2,5 months away now, Vietnam journey has started!
Door: Jeroen
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Jeroen
30 September 2017 | Vietnam, Sa Pá
Hello my readers! Time for another writing, been too long already!
Last time I wrote I was in Cambodia, still needed to see the fresh water dolphins. Interesting story that is, the story of how Phil came to drive a longtail boat on the Mekong river.
It started by us 2 getting into the boat. I noticed there was a leak in the boat and I assumed that our guide saw that since he was standing near the leak when he got the boat to shore. 20 minutes later he noticed it and we anchored down in the middle of the river where he was fixing it. At this moment Phil was hosing out water and I couldn't do anything but wait. The hole in the boat was fixed for the moment, but soon after it started leaking again. I pointed to the new hole and the driver just tapped on the steering plank (he couldn't speak any English). I thought he indicated that we would stop somewhere again to fix it. A few minutes later, Phil also pointed to the hole and again the driver tapped on the steering plank. This time more insisting and he got up a little. Appearently his idea was that one of us would take over and Phil came on the driver seat. Phil was driving, our guide was fixing the hole and I was hosing out water. Got a nice video of that :) Eventually we came to the fresh water dolphin spot and saw plenty, they looked like down-syndrome versions of regular dolphins haha..
Next day we left Kratie to cross the into Laos, to the island Don Dhet which is part of the 4000 islands. It was the most beautiful place we had been to so far. We had drinks with the people we met on the bus until we were hammered and went to bed. Next day Phil and I rented bicycles and rode through the island to another island that was connected by a bridge. We saw huge rapids and beautiful Island scenery that day. The day ended in drinking again and made us do nothing at all the next day.
On the last full day we went for a kayaking tour. We had to be ready at 8:30 for the tour so we figured we would go get breakfast at 7:30. We got to a Korean joint and ordered sandwiches. We appearently misjudged the time we needed to get breakfast and waited a solid 80minutes for our breakfast.... We were the only ones there!!! I already informed our tour operator that we were going to be half an our late and that was okay. When we got to the starting point of the tour we found out that our tour also included breakfast. ''What about second breakfast''? Second breakfast it was!
The tour started well for the British people that were with us that day, as one of them already fell into the water when he was getting to the kayak. It was really great to kayak on the river going past a whole bunch of islands randomly in the river. We ended up crossing the Cambodian border on the river and made our way back into Laos with a few strokes. A taxi picked us up with our kayaks and we went to see the largest waterfall in the world (horizontally that is, only a 15 meter drop but 1km wide). Afterwards we were dropped off at the mainland to do a last bit of kayaking back to the starting point. It started to rain heavily when we just started our way back and arrived soaking wet. Everything we had with us was put in a plastic bag and we walked towards our hostel in the pooring rain, getting laughed at by locals sitting dry in their stores.
After the 4000 islands we decided to go to Pakse, the southern hub of Laos.
The plan was to stay one night and then go up north. Unfortunatly that did not happen, as Phil fell sick for something like 5 or 6 days. I decided to rent a semi-automatic scooter and see the waterfalls in the area. It was a fun day and there was really good coffee, best I had so far in SE Asia. Ran into a French guy that I met at the 4000 islands and spent the day with him. After a few days I decided to travel ahead and find out what there is to do north of Pakse. I got a local bus to Thakhek, which was one of the worst busses ever since it stopped so many times to pickup and dropoff locals. 300 kms in 9/10 hours....
I arrived during dinner time in Thakhek and befriended a British traveller whom had fallen during the motorbike loop. He gave me some good tips of how to do the motorbike loop there and we spend the next day together to wait. For him it was recovering, for me it was waiting for Phil. Phil arrived the day after and we rented semi automatic scooters from our hostel. The loop started with driving through a valley of black, rocky mountains with shrubbery and trees on them. We entered some beautiful caves that day. After the caves we drove to the first stop. A little town in the middle of an artificial lake created by a dam. We were overlooking the valley as we came towards the town that was in the valley. The lake area looked like marsh, only the water contained dead trees. The dead forest valley was stunning! Ill soon be posting more pictures as well!
