Sapa, Halong Bay and Others

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!

We are now near the center of Vietnam in a small town called Hoi An. This town is famous for its old French town and endless tailors and shoe makers!

We arrived here on the 22 of December and have spent our time just roaming and exploring.

But before I go into detail about our CRAZY Vietnam adventures we just want to say MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! We are far from friends and family this year, and you are all in our thoughts! We will spent this Christmas nor in snow in Canada, nor on the beach in Jeju, but we will be thinking of all of you during these festive times! We miss you all, especially during the holiday time, but we are enjoying our travels together...so many adventures! We hope everyone has the most wonderful holidays with friends and family!

Now if you have the time to read some more about our adventures, and if you want a little laugh, please keep reading. If not, save the rest of this message for a lazy holiday morning while sitting infront of the Christmas tree. Lots of love! Karina and Christian

Ok, now where do I even begin?

Our travels through China was full of experiences- learning how to make yourself understood through sign language, trying to organize traval plans on buses (urgg) and trains (ohhhhh), adjusting to the bitter cold (I'm such a wimpy Canadian!), avoiding buses, cars, taxis, BIKES galore, and hiking the Great Wall!

And Vietnam has been just as eventful! Hanoi was busy and loud and bustling...no matter what time of the day. We woke up every morning at 5am to the constant honking of horns. Serioulsy, they honk ALL THE TIME to let everyone know I"M COMING THROUH!!! So driving into oncoming traffic is a daily occasion. I try not to look out the front window when in a bus now, I think it'll give me a heart attack! Most of the roads here are pretty narrow, so two buses on a road is a tight squeeze!

Anyways, from Hanoi we took a trip to Sapa in the Norhtern hills. Our tour started with an overnight ride. Now we have traveled in trains before, but this was live heaven! With our tour we got first class...I felt so pampered! really I was just excited that our cabin had only 2 bunks, and a nice lamp for ambience!!! Such simple things! Christian and I celebrated by having a glass of wine and some cheese. Sounds classy! However, you would all love our wine glasses...genuine fine plastic made from a sawed in half water bottle! Primo!!! Considering the bumpy ride, we slept ok.

We arrived in Sapa, the not-so traditional town to find ourselves surrounded by mist, and a whole ton on hotels, restaurants, and tourist shops! Not exactly hill-tribe, but that development for you! Everyone is trying to make money on tourism, so many ethnic people travel from their villages to sell their crafts in Sapa to the tourists. They can make more money doing that than farming their land. Tourism will bring money into the area, but will also destroy everything. I found it difficult to see. They used to be completely self-sufficient, but with the money they make they are buying modern clothes, tv's with satelite, motorcycles.. there is a real change. It was definitely interesting. The first day we visited Cat Cat village, a 10 minute walk from Sapa. They live on the hillside, surrounded by rice paddies. Steps ran all the way down the hill. Along the way we saw families soaking their tissues in wooden barrels of water and indigo plants to dye their hemp material. The women of this tribe, the Black Hmong, have blue hands because of the dye they use. Even the young girls had blue hands. We were all bundled up in warm clothing because it was cool and damp, but the children were running around with only a sweather and silver necklace to protect them. The necklace is given to them by a Shaman and it will protect them from disease and harm. So with their bamboo sticks in hand, their little sibing attached to their backs, the children just ran around and had fun. It was great to see that in each village primary and middle schools had been established by the government. Many of the younger kids went to school, but by the time they are 8 or 9 many will already have responsabilities, such as taking care of the water buffaloes or caring for the little kids. It was a whole different reality.

In our group there were 5 of us, all in our 20's from Holland and Switzerland. We all traveled the same way and got along really well. WE shared a couples of bottles of crap Vietnamese wine the first night and discused some heavy issues such as the effects of tourism on traditional communities and global warming. It was great!

With this tour we were able to do a homestay in a locla village called BanHo. We trekked for 8 hours along dirt roads, muddy paths following the rice paddies, through bamboo forests and dense brish, over rivers and waterfalls, and over grassy mountains. We really enjoyed just walking and seeing the countryside. From the top of the mountains we could see the plateaus of rice paddies glistening with the remaining water. The rice had alerady been cut, so all that remained were the stocks of rice and loads of mud. Were were lucky that for the trek the weather was stunning! Blue skies and sunny. The hike would have been REALLY slippery with all that mud, and I sure we would have all bailed into the rice paddies!

We arrived in BanHo and arrived at our homestay...we realized it wasn't a "stay and meet the family" but more like just a night in a village. But the house was really interesting with bamboo flooring that creaked with everystep. We ate with the mom and dad of the family, and triewd to communicate through our guide. our guide was a spunky 19year old Black Hmong girl named Yam who had lived in Sapa for the last 4 years. Most of the younger village people want to live in bigger cities...living traditionally isn't 'cool'. Our guide told us all her fun adventures of drinking and partying, of meeting foreigner, her Mexican boyfriend...Not so traditional, but that is how life changes.

Anwyays, at our home stay their were two groups, so at night after a fab homecooked meal we sat around and played drinking games initiated by the 2 guides! Out came the homebrewed rice wine (ewwwww), the shot glasses, a deck of cards...all you need for a funny evening! We played some really hilarious games, and just the interaction was fabulous! The best was watching the other guide, a 17year old girl called Mao, with a waterbuffabo horn on her forehead, play these games! She was crazy and loved to hit you for no reason! Anywas, traditional medicine says that a heated horn placed on the forehead will 'suck out your headache'. So pretty much she suctioned a horn onto her forehead...she looked like a rhino! It was awesome!

Sapa was really interesting as we were able to see life outside of the larger, more tourist areas, but we realized that their lives are changing quickly as well, and that traditional life is intertwined with modern living.

Anyways, our train ride back to Hanoi was hilarious. We managed to shift our tickets so that our group had one whole cabin to itself. We met a fun South African who joined us, and we partied on the train most of the night! Out came the water bottle wine glasses and a some better Vietnamese wine!

Ok, so this novel of mine is quite long, and I haven't even gotten to the part about almost missing our bus to Hoi An, scooting to the bus on motorcyles with full backpacks (so much fun, but a tad off balaced!!) or being stopped by the police on our bus ride...talk about heart attack!!!

So this is just the beginning! BUT we are happy, healthy, and safe! We plan on relaxing for a bit...my nerves were a bit shot by the whole police bit! We have a fantastic room here with a balcony and a huge bed, and tonight we will probably meet up with a friend from Sapa and have some Christmas drinks. We will head down to Mui Ne, a beach town, on the 26th on another night bus, and then relax some more!

The sun is popping out from behind the clouds, we are going to take some bikes to the beach now. More to come from Vietnam. We love you all! Karina and Christian