After returning to Hanoi from Sapa I had 24 hours to spend in the city before leaving for my trip to Halong Bay. So I passed most of the time just wandering around the old quarter of the city and getting my very dirty laundry done.
The trip for Halong Bay departed at 7:30 am and consisted of a 3 hour bus ride out to the boat dock in the bay. Once there we boarded one of thousands of old junks that sail the bay with tourists and departed for karst formations in the bay. After hearing about lots of bad experiences for people going with budget operators on Halong Bay I decided to spend a little more money. As soon as we had left the dock I decided that it was money well spent as the boat was well kept, the guides were great and the food was delicious. Upon boarding the boat we were all greeted with a huge lunch consisting of several courses of different sea food. Delicious.
In the afternoon the boat stopped sailing through the karst limestone formations and stopped at one of the largest caves in the area, along with every other tourist boat it seemed. After a quick walk through of the caves, which I didn't find too spectacular but I think that lots of the stalagmites and stalactites had been broken by tourists so it probably used to be quite something special. The one thing that it did have going for it was that it certainly was a big cave. After walking through the cave the boat sailed to a nearby island with a beach where we spent the next hour swimming in the water and walking up to the top of the island for a nice view of the surrounding area. That night was spent on the boat eating again some great sea food and just relaxing.
The next day we were transferred to a smaller boat to go further out into the bay to do some sea kayaking. This was definitely a highlight of the trip as we were able to paddle around the limestone islands and into areas that the bigger ship couldn't reach. We even paddled into a lagoon that was only accessible at low tide through a cave, at high tide the cave was sealed by water and no one can enter it. The day was passed paddling around the edge of Halong Bay and swimming in the ocean, a great day.
That night was spent on Cat Ba island at one of the nicest resorts on the island. Cat Ba is the only city, other than floating fishing villages, in Halong Bay. It is a nice little place but also very quiet. The final day we had free time to explore the island at our leisure or to just swim in the ocean and lounge on the beach before boarding the ferry that would take us back to mainland and from there a bus to Hanoi.
By the end of the trip I had decided that this was one of the highlights of my trip to Vietnam so far and very glad that I went. The weather was pretty good too, it was slightly misty all of the time but it was warm with no rain and no wind. I consider myself fairly lucky as other people I met were supposed to go at the same time as one of the typhoons passed over so had to cancel their trip.
Again I can't access my photos to upload any for now (see post below).
Monday, October 20, 2008
Problems with Memory Card
Alright so it seems that I might have something wrong with one of my cameras memory cards. When the card is in the camera everything works fine: I can take pictures and see all of the pictures that I've taken to date. However, when I try to plug the memory card into a computer there is a problem with it. I can't open the DCIM folder to access any of the pictures. When I check the properties of the DCIM folder it says it's an application with a .exe instead of a file folder.
So I'm not sure what to do to try and fix the problem as I don't want to lose the photos on it. If anyone has any ideas of how to fix the problem please let me know because until I can fix it then I can't upload any pictures to my blog for the rest of Vietnam (Sapa and Halong Bay).
Until then I'll use my other memory card and continue trying to fix the problem on my own.
So I'm not sure what to do to try and fix the problem as I don't want to lose the photos on it. If anyone has any ideas of how to fix the problem please let me know because until I can fix it then I can't upload any pictures to my blog for the rest of Vietnam (Sapa and Halong Bay).
Until then I'll use my other memory card and continue trying to fix the problem on my own.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Sapa
I only spent one day in Hanoi when I got there and spent most of the time organizing a trip to Halong Bay and Sapa. I planned to stay in the city and explore some of its museums after these trips.
I arrived in Sapa at the nice an early time of 6am after taking the night train from Hanoi to Lao Cai and a minibus up to Sapa. My first thought of Sapa when I got outside of the bus was that it was damn cold. Although it was probably about 10 or 15 degrees outside it felt freezing compared to the rest of Vietnam so when I checked into a hotel the first thing that I did was put on some long pants and a long sleeved shirt.
When I got all settled into my hotel I walked to the front desk to find out what treks I could do around Sapa for that day and they informed me that they had a 15km guided trek to 3 nearby ethnic villages. It sounded pretty good to so I signed up. After boarding the bus to drive to the start of the trek I found out that it was only going to be about a 6km walk along unpaved roads so not as interesting as I had hoped for. The short walk was still fairly good as we did see many ethnic people, mostly H'mong people, but they were all trying to sell pillowcases, wallets and whistles so they got a bit annoying after a while. After the walk through the villages we returned to the hotel where I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing and playing some games with local H'mong girls who were acting as tourist guides.
