Northern Vietnam – Sapa

by kitten on August 4, 2011

Hi all,

Finally we get some time to travel and 31 of July landed in Hanoi (Vietnam). Couple of day in Hanoi we spent just walking around old city and because of the rain weather we travel from roof to roof, which was fun. We even visited Water Puppets show, hiding from heavy rain, surprisely for both of us, the show was not so bad.

From Hanoi we took a train to Lao Cai, small town near Chinese border, from there a 45 mins ride by windy roads and we arrived in Sapa – small hill station with scenic mountains are hill tribes villages around.
The minorities people are Hmong and Dzay mostly.

Sapa village

Sapa village

Cool weather with occasional rain, nice food, relaxed atmosphere and funny locals – can`t say that Sapa is the best place on Earth, but definitely worth to visit for couple of days.

North Vietnamese are not so aggressive and greedy like most people describe them. In Hanoi only motorbike taxi were offering their services, but even without enthusiasm. In Sapa minorities people from neighbor villages are selling hard their hand-made souvenirs. But again, if you do not want to buy anything, nobody will make you.

Tomorrow we are planning border crossing to China. Originally the plan was to go from Hekou (border city) to Yaunyang to see rice paddies, but we could not find the latest information about buses, so now we have plan B – ancient city of Jianshui. We will see what happened tomorrow :)

{ 3 comments }

New Photos from Malaysia and Singapore

August 30, 2010

Sorry for being quite for a while. Here is some new photos from Malaysia and Singapore: Adorable Asian Bears, Melaka Zoo Iguana, Melaka Zoo Melaka a famosa, Malacca. Night Melaka Singapore buildings, Singapura Singapore Singapore buildings, Singapura Singapore

Read the full article →

Everything is big about Taman Negara

July 2, 2010

Preparing for trekking in Taman Negara with help of guidebooks, I was smiling reading “everything is big about Taman Negara”. Now, I can trust my guidebook with no doubt: giant trees, mutant bushes, even ant five times bigger that normal one, and there are also living big animals, like bears and elephants. Maybe it was [...]

Read the full article →

Kuala Lumpur – sweet and sour megalopolis

June 25, 2010

We spent about a week in Malaysia Cameron Highlands – cooling and even freezing. Heading to Taman Negara national park we decided to go via Kuala Lumpur, with overnight stop. Seems that this way will be cheaper, the direct minivan from Tanah Rata to Taman Negara cost 85 ringit per person. Ordinary bus from Cameron [...]

Read the full article →

Evergreen jungles, tea plantation and strawberry madness – Cameron Highlands

June 20, 2010

From Georgetown to Tanah Rata (Cameron Highlands) we took a tourist minivan for 38 ringit. Probably we could save some money, if we would took a local transport (from Butterworth to Ipoh and from Ipoh to Tanah Rata), but unfortunately we overslept this opportunity (as far as we know the last bus from Ipoh depart [...]

Read the full article →

George Town – unique place, where you can come back any tme

June 17, 2010

We left our paradise island Ko Phangan early morning and were planning to reach Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. The plan was impossible and good for us, we realized it in Hat Yai, near Malaysian border. Maybe we will go to Penang, for a couple of days? – the idea to have a dinner in indian [...]

Read the full article →

Two days kayak trip in Ko Phangan

June 4, 2010

Living in perfect paradise is great, peaceful and easy. But after two month without any extreme experience we get bored a bit. To full feel our willing of exciting and new experience we took a two days trip along seaside of Ko Phangan island. The idea to make a kayak trip, was born about three [...]

Read the full article →

News from the Jungles

May 22, 2010

Short message for friends how lost us – we are OK. Living in paradise island is something incredible, please forgive us for being quite for a while. Since last post nothing outstanding happened, actually it did, but we are too lazy to write about it. A week ago we made a day trip to Ko [...]

Read the full article →

Living on Ko Phangan, summary of the first month

May 6, 2010

What we have done. So, we had spent on Ko Phangan a month. As I wrote before, we came to the island not for a rest, we had an idea to do some things, here is a result: Dima wrote two application for mobile devices on Android OS. They are ZX Droid – ZX Spectrum [...]

Read the full article →

Weather on schedule

April 29, 2010

April is the hottest and driest month in a year in South East Asia. Hopefully this year we spending it in shady jungles instead of deadly hot Bangkok. But even here we were waiting for a rain. Since middle of the month, heavy and grey clouds started to appear. Every day we were hopping for [...]

Read the full article →

Travelongers from Argentina

April 21, 2010

Few days ago on Mae Haad beach we met a motorcycle travelers from Argentina. We met them a couple month ago in Bangkok. Julian and Lorena with lovely god Trico travel on motocycle (Africa Twin 750 cc) since 2002 non stop. They travel around the world on very small budget and happy to get any [...]

Read the full article →