After a good night sleep we continued our journey through the mountains. We made one tourist stop that day to see the cool springs. The road was flooded so we ended up driving on the grasslands to get to the spring. There were a few locals around the age of 18 at the spring. They greeted us and the girls giggled and asked if they could take pictures with us, since we were freakishly tall compared to them. I soon found out that the cool spring was not an understatement. After such a long time spending in 30 + degrees weather, 18 degrees water is really really cold. It was nice for a change to feel cold again. While swimming, the girls of the group were sneakily taking pictures of us and filming us. The guys of the group weren't too happy with our presence but didn't really show it too much. The locals gave us a beer and they took more pictures of us. We thanked them in our best Laos and went on the road again, up to our next night.
On the third day we saw the Konglor cave, a 7km long river runs through the cave which we explored with a motorized longtail boat. This was by far the most unstable boat I have ever been in. The cave was not lighted and each of us got a torchlight on our head. It was a breathtaking experience! Somewhere in the middle of the cave the boat hit an underwater rock and we nearly tipped over. It scared the shit out of me! After the cave we drove back to Thakhek and went on a sleeper bus to Vientiane, the capital.
Vientiane was a nice city in my opinion, but there was not much to do. So after one day Phil and I went to Vang Vieng, famous for its river tubing. Unfortunatly, prime time river tubing is over because the goverment shut down nearly every bar on the river because of the many tourists that died on the river. Only two bars remained open on the river. Phil and I went out for drinks the day we arrived and were too hungover the next day to do anything. After that day we just decided to skip the whole tubing thing and continue our journey towards Luang Prabang, the former captital of Laos.
Luang prabang is a sleepy city, a strict curvue at 11 pm leaves you either to go to bed or to the bowling alley. All the tuk tuk drivers start asking you if you want to go to the bowling alley after 21:30. Phil and I met some people in the bus towards the city and hung out with them for our time being in Luang Prabang. We saw the waterfalls together, which were turqoise coloured cause of huge limestone concentrations in the water, which resulted in really beautiful waterfalls and ponds. After a few days we decided it was time to go to the bowling alley. We were driven to the edge of the city in a tuk tuk and got only charged 10000 kip per person (1 euro each) and thus thought this was a bit shady. We expected that the drive back would cost us way more as there would be no other tuk tuk drivers around since it is far away from the city centre.
The bowling alley itself was really ordinary, cheap booze and quite a lot of people bowling. After one game we decided to test our skills at the archery in front of the bowling alley. No safety rules, fuck it, drunk people shooting arrows at targets is a normal thing there! After shooting a couple of times our group decided that it was time to go home. To our suprise, the tuk tuk fare hadn't changed!
Phil and I went back to Vientiane to catch a plane towards Hanoi. We had to reasons for that. The first being that we didn't want to be in a sleeping bus that took 24 hours to get there (we have heard horrible stories about them as well, as they are very uncomfertable), the second being that if you apply for a 3 month visa with land border crossing that you needed to wait 6 working days. A visa on arrivel on an airport is only 2 working days. Stupidly, Phil and I found out that Luang Prabang also had an airport which had the same fare as our flight. We couldn't reroute our flight and thus went back to Vientaine.
Flight went smooth and Phil and I had arrived in Hanoi! Hanoi is THE most hectic city I have ever been in. There are so many scooters and moterbikes and red lights are but a suggestion. Everyone drives everywhere they want to go and traffic is weaving together seemingly chaotic, but smoothly. Everybody honks their horn when crossing an intersection, they do not look around and just trust that others hear them and see them approaching. Crossing a street whilst walking is you say a prayer and just walk in a straight line. Traffic will just go around you if you keep walking.
