Venturing into Vietnam

Xin Chao! After a hot (40 degree) 12 hour bus ride from Phonsavan (the “Jar” capital of the world), and with no problems at the border, we entered into the Communist Republic of Vietnam and headed toward the city of Vinh. Once there we boarded yet another bus (and paid 3X's the local price... which according to most other travelers to Vietnam is a common occurrence) and we headed for the nation's capital. 6 hours later (at nearly 2:00am) we found ourselves pulling into the city of Hanoi. We expected to find a bustling nightlife scene, however, what we found was somewhat unsettling. The streets were dark and empty and as we were escorted from closed guesthouse to closed guesthouse we were dismayed to learn that each and every one of them was full (and none to happy about our rapping on the windows at such a dreadful hour). We were finally dropped off at a sympathetic hotel who allowed us to wait out the morning on their lobby's floor. The next day we quickly found an open guesthouse and were blown away with the amount of activity on the streets that were empty only a few hours before (it was literally like, “night and day”). We booked ourselves in and spent the rest of the day exploring the sights, sounds, and smells of Hanoi. We visited the centrally located Hoan Kiem Lake and the Ngoc Son Temple, as well as the Temple of Literature with a few other sites dotted along the way. The next day we were off again to the Northeast coast of Halong Bay where we boarded a boat and spent the next few days sailing among huge natural limestone islands which spring up unnaturally out of the water. The legend behind these islands are that the celestial Dragons from heaven descended down to the bay to protect the Vietnamese from foreign invaders and once the enemies were defeated the Dragons refused to return to heaven. While the water wasn't as pristine as some of the other locations that we had been to, we still enjoyed a dip in the water to beat the mid-day heat. We spent the rest of our Halong bay trip kayaking and boating around the area stopping off at fishing villages where the entire community lives on floating houses deep in the bay only returning every couple of weeks to the mainland to sell their wares and pick up some supplies. Every once in a while we would catch a glimpse of our friends (Steve & Laura) who we met at our guesthouse in Hanoi. We rounded up the rest of our trip in the bay and were back in Hanoi in time to catch the nightly performance of the age-old cultural showcase known as the Vietnamese Water Puppets. We went with our friends not expecting much, however we were all pleasantly surprised and intrigued to contemplate the mechanics of this strange art form. We went to bed completely unaware of the unlucky circumstances that would be waiting for us the following morning. Goooood Morning Viet-Nam! (I couldn't resist) When we awoke bright eyed and ready for the day we were shocked to find that our one and only ATM card had “magically” disappeared. After checking every single bag, pocket, and article of clothing we were on the phone back to Canada to cancel our financial link to our home bank. After doing so, it dawned on us that traveling without any means of money withdrawal might not be so easy, we decided to see if we could remember any of our PINs for our Credit Cards. Amanda was the first to give it a shot and was once again thrown into panic as her first attempt to remember her PIN was promptly greeted with the machine “eating” her card. After speaking with the security guards in a garbled sort of broken Vietnaminglish we were informed that because it was Sunday we could only get our card back during regular business hours. This would have been fine if we hadn't already booked our overnight train to the Northwestern village of Sapa. We said a quick prayer and hoped that our card would stay safe and sound in the bank until we returned on Wednesday. Then we packed our things and headed for the train station. After a short and bumpy night sleep we found ourselves pulling into the Train Station in Lao Cai a Vietnamese city located only 6kms away from the Chinese border. After searching the dozens of “tour operators” holding name signs we soon found that a sign with our name on it, simply wasn't there. As nearly everyone else on the train had left the station an hour before we quickly and quietly stowed ourselves aboard one of the last buses which was getting ready to pull out of the parking lot. Once we arrived in Sapa we showed our ticket around and were eventually sent to the Summit hotel where we were relieved to hear that there was indeed a tour arranged for us, however, it was scheduled under the name of Christopher. We shrugged our shoulders and signed up for the rest of the excursion (PS> our extreme apologies to the real “Christopher” if he did indeed exist... your tour was great!). We spent our time in Sapa walking up and down the beautiful cool mountains seeing the rice terraces and chatting it up with the Hmong tribal people who were there to lend a hand down the slippery mud filled slopes that led to the various waterfalls and villages we passed by. Of all the tribal people we've encountered, the Hmong people seemed the most genuine and eager to spend time in conversation about something other than the various handicrafts that they had to offer (although they did have handicrafts a plenty)! As we said our goodbyes to Sapa we pulled once again into Hanoi in time to grab our Credit Card, call Canada to work out some sort of solution to our financial crisis, take a cyclo tour, and bump into some of our traveling companions (Tom & Cat) who we met during our cooking course in Chiang Mai. Then it was time to get down to the overnight bus headed for central Vietnam. On the road again...