On the second morning I joined a group of people who were walking down to Cat Cat village, another nearby ethnic village. This walk was fairly short and there weren't too many people out in the village, however, there was a nice set of waterfalls but that was about the only highlight. In the afternoon I climbed up Ham Rong mountain, the short mountain in Sapa. From here there were some nice views of the surrounding mountains and the village of Sapa, as well as some flower gardens that had been planted for the tourists.
When getting back from Ham Rong mountain I bumped into some people that I met in Hoi An and decided to join them for a real trek up Fansipan, the highest mountain in Vietnam. The trek left the next morning and the plan was to hike for about 7 hours to a camp from where we would summit the mountian the next morning and return back to Sapa in the afternoon, in time for me to make the train back to Hanoi.
The climb started out from a high moutain pass (elevation 1700 meters) and from there we spent the morning hiking through the beautiful forest with the sun shining thinking that it was going to be a great trip. However, shortly after lunch when the major elevation gain started the fog started to come in and thus blocked any views that we would have had. The climb itself was also extremely hard as it seemed to only go straight up (very steep and I wouldn't have minded some switchbacks) and while going up we had to climb over some fair size rocks and through lots of mud making everything wet and slippery. All in all it was not an easy climb and to make matters worse it was still fairly warm and very humid so I was always drenched in sweat.
The camp on the mountain was cozy place as there were about 30 people sleeping in it but all that it contained was some bamboo beds and sleeping bags. Needless to say the night was pretty uncomforable and also became quite chilly up on the mountain and I was glad for morning to come. However the food for dinner that the porters brought up was fabulous as there were several dishes of different kinds of meat, tofu, potatoes, rice and vegetables.
The next day found the clouds no thinner so it appeared that we would be summiting and unable to see anything. This proved to be true as about an hour and half after leaving the camp we reached the summit (3143 meters) and couldn't see further than 30 feet. So at least we made it but we couldn't see anything. The rest of the day was spent climbing/sliding back down the mountain in the mist with a short lunch break back at camp. When we reached the bottem I think we were all glad that it was over as this was one of the toughest climbs that I have ever done, I think.
Back in Sapa I had enough time to grab a nice shower before heading back to Lao Cai to catch my night train back to Hanoi.
Unfortuneatly it's taking forever to upload pictures from this computer and I have a bus to catch in 10 mins so I'll hopefully upload the pictures tomorrow.
I arrived in Sapa at the nice an early time of 6am after taking the night train from Hanoi to Lao Cai and a minibus up to Sapa. My first thought of Sapa when I got outside of the bus was that it was damn cold. Although it was probably about 10 or 15 degrees outside it felt freezing compared to the rest of Vietnam so when I checked into a hotel the first thing that I did was put on some long pants and a long sleeved shirt.
When I got all settled into my hotel I walked to the front desk to find out what treks I could do around Sapa for that day and they informed me that they had a 15km guided trek to 3 nearby ethnic villages. It sounded pretty good to so I signed up. After boarding the bus to drive to the start of the trek I found out that it was only going to be about a 6km walk along unpaved roads so not as interesting as I had hoped for. The short walk was still fairly good as we did see many ethnic people, mostly H'mong people, but they were all trying to sell pillowcases, wallets and whistles so they got a bit annoying after a while. After the walk through the villages we returned to the hotel where I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing and playing some games with local H'mong girls who were acting as tourist guides.
On the second morning I joined a group of people who were walking down to Cat Cat village, another nearby ethnic village. This walk was fairly short and there weren't too many people out in the village, however, there was a nice set of waterfalls but that was about the only highlight. In the afternoon I climbed up Ham Rong mountain, the short mountain in Sapa. From here there were some nice views of the surrounding mountains and the village of Sapa, as well as some flower gardens that had been planted for the tourists.
When getting back from Ham Rong mountain I bumped into some people that I met in Hoi An and decided to join them for a real trek up Fansipan, the highest mountain in Vietnam. The trek left the next morning and the plan was to hike for about 7 hours to a camp from where we would summit the mountian the next morning and return back to Sapa in the afternoon, in time for me to make the train back to Hanoi.
