really great overnight boat trip which was supposed to be for 4 people, but the 2 others bailed out at the last minute and Shane and I had a whole boat to ourselves with a crew to serve us yummy sea-food meals as we cruised around the Bay. The first day entailed lots for cruising around, swimming to small island beaches, kayaking through cool little hidden caves, and eating fresh fish. It was awesome! That night we slept on the boat and were so grateful for our new silk sleeping bad liners because there was a bit of a cockroach problem, and we were happy to have a place to hide.

The next day, our little private tour came to an abrupt end when we realized we had been sold off to another boat which had about 9 other people on it already. I guess the crew decided that they were loosing too much money on us and radioed in for some help. So we packed our things and hopped aboard with a bunch of Germans. Even though it ended prematurely, the day of privacy was well worth the cost. What a great experience! We ended up cruising around with the new boat for the rest of the day doing more of the same, before heading back to Cat Ba island in the evening.

The next day we did a hike through the national park on the island. It was so beautiful! It's accurately described as a scene straight out of Jurassic Park, with tons of lush vegetation covering steep limestone karst formations. The guide said we trekked 18 kilometers, but it felt more like half that. Either way it was great. We had lunch in a local village about 3 hours in to the trek and finished at another end of the island, taking a boat back to the main harbor.

That was yesterday, and today we took a bus to a small city called Ninh Binh, just south of where we were in Halong Bay. The surrounding countryside is supposed to be amazing here, but the weather kind of sucks at the moment, and we're thinking of leaving tomorrow evening on an overnight bus to head further south. Right now the plan is roughly:

-head to Hoi An, a beach town about 12 hours south of here for a few days
-from there go to Danang, a mountain town to do some hiking
-hop on a train toward Saigon, or HMC and explore the city for a few days before moving over to Cambodia.

Any suggestions?

Here are the latest pictures

Vietnam

Motorcycle Diaries

Hello faithful followers!

We have survived our first ten days in Vietnam!

After taking the overnight bus from Kunming, we arrived at the Vietnamese border town of Lao Cai, walked across the border and jumped onto a minibus to Sapa. After and hour of sitting and waiting for the bus to fill, we finally took off for Sapa.

Once in Sapa, we did the familiar "haul the bags to every single hotel and look at the rooms in order to find the best deal" before we finally decided on a place, threw our bags down, kicked off our shoes, and passed out from exhaustion after (surprisingly) not being able to sleep at all on an overnight bus where your bed is only five feet long, a foot and a half wide, and the people across from you are smoking. Ahhh, the joys of budget traveling.

After a whole day of recovery, we managed to get out of bed early on the second day and rent a motorcycle. :). Kerri was very trusting and it didn't even phase her when I confessed that the last time a really rode a motorcycle I was ten years old and my feet couldn't touch the ground. Side note: being tall enough to touch the ground really makes riding a lot easier.

We had so much fun on your motorcycle that, after one beautiful day of trekking through the villages around Sapa, we decided to rent a motorcycle for three days and do our own tour through northern Vietnam. We were feeling pretty confident after the first day of riding on windy roads, passing trucks and pedestrians, so we convinced the guy who owns the bike to let us take it without a guide and just ride off on our own. I looked over the map with him and explained the route we wanted to take and he said no problem.

We show up on the morning to rent the motorcycle and he shows us our "new bike", which is an old Minsk that looks like its been through a lot. Of course I made sure the horn, blinkers and headlight were working, the speedometer and tachometer were broken, but who needs those, right? I took it for a quick test drive and decided to give it a shot.

Kerri and I took off around 10:30 am and rode for three hours before we hit our first real town. We (mostly me, I guess) attracted a lot of stares. I don't think a lot of tourists visit these places. There weren't any hotels in the town, and since it was still relatively early, we decided to push it to the next town, another four hours.

