Sapa to Hoi An: mountains and paddy fields

We took the night train from Hanoi up to Lao Cai on the Chinese border in north-west Vietnam. The early morning air was a chilly 3 degrees when we arrived in Sapa, which was a shock to the system. But it was great to breathe in after the fumes of Hanoi. The bus ride from Lao Cai to Sapa is 38 km of winding roads that climb steadily uphill. Halfway along the sun came up and the views of the mountains and valleys below were just breathtaking. The paddy fields are terraced up the hillside and there are small villages where hill tribes live dotted here and there. Sapa itself is a pretty little mountain town which thrives on taking tourists trekking in the mountains and selling the handicrafts made by women from the local mountain tribes.

I spent much of the first day in bed nursing a cold, shivering and admiring the view through the window, while Kevin did some walking. The next day we hired a guide and set off on a 12 km trek down to a couple of the local villages. There are lots of different ethnic minorities living in the area: Black H'Mong, Red Dzao, Zai (Chinese) and Thai among others. Our guide Dung (pronounced Zum) was a lively Thai wearing a green pith helmet! We were also accompanied much of the way by a couple of the women from the Black H'mong tribe. It was glorious weather and despite the air being cold it was fine walking in t-shirts. The women were wearing local dress like all the others, and they told us a little about their families.
Not all the children go to school as the parents can't afford to send them all, so the girls sell handicrafts and the boys help their fathers take the buffalo up into the higher pastures. On the second half of our journey we were followed by a couple of 6 year old minxes trying to sell us things in persuasive English, but they were eventually bought off with a packet of sweets each!

From Sapa we headed south to Hanoi on the night train again. We shared our carriage this time with 2 men, one Vietnamese and the other Japanese. The couple of hours before going to sleep were enlivened by playing a bizarre form of charades in an effort to communicate. The Japanese guy showed he had a sense of humour when the Vietnamese man told him he needed to shave off his beard and lose the scarf if he hoped to find a wife!

The express trains run mostly at night so we booked a sleeper from Hanoi to Hue, and spent the day visiting the ancient citadel of Hoa Lu and the river caves in Tam Coc in the Ninh Binh province. The landscape here is much like the rocky limestone outcrops in Halong Bay, and we had a pleasant cycle ride through the countryside from Hoa Lu to Tam Coc. The boat trip to the caves in a sampan was spoilt by the constant pressure to buy stuff, both from the couple doing the rowing and from sellers in other boats.

Hue in central Vietnam, our next stop, has an enormous citadel built mostly in the 18th century. Much of it was ruined during the Vietnam war as Hue is close to the former Demilitarized Zone (the border between North and South Vietnam). What's left shows that it must have been a stunning sight in all its glory. We spent the day walking around looking at the ruins and at the local market, which was tightly packed with stalls stacked high with wares of all kinds and people desperate to sell to us.

We took the bus the next day to Hoi An, a hundred or more kilometers further south past endless rice paddies. The road follows the coast and goes through a dividing range of mountains before going past more paddy fields. Hoi An is a charming little town which has been a major trading post for centuries. Its architecture is inspired by a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and French influences. Many of these lovely old buildings have green moss growing up them, a result of the almost annual autumnal floods which sweep river water into them. Nearly every other building seems to house shops selling silk and lacquer ware, and there are endless places to get clothes or shoes tailor-made at less than one would pay for clothes bought off-the-peg back home. So we did what most people do in Hoi An and ordered some clothes, which meant we had appointments for fittings to keep in between the sight-seeing. Hoi An is also known for its various specialities in the food line, and has a range of good restaurants to try out. Many of them also offer cookery courses, so being a good wife I've sent Kevin on one. I'm looking forward to tasting the results!

Tonight we head on down to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as most people still call it.