The climb started out from a high moutain pass (elevation 1700 meters) and from there we spent the morning hiking through the beautiful forest with the sun shining thinking that it was going to be a great trip. However, shortly after lunch when the major elevation gain started the fog started to come in and thus blocked any views that we would have had. The climb itself was also extremely hard as it seemed to only go straight up (very steep and I wouldn't have minded some switchbacks) and while going up we had to climb over some fair size rocks and through lots of mud making everything wet and slippery. All in all it was not an easy climb and to make matters worse it was still fairly warm and very humid so I was always drenched in sweat.
The camp on the mountain was cozy place as there were about 30 people sleeping in it but all that it contained was some bamboo beds and sleeping bags. Needless to say the night was pretty uncomforable and also became quite chilly up on the mountain and I was glad for morning to come. However the food for dinner that the porters brought up was fabulous as there were several dishes of different kinds of meat, tofu, potatoes, rice and vegetables.
The next day found the clouds no thinner so it appeared that we would be summiting and unable to see anything. This proved to be true as about an hour and half after leaving the camp we reached the summit (3143 meters) and couldn't see further than 30 feet. So at least we made it but we couldn't see anything. The rest of the day was spent climbing/sliding back down the mountain in the mist with a short lunch break back at camp. When we reached the bottem I think we were all glad that it was over as this was one of the toughest climbs that I have ever done, I think.
Back in Sapa I had enough time to grab a nice shower before heading back to Lao Cai to catch my night train back to Hanoi.
Unfortuneatly it's taking forever to upload pictures from this computer and I have a bus to catch in 10 mins so I'll hopefully upload the pictures tomorrow.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Hue
After Hoi An and Danang I made my way up to Hue by taking the train along the coast. The train ride was beautiful as it went over a small pass and the ocean was visible for almost the entire journey.
The city of Hue was once the capital of Vietnam and thus contains a huge citadel in the centre of the city where the emperor used to live. Inside the citadel complex are several different areas including museums, both female and male quarters, and several temples. On the first day I spent over 3 hours there wandering around looking at all of the buildings and I didn't even see everything.
Around the city there are also several pagodas, temples and tombs including The Thien Mu pagoda, the pagoda from which the monk who burned himself to death in protest in Saigon in 1963. For the afternoon and following morning I toured around some of the tombs and pagodas. They are all quite extravagent, although after a while they all seem to look alike so I didn't spend time to visit each one.
The only other attraction around Hue seems to be the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which is just north of the city. I passed on the tour of this as there isn't supposed to be much there to see and the tunnels at Cu Chi are supposed to be far more impressive than the ones here.
My time in Hue was short lived as other than seeing the citadel and all of the temples, tombs and pagodas there didn't seem to be much else to do. Therefore after only 2 days I decided to head up to Hanoi and plan trips to Sapa and Halong Bay.
Buildings within the citadel
Pheonix and dragon statues within the citadel
A lake in the complex of the tomb of Tu Duc
A building in the tomb of Tu Duc (I think it was in this tomb)
The city of Hue was once the capital of Vietnam and thus contains a huge citadel in the centre of the city where the emperor used to live. Inside the citadel complex are several different areas including museums, both female and male quarters, and several temples. On the first day I spent over 3 hours there wandering around looking at all of the buildings and I didn't even see everything.
Around the city there are also several pagodas, temples and tombs including The Thien Mu pagoda, the pagoda from which the monk who burned himself to death in protest in Saigon in 1963. For the afternoon and following morning I toured around some of the tombs and pagodas. They are all quite extravagent, although after a while they all seem to look alike so I didn't spend time to visit each one.
The only other attraction around Hue seems to be the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which is just north of the city. I passed on the tour of this as there isn't supposed to be much there to see and the tunnels at Cu Chi are supposed to be far more impressive than the ones here.
My time in Hue was short lived as other than seeing the citadel and all of the temples, tombs and pagodas there didn't seem to be much else to do. Therefore after only 2 days I decided to head up to Hanoi and plan trips to Sapa and Halong Bay.
Buildings within the citadel
Pheonix and dragon statues within the citadel
A lake in the complex of the tomb of Tu Duc
A building in the tomb of Tu Duc (I think it was in this tomb)
Pictures of Hoi An
Marble mountains seen from a distance
Looking from one mountain to another
Cham ruins at My Son.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Hoi An
The overnight bus to Hoi An seemed like a good idea; however, this had to be one of the most uncomfortable ways to sleep/travel. The bed I was assigned wasn't even close to being long enough for me but thankfully there was one empty long bed left so I got to take that, but even then sleeping on a bus that was driving on a twisting road and constantly honking its horn gave way to very little sleep.
