Zelma’s Trip

There’s not a huge amount to say about Tuesday really – just that I spent another day enjoying the old qaurter of Hanoi, eating and pottering.  In the evening I went to Mau’s bar with Olly and met up with Alex and a few other people from his hostel prior to his returning home to Germany.

The following day I was slightly more productive and sorted my visa for Laos out and also booked my train ticket to Sa Pa, a small town in the North Highland region of Vietnam from where it is possible to visit the “ethnic minority” villages.  I’m still really uncomfortable with that as a term but no-one here seems to find it offensive! 

The train journey to Sa Pa was more comfortable than my previous sleeper train.  This time there were only four bunks and two of them were occupied by two friendly English girls.  I still struggled to sleep though which was a bit of a pain, even without a Vietnamese man grabbing my feet to offer me hard-boiled eggs.

When we arrived in Lao Cai on the train I got a shared mini-bus to Sa Pa.  It quickly became apparent that the reputation Sa Pa and the surrounding area has for its spectacular scenery was well and truly justified.  When I arrived in Sa Pa I looked at three hotels.  Although the first was lovely and had a view over Mount Fansipang (I think that’s right I spent so long calling it fancy pants that I may have bastardised that somewhat) I felt obliged to sum up the competition.  When I returned to the initial hotel the room I had been shown was taken and the one next door had a terrace if you looked down and out of the window.  It transpired that this was very handy as I managed to get the room for under $5 which was a feat considering it had two big beds, was lovely and had a gorgeous view.  I had a bit of a nap, went for a wander and bumped into Vaughan, one of Olly’s housemate’s friends.  We decided to take two Xe Oms to a local waterfall which was truly stunning.  After looking round the waterfall we found that the road was closed on the way to Tramton Pass, apparently the highest road pass in Vietnam.  Oh, I meant to say that Mount Fansipang (which I could see from my hotel bedroom) is the highest mountain in Vietnam but I got a bit carried away with it being Fancy Pants again.  Can you see how traveling has matured me?  God, what’s with all these asides today?  Right, so the road was closed and we went through this whole rigmarole with the drivers who wanted more money if they were going to have to wait for the road to be cleared of boulders before taking us to the next destination.  Having been told it would be around an hour and re-negotiating a price, the road mysteriously opened again.  Typical!  It was worth going to the pass as the views were truly spectacular, if slightly misty in places.

That evening we returned to Sa Pa and went to our respective hotel rooms to clean up.  When I got back I was handed a candle which I presumed meant that there was no electricity.  I realised when I got back to the room that I had nowhere to put the damn candle and had to make a strange improvised candlestick using a vase and various other implements.  I then had a shower by candle-light which was both serene and surreal at the same time.  There were also some very odd naked lady soft core porn tiles in my bathroom which added to the oddity.  Another missed photo opportunity I’m afraid.  The tiles I mean, not me in a candlelit shower, I’ve had enough comments about the website title already without needing pictures like that!

I then met up with Vaughan again, went and got some food and went for some drinks.  We went to a bar in Sa Pa with locals including the Vietnamese minority women, one of whom turned out to be a crazily good pool shark, infact she was one of the best players I have ever encountered.  There was
also a group of other local women sitting round a table playing cards for money at great pace.  It was very strange to see the almost juxtoposition of cultures and these sweet little Vietnamese women in beautiful traditional dress engaging in very Western games.

The local Vietnamese women were hilarious actually.  A lot of them now sell crafts to the tourists and have an excellent command of the English language.  One of them asked if Vaughan and I were boyfriend and girlfriend, when he replied that we were just friends she said, “Now friends, tonight girlfriend and boyfriend”, which was relatively amusing.  Vaughan also seemed to get some comedy attention for his long hair (it’s shoulder length).  He recounted a story to me from his guesthouse when he gave them his passport.  Apparently the proprietor asked if it was him in the picture, was shocked and said something like, “but you look very handsome there”, – he had short hair in his passport photo.

Actually the Vietnamese are a very blunt Nation in general, this is not reserved to the tribal “ethnic minority people” (euuck!).  Olly often reports back having taught his classes of adult Vietnamese learning English.  In one class they were discussing crime and one of the female class members said, “One of my friends is in prison”.  When Olly asked why she initially stated that he took some money over the border.  Olly quizzed her further thinking that this was a harsh punishment not befitting the crime and she replied that, “it was quite a lot of money and …… he was a gangster.” which seemed to make it somewhat clearer.  Another of his female students had some time off as she was having an operation on her eyes.  Infront of the class Olly welcomed her back and asked how the operation had gone.  He was somewhat shocked when she replied that it was, “terrible” upon asking why he received the reply, “now I can see how ugly everyone in the classs is!”

 Anyway, I think that may have been another of my digressions.  Back to Sa Pa…..  So the next morning I woke up, met Vaughan and we went and got some breakfast.  We decided to go on a walk to one of the local villages (although we kind of went the wrong way and didn’t see the village).  On the way back the route was all uphill and I was feeling a bit rubbish so we got two mad xe oms back.  En route we passed a man on a motorbike with a snake tied to a stick still alive (the snake not the man although he was too of course) which was relatively amusing and also slightly worrying as we got quite close.

The minibus trip back to the station that night was amazing.  The mountains were all misty and mystical and I was listening to my Ipod.  It doesn’t get much better then Cafe del Mar in misty mountains in Vietnam with your head out the window breathing in the fresh moist air.  Did that
sound pretentious?  Actually I don’t really care if it did.  If it’s any consolation I came back from Sa Pa with a stinking cold which is yet to go!

 The train ride home was again fine although I don’t know what it is with people on trains and my feet.  An Australian guy got up half-way through the night and managed to use my foot to lower himself down to the floor!  I won’t complain too much though as he and his wife were lovely, I talked to them for some time and also as I can’t remember either of their names!

I got back to Hanoi at 5AM in the morning.  Olly had booked a tour to Halong Bay with the bus leaving at 8AM.  After numerous attempts and sitting outside his house in the street for three hours, he eventually emerged very apologetic.  I won’t elaborate on this here as I was slightly frustrated to say the least and am not sure that you would all appreciate the expletives!