We set off around 2 p.m. after a few wrong turns and confusing interactions with Vietnamese people who had no idea what we were doing when we waved our map in their face. The road in the afternoon was beautiful, green valleys with limestone spires. Our progress was hindered by the occasional water buffalo (these things are massive) in the road, little kids playing, and roadwork. After a few hours, we were getting a little worried we weren't on the right road so we started asking for directions again. We finally found someone who we could communicate with and confirmed we were on the right track. Reassured and excited, we started cruising again as the sun was starting to set. We crested on hill, passed a massive truck taking up the whole road, rounded a corner and the road went straight into a massive river. More confusion. A barge being pushed by a tugboat came over and we packed ourselves on.

Once on the other side of the river, it was a race off of the barge before the trucks, breathing diesel sucks. Side note: don't mess with Vietnamese people on motorcycles, or any Asians for that matter, they were born (literally) on one and they are better riders.

We climbed over a pass just in time to see the sun dip below the horizon, so I really started pushing it on the way down. We were making really good time when we were slowed by a gravel road. The gravel road turned into a dirt path about four feet wide with little water channels running through it. We found a dirt trail that looked no different from a walking path (except for the obvious motorcycle tracks). After a few minutes of deliberations, three H'mong (minority locals) women walked up and reassured us that this was the only way after triple and quadruple checking.

A few minutes later, a man came running over to help as I was getting ready to cross the shittiest make-shift bridge I have ever seen. He was helping me push the bike when I slammed on the breaks before we got on the bridge so I could inspect. It was bamboo, that looked like it was tied together with reeds. I pointed at the bridge and said the only word that we could both understand "OK?" He gave me a nod and pushed again. When we reached the other side, he pushed me out of the way, jumped on, revved the engine to a degree that I have not heard, and proceeded to burn the clutch/drive/walk the bike up the remainder of the steep, single track dirt path.

Running to catch up with him, I was pondering how much I should tip this angel for helping us. He answered that question by demanding that we pay him 50,000 Dong ($3)! After some arguing, not because its too much money, but because I hate getting ripped off, we gave in after he kept pointing at the marvelous feet of engineering that was his bridge.

Once we finally saw the town, we pulled over, went into a little restaurant and yelled "hotel" - we were a little pumped from the adrenaline, this might have seemed a little strange to them. Luckily, an equally strange man named Le, was there and decided to take us under his wing. "You come with me", he said. We obeyed.

The next morning, we woke up to find that the bike was leaking oil and the electrical system was entirely shot, the kill switch didn't work. I had to turn it off by holding the break and letting out the clutch. Easy enough.

We took off around 10 am with bellies full of Pho and high spirits. We were pretty confident considering we rigorously studied the maps the night before, we didn't want any surprises this time. We were surprised early when we realized that our destination wasn't really called Lai Chau, like we thought, but the name recently changed to Muong Lai, and is twice as far as we thought.

We rode through a windy, mostly gravel, road, dodging water buffalo, trucks, kids, heavy machinery, and potholes for four hours before we made it to Lai Chua, which is now Muong Lai. Not impressed by the town and confident that we could make it all the way back, we looked at each other, gave the nod and said, "let's do this".

We took off from Muong Lai at around 2 pm and cruised through the hot, flat river valley towards Pa Tan, and then turning towards Sapa, our destination, from there. After two hours of making really good time, cruising mostly in fourth gear (a big deal on this bike and these roads) we made it to Pa Tan.

We finally made it to Lai Chau and realized that it used to be called Tam Duong, the town we were looking for, and the government renamed it when they decided to start construction on a damn that would eventually flood the old town of Lai Chau and the whole valley that we rode through.

It was good timing to ride through that valley as we probably won't ever have a chance to see it again before it fills with water.

The next morning, we got on the bike and realized that there were three police officers pulling people over right next to the hotel. We packed our bag and strapped it on to the bike and set off.

We pulled out slowly, but not too slowly, I didn't want to give the officers too much time to see that the needles for the speedometer and tachometer were bouncing around. Besides, I don't have a motorcycle license and I wanted to get away from them before they had too much time to contemplate how much money they could suck out of us foreigners.

We made it the next few hours back to Sapa, turned in the bike, and checked back into our favorite hotel room and relaxed until it was time to catch the train to Hanoi.

Before leaving or Hanoi, we read several accounts of foreigners being ripped off by taxi drivers and hotels.

