Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sup sup Sapa
We hadn't seen Max and Viren for about two weeks, and quickly embarked on extended drinking sessions to make up for lost time. At least, that’s we told ourselves.
As it turns out, nights out in Hanoi are a dangerously affordable affair. Our first discovery was happy hour at the hostel, where two-for-one pricing essentially priced each Bierre La Rue at VND10,000 (~AUD$1).
The price of beer fell lower and lower as we walked from our hostel to the Old Quarter's tiny nightclub strip; culminating finally in VND3,000 homebrewed ‘Bia Hoi’ on the streets.
Bia Hoi is a light draught beer that is poured from a metal keg via a cheap-looking rubber hose. All in all, it may not be the most sanitary of gastronomical activities, but the Bia Hoi experience is not one to be missed.
For backpackers in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the most popular Bia Hois are those on the street corner of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen. Foreigners and locals alike sit shoulder-to-shoulder on tiny plastic chairs, crouching over tinier stools on which sticky glasses of beer perch.
During the day, Ta Hien’s Bia Hois host no more than ten people at a time. As night falls and traffic subsides, however, the plastic chairs spill out onto a significant portion of the road. The boundaries that separate neighbouring Bia Hois seem to dissolve, and the street corner is a mess of chatter and spilled alcohol.
After two substantial nights out, we decided to give our livers a break and caught an overnight train to Sapa in search of some fresh mountain air. We booked accommodation and train tickets through the Sapa Rooms Boutique Hotel, a simple yet classy Australian-owned establishment.
Sapa is located about 350 kilometres North-West of Hanoi, near the border between Vietnam and China. The district is dominated by the Hoang Lien Son mountain range and is home to several ethnic minority groups, including the Black H’mong and Red Dzao people.
Tourism in Sapa tends to centre around ethnic minorities, a focus which is disconcertingly apparent at times. Tourists invariably are swarmed by local touts who dress in colourful, traditional garb and hawk overpriced trinkets during the day, and rasp offers of marijuana and heroin at night.
Another of Sapa’s tourist attractions is the scenery. The town sits at an altitude of approximately 1.6 kilometres above sea level, against a mountainous backdrop that is made all the more mystical by a constant fog.
On our second day in Sapa, we were taken on a six-hour-long guided trek through the Hoang Lien Nature Reserve to visit the minority Lao Chai and Tavan villages. We were guided past beautiful terraced rice fields and streams, eventually arriving at a local primary school where we handed out gifts of mandarins.
For a majority of the eight-kilometre trek, our five-person tour group was joined by a persistent group of local touts. I was initially resistant to interact with them for fear of the usual hard sell, but slowly was won over by the helpfulness of one 25-year-old girl who walked beside me, supporting me on slippery ground and offering interesting little tidbits about the local vegetation along the way.
Although I refused to purchase her bags and jewelry, I thanked the girl with a small monetary tip as we neared the end of the trek. Of course, the very act of doing so prompted an instant magnetic reaction that attracted all touts within sight to me, and although most of our initial entourage of touts had dissolved, one followed us a further distance to tell me that it was unfair that she hadn’t been ‘thanked’, adding that Jim was a ‘bad person’ for not buying from her.
The trek concluded with a motorbike ride back to the hotel. It was my first time on a motorbike, and especially after having witnessed Vietnamese road etiquette, I was terrified. Unsure of the customary way of riding behind an unknown motorbike taxi driver and not wanting to seem too familiar, I sat with my hands perched desperately on -- and sweating onto -- my driver’s shoulders.
Despite my fears, it was an exhilarating 30-minute-long ride and I am almost sorry I wasn’t able to muster up the courage for an hour-long motorbike taxi to the hot springs the next day.
We returned to Hanoi on the morning of the 29th, where I was instantly reminded of my loathing for big cities by a price-gouging, route-manipulating taxi driver. How’s that for a 5am wake-up call!
As it turns out, nights out in Hanoi are a dangerously affordable affair. Our first discovery was happy hour at the hostel, where two-for-one pricing essentially priced each Bierre La Rue at VND10,000 (~AUD$1).
The price of beer fell lower and lower as we walked from our hostel to the Old Quarter's tiny nightclub strip; culminating finally in VND3,000 homebrewed ‘Bia Hoi’ on the streets.