I didn't really see anything touristy in Hanoi, I bought a motorbike (Honda Win, 100cc) for 250 dollars (hope to resell it for the same price) and searched the city far and wide for any protective gear. I spent 2 days driving around looking for gear and bought some elbow and knee pads, a good lock and some gloves. After a few days spent in Hanoi, Phil Huut (he has joined us since this moment again) and I together with a Swis guy went on our way towards Sapa, a 2 day drive.
The drive itself was not that interesting but it wasn't boring either. We crashed down somewhere in a random village and ate a not so tastefull soup, the same as we had for lunch. There were drunk locals that constantly wanted to shake hands with us, repeating thank you over and over again. Next day we got breakfast and saw that the locals were already drinking some rice liqour, at freaking 9 am! We ordered some food and got the same boring soup again. Some of the already drunk locals already walked up to us and started talking vietnamese, which appearently is a normal thing here as we found out on several occasions.
We arrived at Sa Pa in the evening and I decided to have a quite evening. Next day I went to see a waterfall with an Italian girl I met in Hanoi. The scenery was beautiful as we walked on the mountain through a local village. Next day, Huut Phil and the Swis guy joined us to see more waterfalls. Although not as impressive as the ones in Laos, the ride towards the waterfalls was fun and nice.
The day after, Huut Phil Cristina and I went on a hiking adventure towards one of the local tribes (Hmong) here in Sapa. We went with mama Zu Zu and picked up 3 American girls and together we walked 14 km over the mountaints towards the house of mama Zu Zu. This hike was pretty similar to that of the one I did in Thailand. The roads we walked on were still accesible by motorbike (to my disappointment, but nonetheless the scenery was breathtaking) and we ended up drinking all night. At first, Zu Zu's husband encouraged us to drink ''happy water'' with him during dinner. I think we had 8 shots of this rice liqour durinig dinner. The bottle was empty but 1,5 hours later a second bottle arrrived from the convenience store from the next village. The husband had been drinking with us till a bit after dinner but he soon had enough alcohol and the 7 of us continued drinking. The family went to bed at 10 pm so we turned our music off and spoke more softly. A few minutes later Zu Zu came to us and said to turn on the music and have fun! Quite shocked at first, but soon our party was on again. We all went to bed before midnight since we started to drink early. Some of us woke up more hungover than the other, I was nauseas from the happy wter. But that didn't spoil the day as we hiked some more before going back to Sapa with a taxi.
Now I'm back in Sapa, where I'm spending a day in my private room away from everything else. I think this is the first day that I spent alone since I have been away from home. Quite nice for a change, but I want to hit the road again with Huut and Phil. Hopefully tomorrow we will set off to Ha Giang and do the loop there. The planning after that is to probably travel along the Chinese border towards Ha Long Bay. Maybe I'll try to work there for a hostel to get free stay and meals and spent some time having something to do again.
So these were my travels so far. The shitting gods have been kind to me luckely, and I still hope they will be kind to me on my motorbiking days. No more busses/taxis/tuktuks/trains for the next 3 months! As I said in the previous post, Vietnam is supposed to have good streetfood. I have not found that yet and so far the food has been mediocre. Maybe I have not been to the correct places so far or maybe the food will be better going down south. The area I'm not in also experiences actual season and even has snow in winter, so maybe thats a reason its not so good. I experienced again what it was like to need to wear a hoody, which was quite pleasent.
I thought of learning Vietnamese a bit because I will be here for 3 months. After some googling I decided not to since it is harder to learn than Chinese. I have read that Vietnamese people wont understand you if you use the wrong accent on a letter and that they are not very helpfull if you want to learn their language. People have spent years in Vietnam and still speak like a child. I'll just learn what all the dishes are, so I don't have to eat soup again on our road stops :)
I guess this is it for now, I have been spending a lot of time already writing this and I'm sitting on a wooden chair without back support. I will write some more random/general experiences next time, which is hopefully not a month away from now. Hope you guys liked the post!
