26 September in Hanoi

This morning we had breakfast at the hotel. I must say the breakfasts have been well catered. There is always bacon and eggs and little sausages as well as vegetables with chicken and other stir fries plus fruit. But this hotel excelled itself and provided French pastries.

As we were walking to catch a bus for our city tour, we passed a CD shop with all the knock-off CDs and Like a Virgin was blasting out of the speakers. Our guide started to dance and sang “Like a surgeon” and said “that's a good song!!!”

Our first point of call was the Hanoi Hilton, the jail built by the French who colonised Vietnam in 1868. This was to impose French law on the locals. At the time of rebellion against the French there were many prisoners executed in this jail and torture implements abound in the displays. The French left Vietnam in 1954 although they had virtually left during WW2 but returned after to try to get established again. It got very complicated as the French collaborated with the Japanese against Ho Chi Minh. By this time Ho Chi Minh was well established and had many followers. The prison was then used to punish dissidents as HCM had declared the north an independent state which was not appreciated by those in the south. In 1964 America bombed Hanoi and so began the war between communism and capitalism under the pretext of sorting out a diplomatic incident.

There were many B52s shot down and then the prison was used to house the American pilots in apparently better conditions than previous prisoners had suffered hence the name the “Hanoi Hilton”. HCM died in 1967 after the Tet Offensive but the war continued until 1975. Of course, the most famous of the prisoners held here was John McCain. There is a photo of him being pulled from the lake after his plane crashed and another of him with his arm in a sling getting medical attention and looking quite jaded.

I was intrigued by the list of Cause of Death of prisoners in the jail. One was listed as “right groin deterioration” - I immediately thought of Harry Kewell who has survived this affliction many times LOL.

Our next stop was the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum but we didn't see him as he was in Russia having a face lift which apparently happens for 3 months every year. We went into the complex and saw the Presidential Palace from where HCM directed the war effort, the building now being used for hosting international visitors. In the same area are two houses where Ho lived, one of which is a stilt house built in a dark wood with shutters – a very comfortable if small house. A small pagoda called the One Pillar Pagoda was in use by locals praying with their incense sticks. This was a much larger structure built in the year 1000 but it was blown up by the French as a parting gesture and reconstructed.

Next we went to the Temple of Literature which is where there is a temple to Confucius and evidence of the emphasis put on being scholars and on order in society. There is a very complicated history involving emperors and their mandarin followers and adherence to Confucianism which lays down rules for the status quo to remain – organising the state and the roles played by people at all levels.

Over the road from the Confucius temple is KOTO, a restaurant school set up by an Australian/Vietnamese called Jimmy Pham. The students all come from impoverished backgrounds and according to Cuong once they graduate they get jobs in 4 and 5 star hotels. There is a plaque on the wall to commemorate a visit by PM Julia Gillard in 2010. I saw a documentary about this place on TV a few years ago so am pleased I saw it. They also serve excellent tucker and Meryl had a mint and pineapple smoothie which was excellent by all accounts. KOTO is an acronym meaning, "know one teach one".


In the afternoon, after packing, we went to the Post Office for Meryl to post a parcel and then on to the Illy Cafe where fair dinkum coffee is served and from where we could watch the huge roundabout below with its traffic chaos.


So we survived the hoi polloi of Hanoi.

That night we boarded another overnight train bound for Hue over 600kms south. Justin tried one of the duck eggs with a baby duck inside. He obviously had trouble swallowing. We heard him say to Cuong: "I was expecting a baby duckling but if I'd eaten the legs I would have spewed - that was a bit wrong". Of course we all enjoyed his discomfort and happily he lived to tell the tale.

25 September in Hanoi

The train got in at 5am and we negotiated with a taxi driver to get back to the Bro & Sis Hotel. Once there we sat on the step eating grapes surrounded by a strong whiff of drains. The lobby of the hotel was filled with scooters and there were two staff members sleeping on the floor.

We had to wait until 10am to check in at the new hotel, the Hong Ngoc Hotel in the Old Quarter, so we walked to the lake and booked tickets for the Water Puppet show. We spent some time around the lake where lots of people exercise, and walk dogs and just sit and eat ice-creams. But today there were newly weds everywhere having photos taken. There were also children having a drawing class probably to keep them out of their parents' hair.


In the evening we met our Gecko tour group and leader, Cuong, and then we went out for a meal together. We were asked how adventurous we were in terms of food: snake and rat being mentioned. He then explained that during 1975 and 1985, they were starving in Vietnam so had to work out what they could eat which is when rats turned up on menus.

The strangest thing seen so far on a scooter was at least 6 pig carcasses thrown across the saddle with the legs sticking out on either side.

I also love seeing the girls sitting side-saddle on scooters and also wearing high stilettos while driving – sometimes putting both feet down stilettos and all, as they prepare to stop.