Once I arrived in Hoi An though I wandered around the old part of town, a very section of shopfronts and no motorized vehicles on the roads which was a very nice change. The town of Hoi An is famous for its tailoring stores and for any person who loves clothes this place would be a dream. There are so many tailor stores in the old part of town that it's hard to find anything else other than the odd restaurant. The first day was spent just wandering around the old town and going into some of the historical buildings.
Outside of Hoi An there are a few sites that are located within 15km of the town according to the guide book so I planned on renting a bicycle to visit a few of them. When I asked the hotel reception how to get to these places on bike they looked at me like I was crazy and informed me that it was more like 25km to the nearest one, I still didn't think that was too bad so I went ahead with my plans and rode out of town towards the Marble Mountains and China Beach. The cycle trip was fairly pleasent riding through the country and after a while I started to actually feel like a celebrity as every kid that I passed felt the need to say hello to me, and judging by the number of kids that I saw I think that I must have ridden by a couple of schools. The Marble Mountains were fairly spectacular, there were about 5 of these "mountains" jutting up from completely flat plains and aside from these mountains there wasn't any topography anywhere nearby. On top of the largest mountain was a few pagodas and some nice viewpoints so I made the trek up it. Just as I was leaving it started to rain, the effects of the typhoon, so I decided to head back to Hoi An and pass on the beach. During the ride back the rain became quite heavy and needless to say I got soaked, even wearing my raincoat.
The next day the rains continued so the day was spent relaxing around Hoi An and not getting up to very much in terms of tourist activities.
About an hour bus ride from Hoi An is a famous site of Cham ruins called My Son (pronounced Me Son) and on my last day I arranged a tour out to them. The site is a world heritage site and very extensive, there are 7 seperate sites where temples were built (all within a couple hundred meters of one another). The entire site itself had been built over a span of 11 centuries, as a comparison Angkor Wat in Cambodia was constructed in 3 or 4 centuries. However, due to wars only 1 of the sites at My Son remains in decent condition with most of the others only some walls or foundations still exist. The site though is still impressive and set in some beautiful hills (My Son means beautiful hill) and is definately worth the visit.
After Hoi An I took a bus to Danang where I was to spend a day before taking the train to Hue. In Danang there is a well done Cham museum that contains loads of artifacts. The artifacts are mostly parts of temples from around Vietnam that had been partially destroyed. The museum was well set up and there were lots of signs in english explaining the different figures seen, so it was well worth the morning walk through before my train to Hue.
The computer I'm on doesn't have an accessible USB port so I'll upload the pictures for this post the next chance that I get.
Once I arrived in Hoi An though I wandered around the old part of town, a very section of shopfronts and no motorized vehicles on the roads which was a very nice change. The town of Hoi An is famous for its tailoring stores and for any person who loves clothes this place would be a dream. There are so many tailor stores in the old part of town that it's hard to find anything else other than the odd restaurant. The first day was spent just wandering around the old town and going into some of the historical buildings.
Outside of Hoi An there are a few sites that are located within 15km of the town according to the guide book so I planned on renting a bicycle to visit a few of them. When I asked the hotel reception how to get to these places on bike they looked at me like I was crazy and informed me that it was more like 25km to the nearest one, I still didn't think that was too bad so I went ahead with my plans and rode out of town towards the Marble Mountains and China Beach. The cycle trip was fairly pleasent riding through the country and after a while I started to actually feel like a celebrity as every kid that I passed felt the need to say hello to me, and judging by the number of kids that I saw I think that I must have ridden by a couple of schools. The Marble Mountains were fairly spectacular, there were about 5 of these "mountains" jutting up from completely flat plains and aside from these mountains there wasn't any topography anywhere nearby. On top of the largest mountain was a few pagodas and some nice viewpoints so I made the trek up it. Just as I was leaving it started to rain, the effects of the typhoon, so I decided to head back to Hoi An and pass on the beach. During the ride back the rain became quite heavy and needless to say I got soaked, even wearing my raincoat.
The next day the rains continued so the day was spent relaxing around Hoi An and not getting up to very much in terms of tourist activities.
About an hour bus ride from Hoi An is a famous site of Cham ruins called My Son (pronounced Me Son) and on my last day I arranged a tour out to them. The site is a world heritage site and very extensive, there are 7 seperate sites where temples were built (all within a couple hundred meters of one another). The entire site itself had been built over a span of 11 centuries, as a comparison Angkor Wat in Cambodia was constructed in 3 or 4 centuries. However, due to wars only 1 of the sites at My Son remains in decent condition with most of the others only some walls or foundations still exist. The site though is still impressive and set in some beautiful hills (My Son means beautiful hill) and is definately worth the visit.