Last time I wrote I was in Cambodia, still needed to see the fresh water dolphins. Interesting story that is, the story of how Phil came to drive a longtail boat on the Mekong river.
It started by us 2 getting into the boat. I noticed there was a leak in the boat and I assumed that our guide saw that since he was standing near the leak when he got the boat to shore. 20 minutes later he noticed it and we anchored down in the middle of the river where he was fixing it. At this moment Phil was hosing out water and I couldn't do anything but wait. The hole in the boat was fixed for the moment, but soon after it started leaking again. I pointed to the new hole and the driver just tapped on the steering plank (he couldn't speak any English). I thought he indicated that we would stop somewhere again to fix it. A few minutes later, Phil also pointed to the hole and again the driver tapped on the steering plank. This time more insisting and he got up a little. Appearently his idea was that one of us would take over and Phil came on the driver seat. Phil was driving, our guide was fixing the hole and I was hosing out water. Got a nice video of that :) Eventually we came to the fresh water dolphin spot and saw plenty, they looked like down-syndrome versions of regular dolphins haha..
Next day we left Kratie to cross the into Laos, to the island Don Dhet which is part of the 4000 islands. It was the most beautiful place we had been to so far. We had drinks with the people we met on the bus until we were hammered and went to bed. Next day Phil and I rented bicycles and rode through the island to another island that was connected by a bridge. We saw huge rapids and beautiful Island scenery that day. The day ended in drinking again and made us do nothing at all the next day.
On the last full day we went for a kayaking tour. We had to be ready at 8:30 for the tour so we figured we would go get breakfast at 7:30. We got to a Korean joint and ordered sandwiches. We appearently misjudged the time we needed to get breakfast and waited a solid 80minutes for our breakfast.... We were the only ones there!!! I already informed our tour operator that we were going to be half an our late and that was okay. When we got to the starting point of the tour we found out that our tour also included breakfast. ''What about second breakfast''? Second breakfast it was!
The tour started well for the British people that were with us that day, as one of them already fell into the water when he was getting to the kayak. It was really great to kayak on the river going past a whole bunch of islands randomly in the river. We ended up crossing the Cambodian border on the river and made our way back into Laos with a few strokes. A taxi picked us up with our kayaks and we went to see the largest waterfall in the world (horizontally that is, only a 15 meter drop but 1km wide). Afterwards we were dropped off at the mainland to do a last bit of kayaking back to the starting point. It started to rain heavily when we just started our way back and arrived soaking wet. Everything we had with us was put in a plastic bag and we walked towards our hostel in the pooring rain, getting laughed at by locals sitting dry in their stores.
After the 4000 islands we decided to go to Pakse, the southern hub of Laos.
The plan was to stay one night and then go up north. Unfortunatly that did not happen, as Phil fell sick for something like 5 or 6 days. I decided to rent a semi-automatic scooter and see the waterfalls in the area. It was a fun day and there was really good coffee, best I had so far in SE Asia. Ran into a French guy that I met at the 4000 islands and spent the day with him. After a few days I decided to travel ahead and find out what there is to do north of Pakse. I got a local bus to Thakhek, which was one of the worst busses ever since it stopped so many times to pickup and dropoff locals. 300 kms in 9/10 hours....
I arrived during dinner time in Thakhek and befriended a British traveller whom had fallen during the motorbike loop. He gave me some good tips of how to do the motorbike loop there and we spend the next day together to wait. For him it was recovering, for me it was waiting for Phil. Phil arrived the day after and we rented semi automatic scooters from our hostel. The loop started with driving through a valley of black, rocky mountains with shrubbery and trees on them. We entered some beautiful caves that day. After the caves we drove to the first stop. A little town in the middle of an artificial lake created by a dam. We were overlooking the valley as we came towards the town that was in the valley. The lake area looked like marsh, only the water contained dead trees. The dead forest valley was stunning! Ill soon be posting more pictures as well!