Bia Hoi is a light draught beer that is poured from a metal keg via a cheap-looking rubber hose. All in all, it may not be the most sanitary of gastronomical activities, but the Bia Hoi experience is not one to be missed.
For backpackers in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the most popular Bia Hois are those on the street corner of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen. Foreigners and locals alike sit shoulder-to-shoulder on tiny plastic chairs, crouching over tinier stools on which sticky glasses of beer perch.
During the day, Ta Hien’s Bia Hois host no more than ten people at a time. As night falls and traffic subsides, however, the plastic chairs spill out onto a significant portion of the road. The boundaries that separate neighbouring Bia Hois seem to dissolve, and the street corner is a mess of chatter and spilled alcohol.
After two substantial nights out, we decided to give our livers a break and caught an overnight train to Sapa in search of some fresh mountain air. We booked accommodation and train tickets through the Sapa Rooms Boutique Hotel, a simple yet classy Australian-owned establishment.
Sapa is located about 350 kilometres North-West of Hanoi, near the border between Vietnam and China. The district is dominated by the Hoang Lien Son mountain range and is home to several ethnic minority groups, including the Black H’mong and Red Dzao people.
Tourism in Sapa tends to centre around ethnic minorities, a focus which is disconcertingly apparent at times. Tourists invariably are swarmed by local touts who dress in colourful, traditional garb and hawk overpriced trinkets during the day, and rasp offers of marijuana and heroin at night.
Another of Sapa’s tourist attractions is the scenery. The town sits at an altitude of approximately 1.6 kilometres above sea level, against a mountainous backdrop that is made all the more mystical by a constant fog.
On our second day in Sapa, we were taken on a six-hour-long guided trek through the Hoang Lien Nature Reserve to visit the minority Lao Chai and Tavan villages. We were guided past beautiful terraced rice fields and streams, eventually arriving at a local primary school where we handed out gifts of mandarins.
For a majority of the eight-kilometre trek, our five-person tour group was joined by a persistent group of local touts. I was initially resistant to interact with them for fear of the usual hard sell, but slowly was won over by the helpfulness of one 25-year-old girl who walked beside me, supporting me on slippery ground and offering interesting little tidbits about the local vegetation along the way.
Although I refused to purchase her bags and jewelry, I thanked the girl with a small monetary tip as we neared the end of the trek. Of course, the very act of doing so prompted an instant magnetic reaction that attracted all touts within sight to me, and although most of our initial entourage of touts had dissolved, one followed us a further distance to tell me that it was unfair that she hadn’t been ‘thanked’, adding that Jim was a ‘bad person’ for not buying from her.
The trek concluded with a motorbike ride back to the hotel. It was my first time on a motorbike, and especially after having witnessed Vietnamese road etiquette, I was terrified. Unsure of the customary way of riding behind an unknown motorbike taxi driver and not wanting to seem too familiar, I sat with my hands perched desperately on -- and sweating onto -- my driver’s shoulders.
Despite my fears, it was an exhilarating 30-minute-long ride and I am almost sorry I wasn’t able to muster up the courage for an hour-long motorbike taxi to the hot springs the next day.
We returned to Hanoi on the morning of the 29th, where I was instantly reminded of my loathing for big cities by a price-gouging, route-manipulating taxi driver. How’s that for a 5am wake-up call!
Labels: Vietnam
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Arrival in Nam
Jim and I arrived in Hanoi’s Noi Bai airport on Wednesday November 19, after more than 24 hours in transit from Sydney via Singapore. Grumpy and sleep deprived, I had little patience for the queue-cutting antics of a 10-person Korean-speaking tour group and sent them packing to the back of the queue with some very insistent gesturing.
Getting from the airport to the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel was a little more challenging than we’d expected. By the time we reached our hostel from the airport shuttle’s drop-off point, we were sick and tired of being accosted by overeager ‘students’ and an endless stream of motorbike traffic.
Vietnam’s second-largest city, Hanoi is home to some 3.5 million people and is supported by industrial production, trade, tourism and financial industries. In the tourist-centric Old Quarter, sidewalks are lined with vendors so aggressively hawking food, clothing and the like that pedestrians are forced to compete with vehicular traffic on the road.
But crossing and walking on roads in Hanoi is not for the weak of heart. The Western code of traffic lights and lanes seems to have little relevance to the anarchic flow of local motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, and sometimes, it’s all one can do simply to walk steadily forward and hope for the best.
