Day 89 Sapa and Cat Cat Village 4 May 2012

After taking the shuttle from Lao Cai (the train tracks end there) to Sapa we arrived at our hotel in Sapa around 7am . Unfortunately check-in was not until 11:30am so we left our bags and headed out for a nice French style breakfast. Upon returning we were lucky enough to be able to enter our room. The long day and night of travelling (19 hours door to door) required sleep, so we ended up taking nice 4 hour nap. When we woke up we were just in time to do a hike to Cat Cat minority village before sunset.

The village with its surrounding rice fields and beautiful waterfall was breathtaking.

Day 88 Bus Boat Bus Taxi Feet Train 3 May 2012

Today we started our travels from Ha Long Bay to Sapa and it was a typical day in Vietnam in terms of the people we have encountered along the way. The receptionist at the hotel when we were checking out – rude. The receptionist at the bus ticket office – very nice and helpful. The bus drivers – very excited about Dutch soccer and very helpful with crossing the busy street to get to the second bus. The taxi driver en route to the train station – rude and tried to rip us off with a false meter that would increase the fare with every pothole we encountered. The three subsequent taxi drivers we flagged down to take us to the train station – denied us the ride because it was too close -ugh. So we walked with our heavy backpacks to the train station ticket office for 20min in the heat. We picked up our tickets and headed out to Highland’s Coffee to wait for the night train. We settled in with all our bags in a big comfy chair to have some comfy food. We boarded the sleeper train for our eight hour ride to Sapa.

Day 87 Ha Long Bay 2 May 2012

After getting ready to an a cappella version of Justin Bieber’s “Baby, Baby, Baby Oh” in Ana’s melodic voice we headed out on an excursion to Ha Long Bay.

We boarded the boat and headed out to visit Dong Me Cung Cave and Danh Sach Cave – a couple of tourist hotspots.

The Bay is amazing with these rock formations jutting out of the water. We thought they looked like knuckles, more so than fingers.

We jumped off the boat- no- we took a ladder off the back side of the boat and went swimming in the bay. Although the bay is a little dirty- we thought when else would we ever have this chance again. So into the water we went and swam to this little beach!

The only slight disappointment of the day was that we saw no more than one Junk Boat with its double sails billowing out, while we were on the Kayak and without a camera- so no pictures of the iconic boat. This is a picture of one in Ha Long Bay with one sail – still very picturesque.

Day 86 To Cat Ba Island 1 May 2012

Today we took a bus-boat-bus combination to Cat Ba Island. Pretty easy and relaxed since we both had a book or audio book to keep us amused. We arrived and enjoyed the view from our room and quickly headed out to find some food because we didn’t have any on the way.

We found some tasty seafood (squid and shrimp) at the lonely planet’s top rated restaurant. We relaxed at night by surfing the three English tv channels available and landed on a Justin Bieber Documentary - literally - Never Say Never.

Day 85 Rest Day 30 April 2012

Today we slept in and took it easy – it is a public holiday in Vietnam (Reunification Day) and in the Netherlands (Koninginnedag). We stayed in the hotel room and discussed our travel plans, watched some tv and headed out to Highlands Coffee for some food at 4pm. As we were getting dressed we decided that ‘No, a hotel room is not quite home.’ We miss the luxury of eating a peanut butter sandwich without exiting our apartment or getting out of our pajamas.

We ended the day wishing our nephew Cooper a Happy Queen’s Day – his first!

Day 84 No Ho 29 April 2012

Today after breakfast we set out to visit Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum but when we got there it was closed and we found out that the last entry was before we even left the hotel. Oh well.

We stopped by the One Pillar Pagoda.

We had lunch at Koto, an NGO restaurant that teaches English and hospitality skills to children, increasing their potential in life significantly.

We walked around town some more – passing the Home Depot.

We came across yet another Highlands Coffee and just couldn’t resist. Their ice coffee (Martijn) and mango passion smoothie (Ana) really rocks!

We ended our tour by visiting a temple on an island in the lake.

During dinner Ana befriended the restaurant’s tiny dog, who would have surely joined us on our trip around the world if her owner didn’t catch her in time when we were leaving.

Day 83 Hanoi 28 April 2012

Ana woke up refreshed after a good 14 hour sleep. After breakfast and some relaxing we understood from the proprietor that we couldn’t go to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum as planned since it was closed, so we headed to a café instead, a favorite of Catherine Deneuve from the wonderful movie Indochine.
 

After lunch we continued to the Temple of Literature, a nice complex that started off as the first university of Vietnam.  

  

We continued wandering through the city to the Opera, because it had another Highland Coffee (we are great fans). We then headed back to the hotel, along the lake.  

But not before Martijn came across as a giant who could help a group of girls who threw their shoe in a tree. Unfortunately he couldn’t reach it- but he did entertain many onlookers.