After a good night sleep we continued our journey through the mountains. We made one tourist stop that day to see the cool springs. The road was flooded so we ended up driving on the grasslands to get to the spring. There were a few locals around the age of 18 at the spring. They greeted us and the girls giggled and asked if they could take pictures with us, since we were freakishly tall compared to them. I soon found out that the cool spring was not an understatement. After such a long time spending in 30 + degrees weather, 18 degrees water is really really cold. It was nice for a change to feel cold again. While swimming, the girls of the group were sneakily taking pictures of us and filming us. The guys of the group weren't too happy with our presence but didn't really show it too much. The locals gave us a beer and they took more pictures of us. We thanked them in our best Laos and went on the road again, up to our next night.
On the third day we saw the Konglor cave, a 7km long river runs through the cave which we explored with a motorized longtail boat. This was by far the most unstable boat I have ever been in. The cave was not lighted and each of us got a torchlight on our head. It was a breathtaking experience! Somewhere in the middle of the cave the boat hit an underwater rock and we nearly tipped over. It scared the shit out of me! After the cave we drove back to Thakhek and went on a sleeper bus to Vientiane, the capital.
Vientiane was a nice city in my opinion, but there was not much to do. So after one day Phil and I went to Vang Vieng, famous for its river tubing. Unfortunatly, prime time river tubing is over because the goverment shut down nearly every bar on the river because of the many tourists that died on the river. Only two bars remained open on the river. Phil and I went out for drinks the day we arrived and were too hungover the next day to do anything. After that day we just decided to skip the whole tubing thing and continue our journey towards Luang Prabang, the former captital of Laos.
Luang prabang is a sleepy city, a strict curvue at 11 pm leaves you either to go to bed or to the bowling alley. All the tuk tuk drivers start asking you if you want to go to the bowling alley after 21:30. Phil and I met some people in the bus towards the city and hung out with them for our time being in Luang Prabang. We saw the waterfalls together, which were turqoise coloured cause of huge limestone concentrations in the water, which resulted in really beautiful waterfalls and ponds. After a few days we decided it was time to go to the bowling alley. We were driven to the edge of the city in a tuk tuk and got only charged 10000 kip per person (1 euro each) and thus thought this was a bit shady. We expected that the drive back would cost us way more as there would be no other tuk tuk drivers around since it is far away from the city centre.
The bowling alley itself was really ordinary, cheap booze and quite a lot of people bowling. After one game we decided to test our skills at the archery in front of the bowling alley. No safety rules, fuck it, drunk people shooting arrows at targets is a normal thing there! After shooting a couple of times our group decided that it was time to go home. To our suprise, the tuk tuk fare hadn't changed!
Phil and I went back to Vientiane to catch a plane towards Hanoi. We had to reasons for that. The first being that we didn't want to be in a sleeping bus that took 24 hours to get there (we have heard horrible stories about them as well, as they are very uncomfertable), the second being that if you apply for a 3 month visa with land border crossing that you needed to wait 6 working days. A visa on arrivel on an airport is only 2 working days. Stupidly, Phil and I found out that Luang Prabang also had an airport which had the same fare as our flight. We couldn't reroute our flight and thus went back to Vientaine.
Flight went smooth and Phil and I had arrived in Hanoi! Hanoi is THE most hectic city I have ever been in. There are so many scooters and moterbikes and red lights are but a suggestion. Everyone drives everywhere they want to go and traffic is weaving together seemingly chaotic, but smoothly. Everybody honks their horn when crossing an intersection, they do not look around and just trust that others hear them and see them approaching. Crossing a street whilst walking is you say a prayer and just walk in a straight line. Traffic will just go around you if you keep walking.