The cacophony of beeping and yelling usually is joined by blaring music and what I assume to be nationalistic propaganda from speaker towers on almost every street corner. I am told that once, on a national holiday, the speakers instructed local touts to support their fellow Vietnamese and save price gouging for tourists.
On our second day in Hanoi, we treated our travel-strained bodies with an exfoliating massage for Jim and a facial and manicure for me at the Spring Fragrance Spa. But no amount of pampering could alleviate the stress of road-crossings, and by the third morning, we were glad for a break from the city via an overnight cruise on Halong Bay.
Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located about 170 kilometres East of Hanoi. Its name translates to ‘Descending Dragon’, which originates from the myth that the area was formed from a mother dragon that was sent by the gods to fend off Chinese invaders.
The bay features almost 2000 limestone islands and is shrouded in a perpetual fog, providing a dramatic backdrop for local fishing settlements and hundreds of tourists cruising the region.
We booked a double cabin on a junk called ‘The Pinta’ through its operator, Columbus Cruise, in Hanoi. While US$97 apiece seemed a hefty fee to pay for our tiny cabin with dysfunctional shutters and a rarely-warm shower, I was much impressed by the professionalism of staff and the incredible eight-course meals that were included in the tour.
And the scenery was amazing. Grey-blue skies melded into grey-blue seas with shadows of islands extending to the horizon. While the tour included activities such as caving and kayaking, some of my best moments in Halong Bay were spent simply gazing off the edge of the Pinta’s sundeck.
Our Halong Bay tour concluded on Saturday. So too, I suspect, did the quiet part of our trip. As we returned to the hostel, we were greeted by the jetlagged -- and drinking -- Max and Viren. And happy hour was only 15 minutes away…
Getting from the airport to the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel was a little more challenging than we’d expected. By the time we reached our hostel from the airport shuttle’s drop-off point, we were sick and tired of being accosted by overeager ‘students’ and an endless stream of motorbike traffic.
Vietnam’s second-largest city, Hanoi is home to some 3.5 million people and is supported by industrial production, trade, tourism and financial industries. In the tourist-centric Old Quarter, sidewalks are lined with vendors so aggressively hawking food, clothing and the like that pedestrians are forced to compete with vehicular traffic on the road.
But crossing and walking on roads in Hanoi is not for the weak of heart. The Western code of traffic lights and lanes seems to have little relevance to the anarchic flow of local motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, and sometimes, it’s all one can do simply to walk steadily forward and hope for the best.
The cacophony of beeping and yelling usually is joined by blaring music and what I assume to be nationalistic propaganda from speaker towers on almost every street corner. I am told that once, on a national holiday, the speakers instructed local touts to support their fellow Vietnamese and save price gouging for tourists.
On our second day in Hanoi, we treated our travel-strained bodies with an exfoliating massage for Jim and a facial and manicure for me at the Spring Fragrance Spa. But no amount of pampering could alleviate the stress of road-crossings, and by the third morning, we were glad for a break from the city via an overnight cruise on Halong Bay.
Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located about 170 kilometres East of Hanoi. Its name translates to ‘Descending Dragon’, which originates from the myth that the area was formed from a mother dragon that was sent by the gods to fend off Chinese invaders.
The bay features almost 2000 limestone islands and is shrouded in a perpetual fog, providing a dramatic backdrop for local fishing settlements and hundreds of tourists cruising the region.
We booked a double cabin on a junk called ‘The Pinta’ through its operator, Columbus Cruise, in Hanoi. While US$97 apiece seemed a hefty fee to pay for our tiny cabin with dysfunctional shutters and a rarely-warm shower, I was much impressed by the professionalism of staff and the incredible eight-course meals that were included in the tour.
And the scenery was amazing. Grey-blue skies melded into grey-blue seas with shadows of islands extending to the horizon. While the tour included activities such as caving and kayaking, some of my best moments in Halong Bay were spent simply gazing off the edge of the Pinta’s sundeck.
Our Halong Bay tour concluded on Saturday. So too, I suspect, did the quiet part of our trip. As we returned to the hostel, we were greeted by the jetlagged -- and drinking -- Max and Viren. And happy hour was only 15 minutes away…
Labels: Vietnam