24 September Sapa to Hanoi

This morning after a special buffet breakfast including a chef cooking eggs and crepes, we met with Hong and walked up a series of steps through market stalls all set up for cooking breakfast for locals and then through a lush and very wet jungle. The cloud was hanging low so we felt very wet. We climbed up to a look out called Cloud Yard and then walked further uwards to what is called Heaven's Gates. The view was restricted again by cloud mist. The steps were made of limestone cut from the karst rocks standing mysteriously amongst the jungle. It was very slippery underfoot so we were pleased that we didn't slip over.


The breakfast stalls had a variety of kebabs and a charcoal fire ready to grill a customer's choice. I saw tiny chickens threaded on skewers and quails as well as pork wrapped around leaves and too many more to mention. Also on this hill there were lots of herbal medecine stalls with very weird mixtures in plastic bags and bottles. Some bags had sea horses, star fish and flattened dried geckoes mixed with barks and leaves. Bottles with scorpions, cobras, geckoes, etc preserved in liquid. We also saw dried porcupine stomachs which were good for the heart and dried penises which were good for something else which I can't remember. Etc, etc, etc

About 2 pm we hopped on a bus and we were driven back down the mountain to a market near to the Chinese border and then we went along to have a look at the Chinese border where there was a steady trickle of people dragging barrows of all shapes and sizes full of loot to sell on market stalls. The strangest thing we saw in this market was silkworm larvae and larvae of another grub.

In Sapa we stayed in the Holiday Hotel and ate some meals in the Mountain View Hotel. The best dish we had in Sapa was wild pig sizzling on a hot plate.


Back to the train but not before we had another amazing meal in a restaurant close to the train station. The same two girls we travelled with to Sapa shared our sleeper cabin again so we did some comparisons of the tours we had been on. They did a homestay which they found to be a bit of a trial mainly the walking down very steep and slippery roads to the valley.

23 September Sapa

Five am found us sitting sleepily on the bottom bunks drinking Vietnamese tea and waiting for the train to stop at Lao Cai. From here we caught a bus to Sapa arriving at about 7am. An English breakfast at the Mountain View Hotel went down well. There was no mountain view as we had our heads well and truly in the clouds. It was a case of baptism by fire as we were immediately accosted by H'Moung women trying to sell us their crafts. "Hello, where are you from? what's your name? you buy from me?" with a distinctive upwards intonation on the "me". Then "You buy from me too?!!"

Our guide, Hong, took us to a Red Zhao village in the valley below the town. When we got down into the valley we saw some of the rice terraces which cover the mountain sides. We arrived at the village in a small bus and were met by a "delegation" of women, all out to sell their craft wares. They do very fine embroidery and were selling mostly bags and cushion covers but also some handmade blankets. The conversation followed exactly the same pattern as we had already experienced in Sapa. We walked through the village to view a typical Red Zhao house with all the women in tow very optomistically expecting to get a sale if they persisted long enough. The house was made of wood and had two levels. The floor was rammed earth and the fire was set in some stones close to the entrance. The shrine for worshipping ancestors was close by the fire and there was a huge wok on a fire base, for cooking the pigs' porridge from the rice husks and other farm waste. Sleeping platforms were around behind a wall. Out one side of the house, the man of the house was husking rice in a generator driven machine. The garden was very lush - choko, turmeric, galangal ginger, pumpkins, cabbages, etc.



Sapa is 1600m above sea level and in autumn is often covered in mist. All around is lush jungle and extremely steep slopes. The town itself was built by the French as a hill station for a break from the summer heat. Tourists started going to Sapa in 1937 and there is a Catholic church there built in 1925. Apparently 50% of the Black H'Moung people are catholic.


Back to Sapa for lunch in a restaurant called Gerbera. We had sizzling venison and pork sweet and sour as well as vegetables and I can't remember what else. Very delicious.

Next, we were back in the bus and were taken on a very bad road to a Black H'Moung village. Again, a fairly long walk to the village where we had a look in at the kindergarten and primary school and then went to a house where indigo dyeing of the hemp cloth was done in two huge vats. There was also a loom with hemp being woven andd displays of wax resist batik decorated cloth which is the specialty of the Black H'Moung. Again we had our entourage of women clucking along, hoping to make a sale. This walk was about 2 hours and passed through rice paddies. Mist covered the mountains but we could still see the shapes of trees on the hills behind. There was a small field of sticky rice ready for harvest, which was tied up so that it wouldn't droop in the wet soil. This village used water powered rice huskers. The water flowed into a large spoon shape made in bamboo. When this was full it weighed down and emptied which sent the hammer pole down to strike the rice in a large wooden bowl.

All around the district the women who sell crafts wind hemp strips around their hands as they walk. They seem to have a good time in each others company and are experts at the sad face when it comes to negotiation.