Our journey to the northern provinces of Vietnam was a challenge because we had a short time to know all places that we had wanted to go.
Our itinerary first took me from Hanoi to Halong Bay where we had an opportunity to know a fantastic scenery of rock and water. After that, we visited Sapa where I encountered terrific mountains and a rustic style. We spent the last day knowing Hanoi a lit bit better. In total, we spent 2 days in Halong Bay, 2 days in Sapa and 1 day in Hanoi.
Hanoi is a robust and rapidly changing city, but the past can still be found over its streets. Old French colonial houses, a European style motorbike and a Hanoi-an people in their traditional costume makes one ordinary day in exotic experience. There are motorcycles everywhere, and crossing street is a nightmare. We visited Hoan Kiem Lake and Ngoc Son Temple which are located in the old city. Ngoc Temple is a Buddhism temple which with a beautiful view of the lake. We spent no more than 15 minutes to visit all temple. The place is quite small, but it was a good warm-up for our trip. In front of the garden, there are a lot of restaurants. Everything in the old city is within walking distance. Our next stop was Hoa Lo Prison. This place is worth visiting. This prison was used to imprison Vietnamese against French colonization and in the war against the USA was used to detain us pilots captured by Vietnam. This place is so sad, and you can feel how hard the living conditions for prisoners in French colonization. Inside the prison, there is a guillotine used to cut the head of prisoners. It is hard to believe how cruelty one human being can be.
We stayed at Rising Dragon Palace Hotel. This place is exceptionally well located. Staff was extremely attentive and helped us a lot in everything that we need it. We are especially grateful to Mr.Tuan. He was outstanding regarding attention and care with our requests.
Halong Bay is by far the most popular place to visit in Hanoi. It takes 3 hours from the downtown. There are some cruises which you can hire to visit this site in one full day or sleeping on a boat (one or two nights). We decided to buy a package to sleep 1 night. It was our best decision.
This place is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The magnificent view of the bay pays off any effort to arrive in Vietnam. With its impressive natural wonders of hundreds of limestone pillars and islets, Halong Bay is indeed a perfect spot for a tranquil boating holiday.This place provides you an opportunity to travel through coves, tunnels, and grottoes that took thousands of years to form.
The cruise looked like the ship of pirates. Everything cleaned and in excellent condition.
Stopping by Van Gia Fishing Village, our first activity was the canoe. You can select between paddle yourself on a private boat or use a banana canoe which someone paddle for you. We opted for a paddle by ourselves because in this case, we had the freedom to do things. We crossed 2 caves in the middle of the mountain, which were fantastic. The silence of the place is indescribable.
The guide told us that this fishing village was built there due to the tranquility of this place. It is impressive how calm is the water. There are no waves, and during our stay, the boat didn't shake. If you have problems with motion sickness, this trip will be perfect for you.
After that, we did a tracking to the top of the mountain to take photos on the best view of Halong Bay. We had to upstairs in 240 steps, but it's not a big deal. The view of the bay is magnificent. We ended up our day with a Vietnam dinner and a chatting with friends.
The second day started early. The Tai Chi class was offered at 6:30, but our laziness denied us to wake up early. We had breakfast at 7:00 and went to a new tracking in the cave. This cave has three chambers which the second and third one were amazing. This cave was formed by a stalactite. After all, we had the Vietnamese cooking class, and we went back to the marine.
Although the beauty of this place, the Vietnam government is building a new more prominent marine and I am not sure whether in a few years this area will be as good as today.
The next destination was Sapa. The charming highland town is one place in the northwest where tourism is booming. The magnificent scenery is on a very grand scale, and the tours are oriented to make the most of the views.
We took an overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai. There is no train line to Sapa, but very regularly van services. We bought a Sapaly Express train ticket. The cabinet was small, but the bed was ok. When we arrived in Lao Cai, we took a van to Sapa. We arrived at 7:00am and stayed at Casablanca Sapa Hotel.
After a shower and breakfast, we did our tracking of 11 km. The landscape became even more spectacular, giving way to high mountains, steep valleys, and rice paddies. Visiting minority villages made me feel privileged and humbled to be a guest in the local homes. The warmth and hospitality of locals were genuinely delightful.
The only problem is H'mong people, once the poorest of the local tribes are very canny traders, and you will encounter them all over town.
The landscape is country style with big crops of rice in the mountains. Our guide, Tim, was excellent and he showed us two villages. We end up in one local festival which happens once a year. At this festival, all families wear special clothes and play different games. They looked so happy in this event. On the first day we visited Lao Chai village (H'mong) then we went to Ta Van village (Zay people). It's impressive because we could see different areas of Sapa.
After our trip, we concluded that you don't need a guide to do the tracking. However, a companion of a guide helps you to understand better the area that you are walking. We learned things like women with long hair are single, and the ones with short hair are married. Regarding the hotel, we stayed at Sunny Hotel. It looked like more expensive than others but the comfort worthwhile.
On the second day, we went to Cat Cat village and then Sin Chai. The best part of this trip was stopping in a small house of our guide's friend. The family was beautiful. We felt an enormous feeling of peace. It looked like we knew each other before. After a tea and a rice candy, we returned to our hotel. The time of leaving Sapa had arrived.
Suggestion for booking:
- We booked our flights to Air Asia website (http://www.airasia.com/) and hotels in Agoda website (http://www.agoda.com/).
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