I didn't really see anything touristy in Hanoi, I bought a motorbike (Honda Win, 100cc) for 250 dollars (hope to resell it for the same price) and searched the city far and wide for any protective gear. I spent 2 days driving around looking for gear and bought some elbow and knee pads, a good lock and some gloves. After a few days spent in Hanoi, Phil Huut (he has joined us since this moment again) and I together with a Swis guy went on our way towards Sapa, a 2 day drive.
The drive itself was not that interesting but it wasn't boring either. We crashed down somewhere in a random village and ate a not so tastefull soup, the same as we had for lunch. There were drunk locals that constantly wanted to shake hands with us, repeating thank you over and over again. Next day we got breakfast and saw that the locals were already drinking some rice liqour, at freaking 9 am! We ordered some food and got the same boring soup again. Some of the already drunk locals already walked up to us and started talking vietnamese, which appearently is a normal thing here as we found out on several occasions.
We arrived at Sa Pa in the evening and I decided to have a quite evening. Next day I went to see a waterfall with an Italian girl I met in Hanoi. The scenery was beautiful as we walked on the mountain through a local village. Next day, Huut Phil and the Swis guy joined us to see more waterfalls. Although not as impressive as the ones in Laos, the ride towards the waterfalls was fun and nice.
The day after, Huut Phil Cristina and I went on a hiking adventure towards one of the local tribes (Hmong) here in Sapa. We went with mama Zu Zu and picked up 3 American girls and together we walked 14 km over the mountaints towards the house of mama Zu Zu. This hike was pretty similar to that of the one I did in Thailand. The roads we walked on were still accesible by motorbike (to my disappointment, but nonetheless the scenery was breathtaking) and we ended up drinking all night. At first, Zu Zu's husband encouraged us to drink ''happy water'' with him during dinner. I think we had 8 shots of this rice liqour durinig dinner. The bottle was empty but 1,5 hours later a second bottle arrrived from the convenience store from the next village. The husband had been drinking with us till a bit after dinner but he soon had enough alcohol and the 7 of us continued drinking. The family went to bed at 10 pm so we turned our music off and spoke more softly. A few minutes later Zu Zu came to us and said to turn on the music and have fun! Quite shocked at first, but soon our party was on again. We all went to bed before midnight since we started to drink early. Some of us woke up more hungover than the other, I was nauseas from the happy wter. But that didn't spoil the day as we hiked some more before going back to Sapa with a taxi.
Now I'm back in Sapa, where I'm spending a day in my private room away from everything else. I think this is the first day that I spent alone since I have been away from home. Quite nice for a change, but I want to hit the road again with Huut and Phil. Hopefully tomorrow we will set off to Ha Giang and do the loop there. The planning after that is to probably travel along the Chinese border towards Ha Long Bay. Maybe I'll try to work there for a hostel to get free stay and meals and spent some time having something to do again.
So these were my travels so far. The shitting gods have been kind to me luckely, and I still hope they will be kind to me on my motorbiking days. No more busses/taxis/tuktuks/trains for the next 3 months! As I said in the previous post, Vietnam is supposed to have good streetfood. I have not found that yet and so far the food has been mediocre. Maybe I have not been to the correct places so far or maybe the food will be better going down south. The area I'm not in also experiences actual season and even has snow in winter, so maybe thats a reason its not so good. I experienced again what it was like to need to wear a hoody, which was quite pleasent.
I thought of learning Vietnamese a bit because I will be here for 3 months. After some googling I decided not to since it is harder to learn than Chinese. I have read that Vietnamese people wont understand you if you use the wrong accent on a letter and that they are not very helpfull if you want to learn their language. People have spent years in Vietnam and still speak like a child. I'll just learn what all the dishes are, so I don't have to eat soup again on our road stops :)
I guess this is it for now, I have been spending a lot of time already writing this and I'm sitting on a wooden chair without back support. I will write some more random/general experiences next time, which is hopefully not a month away from now. Hope you guys liked the post!
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