We arrived in Hanoi at 4:30 in the morning and stood amongsWe have been in Hanoi now for two days

The end of China

After hiking Emei Shan, we hopped on a train south towards Kunming. We decided to get the hard sleepers for our 12 hour ride. When we found our beds there were six Chinese people sitting on them. After we managed to squeeze our big packs in and then sit down, we pulled out our trusty phrase book and tried to make some polite conversation. This is usually the point where we try and say a few words that are spelled phonetically in English, but usually after we get the first few syllables out the laughter drowns out the rest of our attempts. We have found, however, it is not really necessary to actually speak Chinese to have people talk to you. An old, slightly intoxicated, Chinese man kept slapping me on the knee, waving his finger in my face (probably not very polite in China, either), and continued ranting and laughing for an hour straight. At this point my cheeks began to hurt and my throat was horse from fained laughter, so Kerri and I started playing cards in hopes that he would lose interest. This however, attracts more attention from Chinese people than my blond hair and blue eyes, and in no time we had almost a dozen people watching our crazy card game.

After 12 hours on the train, we hopped off at 7 am in a small town where we heard we could catch a bus to our destination, Lijiang. We got off the train, cursing ourselves for not making reservations for a bus when suddenly a woman ran up to us and shouted "Lijiang", grabbed me by the arm and threw us on a bus. How did she know?

We were laughing at our good luck on the bus, and we happily slept for the first hour. I noticed that I was having trouble sleeping because of a familiar smell, when I woke up with a jolt suddenly recognizing the unmistakable scent of vomit and realizing that the floor was slippery. The woman directly behind us had been puking on the floor and it flowed under our seat and soaked the bottom of my backpack. For the next six hours of the bus ride I held the backpack on my lap in the only position where I wouldn't touch the puke. The inside of the bus ride was such a contrast to the exquisite scenery we were passing on the twisty road. The entire drive we wound our way through a canyon of gorgeous rice paddy fields and small villages. Unfortunately the puking was contageous and others around us starting throwing up. I can confidently say it was the longest bus ride of my life.

We arrived in Lijiang and found a super cute little hotel with a view of the city. It looked so nice, we thought about just walking by, but we decided to go in and take a look just in case. We asked the price of a super cute, clean room, and when we heard it was 60 Yuan ($9) we struggled not to smile and Kerri said, "60 as in six, zero?" and I said "60 Yuan, total?" At this point we decided not to ask any more questions and jumped at the opportunity for a hot shower and clean room.

We found Lijiang a little like Disneyland, too cute to be real. But it is quite a site with cobbled roads and bridges over flowing crystal clear little water channels and canals with a snow-capped mountain in the background.

We spent one full day in Lijiang and left the next day for Tiger Leaping Gorge. Not knowing what we were getting into, I was trying desperately to take pictures of the snow-capped mountains from the bus. After using my whole battery and taking 20 crappy pictures with blurry trees obscuring the mountains, when I realized that we were heading straight for them and that they are in fact part of Tiger Leaping Gorge. We arrived at the trailhead at 3:30 in the afternoon and hiked two hours up to "Naxi Family Guest House", which had a beautiful little courtyard and tables with a view of the mountains changing color with the sunset. We both agreed that it couldn't get any better than that.

I found it hard to look at the trail while I was hiking, the view of the mountains was stunning. I managed to convince myself to look at the trail after we hiked passed a few ledges with nearly 3000-foot drop offs to the river at the bottom of the gorge.

We arrived at "Halfway House" guest house that afternoon which had a roof deck with 360-degree view of the mountains and a little farming community. It also has spectacular views out of the bedrooms and the toilets. I had to wear my sunglasses in the toilet the next morning while doing my business so I could look at the mountains. We were so taken by Halfway House that we decided to stay two nights and do day hikes around the area before heading out to Kunming to get our visas for Vietnam.

We are in Kunming right now and heading to Vietnam on a bus in a few hours. After we cross the border, we are going to try and head to a small mountain town called Sapa and do some more trekking.

Here are the latest pictures, videos coming soon....

China, Part Three