Saturday, November 21, 2009

Vietnam Pictures (Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa)

This has been our favorite leg of the trip thus far. Everything that has not gone our way leading up to to these moments, which tends to happen on trips sometimes whether it's money, food, or transportation issues, it all stopped mattering once we went to Vietnam.


Our favorite part of our trip has been the 3 day, 2 night tour through Halong Bay. The first night we stayed on a junk boat and just relaxed while we sailed over night to Halong Bay to kayak and swim with our cool and very fun tour guide name Canh. While sailing there the first day we stopped at a really interesting floating fishing village with hundreds of people living and working on floating structures. 


A floating school right next to where we stopped and got to walk around on the floating village to look at some fish and mussel farming areas and learn about their culture.


Our junk boat that we slept on the first and second night from which we jumped off and swam from numerous times. We had fresh seafood meals the whole time!

 

Joe and one of the tour guides from Handspan jumping off our junk boat.



Jeff and Jeff, two guys we spent the whole Halong Bay trip with and bunked with on the train to Sapa. Two fun spirited guys, we all had a blast.



All five of us kayaking in a "secret" lagoon!



Canh, the best tour guide at Handspan!! He was a great guide and told us some really funny stories and took us kayaking through a 100+ meter, pitch black cave which we had to use flashlights to navigate through. It was the scariest and most adventurous thing Joe and I have ever done...we thought camping was pretty extreme before this trip.



Joe scavenging for our next meal on our break from kayaking on a private beach ;)

 

We spent the third night at a 5 star resort called Sunrise Resort on Cat Ba Island. It was very nice and we got a great deal with our package through Handspan because it was all inclusive!



On the beach at the resort, we weren't there for five minutes and were already playing in the waves and splashing around like little kids.

 

The waves the following day were a lot larger and dangerous, we attempted swimming in these and were scared away. 



Saying goodbye to the Jeffs as we went our separate ways in Sapa, they were heading for a two night home stay with a family in a tribal village, we were off to Topas Eco Lodge for some relaxation.

 

View of the mountains in the town of Sapa right before our voyage up to Topas Eco Lodge.



Some local village girls I met while walking around taking photos. They all have handmade goods that they tried to sell me and wore the same clothing representing their tribe.



Me clenching onto Joe for dear life on our scary drive on dirt roads up the mountains to Topas Eco Lodge. Picture this: A very bumpy and rocky one lane dirt road, a crazy driver, several mini streams flowing down mountain that we had to cross through, no guard rail, and a couple thousand meters of elevation looking down in to the river basin from the road. I was a tad scared that we were going to go rolling down and was very sweaty by the time we arrived.



Joe outside our bungalow at the Eco Lodge.



The bungalows were eco-friendly hence the name Eco Lodge run on solar operated heat and electricity.



Inside our bungalow, it was so comfy with little slippers for us to wear and a great view out at the mountains!



Joe hanging with the kitty in the lodge where we played many rounds of cards mainly gin and and go fish, and Banana Grams (if you don't know google it because it's the best game ever created) while sipping hot cocoa. It could get pretty chilly up there at times, it gave us a feel for being at home or at the cabin or something.



The cute little puppy who would just roam around and chew on dry leaves all day.



Good view of the rice terraces, it was hard to take a good picture of them with all the fog on the last day.

 

A roaming water buffalo sighting right on our patio of our bungalow. Pretty nice.


Joe getting chased by fruit basket lady in Hanoi. We had realized by this point that they were all involved in a large mafia scam against tourists, but when we first arrived we were basically robbed by them. What they do is come up to you and put the fruit basket holders on both of your shoulders and pin a pointed sun hat on your head (they obviously look for couples because hey, how funny would that be to the other partner!) SO THEN the partner who is not being bombarded by fruit baskets and a hat proceeds to laugh and giggle and whip the camera out like its nobody's business and snap a photo and the same thing is then done to them. Consequently after all the fun and games are over and the laughter subsides, they expect you to pay them for the photo you took on your camera...and they then shove bags of warm cut up fruit in your hands that you did not ask for and expect you to pay them. Then you start feeling resentment of all things and pay them what they want...against your will because they get extremely upset and throw fits if you tell them no. We never let it happen again, but it was a hard lesson to learn. Looking back you can recognize them so easily because they dress similar and all have big baskets of bananas and pineapple waiting to pin their next victims. There are worse crimes in the world I guess...

 

A photo hanging on the wall at Hoa Lo Prison which was run and built by the French and was also where John McCain was held prisoner during the Vietnam war.



Joe in front of a big bolted door at Hoa Lo Prison.



Statue reenactments of prisoners at Hoa Lo. 



A small water drain which prisoners escaped from regularly at Hoa Lo. 



The be-header at Hoa Lo


 

 A couple of cool statues in the park on our last walk around the lake in Hanoi.

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