After Hoi An I took a bus to Danang where I was to spend a day before taking the train to Hue. In Danang there is a well done Cham museum that contains loads of artifacts. The artifacts are mostly parts of temples from around Vietnam that had been partially destroyed. The museum was well set up and there were lots of signs in english explaining the different figures seen, so it was well worth the morning walk through before my train to Hue.
The computer I'm on doesn't have an accessible USB port so I'll upload the pictures for this post the next chance that I get.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Nha Trang
The journey to Nha Trang started at 7:30 in the morning and since it was less than 500km separating the two cities I thought the bus should get there around 1pm. Needless to say I was wrong. The trip took almost 10 hours as I didn't arrive until 5pm so in hind sight I should have taken the overnight bus or train to save myself a day in vietnam. Once in Nha Trang though I met up with a couple of Aussie's and the first thing that we did was book a diving trip for the following morning.
I personnally didn't think that the diving was the best here in Nha Trang, which is supposed to be the spot in Vietnam, but it was beautiful out on the boat and around the island. Underwater there was nothing very exciting: a some coral, very few fish (I thought), and about the only interesting thing that we saw was some eels. The Aussie's I was with had dove in Thailand and said that it was much much better there so I'm hoping for that.
That evening the Aussie's, an American couple that we met while diving and myself went to checkout the nightlife. One of the dive masters told us which bars to go to but when we got there they were all pretty quiet and they didn't pick up for the rest of the night, and we all thought that Nha Trang was supposed to have great nightlife, o well I guess it is the quiet season in terms of tourists.
Next day we rented motorbikes to drive around the city and visit some Cham towers. The Cham people are an ethnic group in Southeast Asia that built several religious sites from the 3rd-14th centuries. Cham people still exist but their numbers are low and the ones in Vietnam live mostly in the Mekong Delta region. The Cham towers that we visited were very well preserved but the guide that we got for them gave contradicting information to what the American couple had heard so we weren't sure what to believe. While at the towers our guide told us about some waterfalls only 10 km away so we decided to head over to them. Quite a while later and asking several locals we found the Baho waterfalls, they were 25km down the highway and then 3km along a dirt road. we spent most of the afternoon swimming in the water and climbing up to all three sets of waterfalls.
My final day spent in Nha Trang was mostly spent relaxing on the beach and in the backpackers district just waiting for my overnight bus to Hoi An to depart.
View from my hotel room of Nha Trang, the ocean and distant mountains
Cham Towers
Pete sitting in Baho waterfalls
Beach in Nha Trang
I personnally didn't think that the diving was the best here in Nha Trang, which is supposed to be the spot in Vietnam, but it was beautiful out on the boat and around the island. Underwater there was nothing very exciting: a some coral, very few fish (I thought), and about the only interesting thing that we saw was some eels. The Aussie's I was with had dove in Thailand and said that it was much much better there so I'm hoping for that.
That evening the Aussie's, an American couple that we met while diving and myself went to checkout the nightlife. One of the dive masters told us which bars to go to but when we got there they were all pretty quiet and they didn't pick up for the rest of the night, and we all thought that Nha Trang was supposed to have great nightlife, o well I guess it is the quiet season in terms of tourists.
Next day we rented motorbikes to drive around the city and visit some Cham towers. The Cham people are an ethnic group in Southeast Asia that built several religious sites from the 3rd-14th centuries. Cham people still exist but their numbers are low and the ones in Vietnam live mostly in the Mekong Delta region. The Cham towers that we visited were very well preserved but the guide that we got for them gave contradicting information to what the American couple had heard so we weren't sure what to believe. While at the towers our guide told us about some waterfalls only 10 km away so we decided to head over to them. Quite a while later and asking several locals we found the Baho waterfalls, they were 25km down the highway and then 3km along a dirt road. we spent most of the afternoon swimming in the water and climbing up to all three sets of waterfalls.
My final day spent in Nha Trang was mostly spent relaxing on the beach and in the backpackers district just waiting for my overnight bus to Hoi An to depart.
View from my hotel room of Nha Trang, the ocean and distant mountains
Cham Towers
Pete sitting in Baho waterfalls
Beach in Nha Trang
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