Vietnam tour 2006. Featuring Sgt. Chu and privates Yaginuma and Tatas. Left ou
r apartment at 3 pm July 20th and got on a local train to Narita airport. Bashed through the barriers at Gunma then bought the cheapest ticket to Terminal 2 saving us ¥2700! had to spend 6 hours in Taiwan 2 of which were spent waiting for our luggage and then finding a place to store it. We took the bus into Taipei then a taxi to the nearest night market which was dissapointing and closing. So we decided to find a place to eat. I was craving duck rice so we shacked up at this local place. We couldn't read the menu so I told the staff to order for us and prayed for the best! 50% of our dishes were edible which was more than I expected. Started drinking with some locals Andy Monkey and his girlfriend and some other dude I forgot his name but they all rocked! We got one of them hammered and then we went karaoke to kill the final 2 hours before our flight to Ha
noi. Good morning Vietnam....Touchdown 10.30am July 21st. Flaged a taxi from the airport which cost us $10 couldnt be bothered to haggle just wanted to get to the hotel and recover from our all nighter. We saw a dead guy on the highway on the way to the hotel, possible victim of a bike crash not surprising as the traffic in Hanoi is nuts. Checked into our hotel then found out there was no rooms so we had to be transferred to a different hotel. Crashed for a couple of hours then headed out to explore the City. Hanoi has a certain buzz to it, its a very mellow city you can get lost for hours in the back streets and then find your self in front of a temple or, in our case a temple in the middle of a lake! Checked out the famous water puppet show which was good but I had two big heads obscure my otherwise perfect view. Decided to wake up around 5am the next day went down to Hoan Giem lake to check out the Tai Chi but it seemed the whole of Hanoi's elderly population decided to turn up for a spot of morning excercise in their pygamas, cool! We booked a day trip to Tam Coc which
was very similar to Pagsanjan falls in the Philippines. its a 3 hour bout ride through some underground caves which were quite spectacular. Tried to row the boat back but found it too difficult as it required some ambidextrous timing which I didnt seem to have.(must have been the snake wine I drank earlier!) Got back to the hotel and booked hiking tour to Sapa close to the border of China. The trip involved two 11hr overnight train rides which was cool cos the bunks were quite comfortable and it meant we didnt have to pay for hotels! Hanoi train station was awesome, straight out of the 50's which was probaly when our train was made. The station building was ablsolutely hectic and unorganised yet we somehow managed to find our carriage. Arrived at our
hotel in the mountains only to be greated by hoards of little Hill tribe children all eager to meet and great us with their textbook English phrases. Had breakfast at the hotel and then we were introduced to our guide Ya. At first glance I thought she was 10 years old! but I later found out she was double that! You will find the Hill tribe people in north Vietnam look very young indeed. started our hike around 11am, we were blessed with glorious weather throughout our adventure and we hiked through some breathtaking scenary. The local vendors were a bit annoying though as they wouldn't take no for an answer and "maybe later" translated into "lemme follow this guy for an hour until he buys something". stopped for lunch at this hill shack on the other side of a river. lunch was cucumber sandwiches and processed cheese served with bananas and tomato slices mmm! continued our journey down a valley and through some rice paddies and after about 5 hours we finally reached our accomodation. We stayed at a small house in the middle of a rice paddy as our original house had been fully booked and we weren't about to share with 18 other hikers. After an ice cold shower I decided to give the Hosts a helping hand in the kitchen. Nothing like cooking dinner on an open fire I tell you. Dinner was a
feast of all kind of Vietnamese delicacies. We then drank rice wine into the night and partied with our new found companions. Private Tatas was the first victim of alcohol abuse and the rice wine rendered him almost unconcious on the way to the toilet he puked up in a chicken coop and astonishingly a dog ate his puke! He spent half the night in that chicken coop.The following morning I got up at the crack of dawn to the sound of cockerals. I was feeling surprisingly fresh, I had only a bit of a hangover from the previous nights antics. Played with the youngest son for about an hour then helped prepare a breakfast of pancakes and banana slices. Said our goodbyes to the host family and then continued our hike. the second leg seemed easier than the first maybe it was cos we had acclimatised ourselves to the intense heat by then. we continued up and down some ravines and across some Indy style rope bridges. We stopped for lunch at
a hill stop by a river. I thought I'd go for a swim and do some recreational diving to impress the locals. after lunch it was just a 1 hour hike to the rendezvous point for our ride back into the city. After hiking for 2 days it only took a 20 minute jeep ride to reach our hotel! We showered, packed our packs and then asked our guide Ya to take us into town for some souvenir shopping said our goodbyes to our guides the proceeded our marathon journey back to Japan which took about 30hrs! Overall Vietnam was a memorable trip with some amazing scenery I loved the people and the foodto the point where my previous repulsion towards Vietnam has all but disappeared. I guess its cos ive become more cultured!
