From the far » sapa

You weren’t there man

willmorey — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:57:12 +0000

Here in Nam its been pretty crazy. After some lovely trekking up in Sapa we came back to Hanoi briefly and then onto Ha Long Bay. Here we enjoyed a rather luxurious boat trip and saw the beautiful limestone karsts. Over the last few days on both trips we met some amazing people and saw some crazy things.

I have to admit a highlight of the trip was going to monkey island and seeing a rather strange

This is my island and don't you forget it

Russian lady try to pose provocatively with the monkeys. She crawled up to the alpha male monkey and made what I can only describe as bedroom eyes at the monkey while about 20 shocked tourist onlookers were very uncomfortable. She eventually backed off after several warnings from the guide and left the poor monkey alone without doing anything inappropriate. Shortly afterwards another woman ignored the guides advice to keep away from the monkey and was then bitten and scratched by a very angry monkey. The woman was a bit upset and headed off to hospital when we got back. I am sure she was OK and will in future heed the advice of the guide when she is told not to go near the monkeys.

In the evening things turned rather boozy with free rice wine shots and even some shots of the rather lovely local delicacy of snake wine. This is basically a jar of rice wine witha dead snake and the contents of the snakes gall bladder in it. I have to say it was one of the most disgusting things I have ever tried.

Shortly afterwards Jo cut her foot on some glass and luckily a lovely nurse who we met came to the rescue and bandaged it up so all is OK.

Better go as we are now on yet another bus to head down to Hue.

Did A Clary / Honeymoon crashing

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:55:36 +0000

Fortunately last night I got completely hammered. Fortunate because late in the evening I

a) Was given a shot of ‘snake wine’ to drink (read: ‘rotting dead serpent carcass in a jar of alcohol’) – tasted just like a rotting dead serpent in a jar of alcohol. Kinda rusty. You could see the scales floating.

b) Had my ankle lacerated by flying broken glass – bled profusely for about an hour, had some bar woman stick Marlboro Red tobacco on the cut to stem the flow (???!!) and;

c) Danced like a monkey.

Mmmmm... rotting snake wine anyone? Yum yum.

Luckily the obscene quantities of alcohol I had consumed earlier on in the evening did its work and numbed any pain (until this morning that is when my stinging ankle woke me up – thank goodness for Spanish mega mg ibuprofen). Luckily as well that one of our new friends, Jo was a nurse. She got very keen with her bandages and all was well. Have had to have a visit from the black doctor three times already today. Rice wine, beer, long island ice tea and snake wine do not mix well.

View from Monkey Island, Halong Bay

Spent the last few days at Halong Bay, a beautiful area of amazing limestone stacks which we sailed around. Our cabin was absolute luxury – wonderful big power shower, gorgeous white linen, air con, and demi-private balcony out the back of the boat for sunbathing. The seafood was delicious – yummy squid, octopus and fish. Painful karaoke. Even more painful rice wine. Potent as slibovitz.

We previously had a great time in Sapa, especially because we successfully managed to hijack another honeymoon – lovely Katrine and Arnaut the Belgians. All went wonderfully wrong when we got mixed up with Mimi the card shark tour guide who dared us to drink loads of rice wine and then somehow got the Belgians to strip naked and run round the homestay. The best Belgians ever.

Obligatory Cheesy Mountain Views / Us Shot

Onwards now down south on sleeper bus tonight. Edging our way slowly slowly towards Saigon down the coast. Apparently there was a tornado down there on Monday so still trying to get info on all that.

SO hard to write this post. SO a big hangover. SO going to go and have a snoozzzzzzzzze.

Dad, hope you had a really lovely bday. Glad you got the email. So sorry we were unable to call you. No reception in the middle of the sea!! Will try and call you as soon as we can. xxxxx

Dog Head On A Silver Platter

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:55:40 +0000

We finally made it to Sapa, in the glorious mountaineous region in the north of Vietnam near the Chinese border. It was a little bit of a struggle to get here due to a slight mix-up at our hostel last night when two English girls somehow accidentally instead of us got on our tour operator’s bus to the train station. Two and a half hours later, after waiting around at reception and asking where on earth our bus was, we finally figured out what must have happened. Our hostel had to call us a taxi to rush us to the train station. We got on the train and handed our new tickets with seconds to spare before the train pulled away. So much for an organised tour. We splashed out on this so we didn’t have to worry about organising it ourselves, but it’s almost easier when you do it yourself!!

Shared our beautiful cabin (complete with beautiful faux roses, and soft duvet covers) with a lovely Belgian couple on their honeymoon. They are hilarious and we spent the first four hours on board chatting away, which meant in the end we only got about four hours’ sleep. Oops, forgot that you are supposed to sleep on a sleeper. Wonderful moment early this morning when I got up to go down the carriage to the toilet, came back and a Vietnamese woman was being shooed away out of our cabin by the Belgian guy. In my absence she had cheekily sneeked it and laid on my bed to go to sleep!!

Sapa is lovely. Fresh mountain air. Stunning views in every direction. Steep steps of rice fields, lush palms, slooshing streams and tumbling waterfalls. We visited hill tribe villages this morning and now have the afternoon to explore Sapa town itself and enjoy the weekend market. Dog head on a silver tray seems to be in current first place for weird sight of the day… but it may not yet win. They eat some strange things in these parts!!

Scooby Snacks