Hanoi, Halong Bay and Sapa (Vietnam): cruise, excellent food and awful trek

5 December - 14 December 2010

I finally arrived in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Back to a big noisy city full of motorbikes everywhere. But the good news is that I was meeting Guillaume, an ex-colleague of my sister and his wife, Ibti.

We spent the day walking around the Old Quarter. Hundreds of small streets. Animated by the motorbikes, horns, food stalls and shops.

Motorbikes, motorbikes, everywhere... then it happened what it should happen for a long time, I got hit by a motorbike. I was crossing the street and during 2 seconds I raised my head to read a board and the second after, a motorbike hit my left leg. But I was very lucky because it wasn't that serious, my musles were sour for a few hours and I got a big bruise but that was it, lucky me!

In the evening, after a great dinner with plenty of delicious fried spring rolls (nems), we went to see the Water Puppet show, the most famous attraction in Hanoi. The show is performed in a waist-deep pool. The puppeteers, hidden behing a kind of curtain, control the puppets. So the puppets appear to be moving over the water. Very different show from what I have ever seen so far.

The next morning, we travel to Halong Bay. A Unesco World Heritage Site. Halong Bay has an area of around 1,553 km2, including 1,960 islets, most of which are limestone. We, together with Guillaume and Ibti, went on a 3 days cruise on board of the Dolphin Cruise.
Halong Bay is just amazing. Sailing for hours in the bay is something everyone should do once in its lifetime. As we often say "A picture is worth a thousand words"...

We spent 3 days and 2 nights on the boat with some other people. During day time, we visited caves and we went kayaking. Late in the afternoon, we swam, jumping from the top of the boat. The water was a little cold but it felt great to be in the water. After dinner, the only activities were squids fishing, but we never saw any, even after hours of fishing... and karaoke! Ibti, I and the crew of the boat sang all kind of songs, in all languages, French, English, Vietnamese and even Chinese. It was really fun.

After Halong Bay, I stayed one more day in Hanoi, walking around with Guillaume and Ibti. In the afternoon, we decided to visit the French Quarter, with all the nice shops and hotels. Guillaume read in his guide book that we should visit the Hotel Metropole, the nicest hotel in Hanoi. We decided to have a drink at the hotel, at the bar, next to the swimming pool. When the waiter showed us the menu, Ibti and I just couldn't believe what we saw... a chocolate buffet set... all you can eat and drink, pralines, chocolate pancakes, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cakes, chocolate fondue and much more...

We couldn't resist to this pre-Christmas celebration of course! So we did it. We took one chocolate buffet set, one chocolate fondue set and one afternoon tea set, for the 3 of us. It was unbelievable. The table was just too small for all the chocolates, we had to move to a bigger one! It was such a delight... 2 other friends that we met on te boat in Halong Bay joined us and still, it was too much chocolate for everyone. Thanks Guillaume for inviting us, it was exactly what we needed.

The same evening, after havind said goodbye to Guillaume and Ibti, I went with Steve, a travel companion I met in Hoi An to the other main region of Northern Vietnam to be visited, Sapa, close to the border with China.

Sapa is a mountain town where different minorities live.
We arrived in Sapa after a very comfortable trip on a night train.

For the first day, we decided to take it easy and to chill out. There I met my English travel companion Dorian again (that I met in Nha Trang).

The second day, we decided to go for a 2 days-trek.

We were 4 and we decided to follow a very young tour guide. She was around 18 years old and could speak very good English. She said she would show us different villages including hers.

When we woke up the 1 day of the trek, it was already raining quite badly. And it just got worse during the day.
We walked for about 6 hours in the rain, the mud and the cold. It was the worst moment in my life ever. It was so slippery that we all felt down. I felt down so many times that I stopped counting the number of times... I was completely wet, my clothes full of mud. For me, the trek was very tough as I haven't exercise at all for the past 3 months... My feet also hurt me very much. My big toe hit a big stone quite strongly but I only noticed the next day that the nail of the big toe was separated from the toe... it still hurt like hell now.

I cancelled the second day of trekking as I couldn't almost not walk anymore... on top of all of this, there was no more train tickets for Hanoi available so I had to take the night bus. 12 hours of loud music, a big stranger sleeping next to me, with maximum airco, the worst bus trip ever... it was definitely time for me to leave Vietnam and go to Thailand... Unfortunately the last days in Vietnam didn't leave me a good souvenir of the country.

Next stops: Bangkok and Kho Tao, Thailand.