sleeper train – three pairs of pants

14 November 201526 January 2018

Day 61 (Sat 14 Nov): Homestay to Lao Cai (trekking, sleeper train)

Slept really well. And then a leisurely morning and pancake breakfast before we set off again.

Two of the group had departed the previous evening, and then Andrin and Jessica joined us. They fitted into the group perfectly and were really great company.

This is Mao’s home:

And we walked. We kept stopping for photos:

The views were not only breathtaking, but vast and all around us:

More rice fields:

An out-of-focus caterpillar:

The path ahead:

And behind:

More ridiculously pictureseque images:

Jane (Mao’s sister) and I – another European giant moment:

And these three:

We try to say hello when we pass locals. Seeing these made me wonder what they make of us. At that age, they’ll have no context. Will they ever? We’ll just become a natural part of their lives – tourists walking past their houses, saying hello.

Yesterday, I mentioned the leaves outside a house means visitors are not welcome. And we came across this today:

Jane explained that it was often to do with health – when somone was sick, and the hospital couldn’t help, the local shaman was called for and these leaves put outside to warn others not to enter.

Westerners pronouced Sapa with the accent on the first syllable. Vietnamese just have words. In fact, it’s “Sa Pa” here – and both syllables are given equal weighting. Just noticed the slight difference in pronounciation.

Ducks:

Jane leading the way, whislt she was also winding hemp for making into clothes (they make new ones each year – I don’t think they have many, so they’ll get worn out quickly):

Tiago showed me how to take a proper panoramic pic:

And I finally got a butterfly, but it’s a little ‘un:

Manual cutting (using a machine) of potato to dry and use as animal feed during the winter. Such intensive work:

Wasps (out of focus again – I really should get some photography lessons. And a decent camera):

And all too soon we were stopping for a very late lunch. From there, it was a short trek to our final stop where three of us were picked up and taken back to Sapa, and then Lao Cai, to catch the night train home.

Such a brilliant experience. I thoroughly enjoyed my two days – my foot held up well, the views were breath-taking and the group were great. Another highlight of my trip 🙂

12 November 201526 January 2018

Day 59 (Thu 12 Nov): Bai Tu Long Bay to Hanoi to Lao Cai (cave, sleeper train)

… And the by-now-obligatory sunrise photo (which, if you look, very closely resembles one of the sunset shots from last night, but a different quality of light):

Our final stop before returning to port (nooooo!) was a natural cave:

It’s not the biggest and doesn’t have lots of rocks that look like animals (with various degrees of imagination), but it also wasn’t overrun with tourists, so I enjoyed it a lot. And the views were great, too:

It was whilst I was sorting stuff to check out that I noticed the remote control… for the toilet:

Another toilet specimen to add to my trip’s collection 🙂

Lunch was at 10:30am.

Very early, but we weren’t due back to Hanoi until 5pm. And then it occurred to me that the staff serve four meals every day because they do two lunches: one for the out-going lot, and another for the incoming bunch.

An amazing trip – spectacular scenery, lots of fun, great company and luxury accommodation. My only wish was that we’d had more time to just be. Having lots of activities was good, but I’d have liked to just sit on deck or in my cabin and watch the world (specifically the limestone karsts) go by:

If there’s something on, you’d feel like you were missing out, but we don’t need to be entertained every minute of the day. Overall, though, a great trip.

Returning to port meant returning to Wi-Fi, and finding out that the sleeper train I’d booked wasn’t available. With live availability and payment upfront I’d assumed that it meant it was booked, but it actually meant that my request had been submitted. And because I hadn’t been able to check my email, I hadn’t found out. So I ventured to Lily’s (again) when I arrived in Hanoi. I also showed her the homestay I’d chosen. She looked at me earnestly. “Touristy”, she said. Oh dear, really? The reviews didn’t indicate it, but she was right – it wasn’t that far out of Sapa. And anything with good TripAdvisor reviews would be busy, I knew. She suggested another. I trusted her judgement. Getting back to port had also meant getting back to the masses* – our toilet stop was at a tourist department store full of overpriced goods, with the bus helpfully dropping us at the back of the store and picking us up from the front:

Standing in the queue for the loo, a lady pushed past. I tapped her on the shoulder. Didn’t even need to say anything. She mumbled something and went to the back of the queue. I won’t even bother telling you what nationality she was – I’m sure you can guess.

* I should clarify that I’m not adverse to people. In fact, I’m very fond of quite a few of them (if you’ve been invited to read this, you’re one of them), but I don’t like big groups of people. I’m one of life’s natural introverts so find being around lots of people very tiring.

“Sleeper” train is a bit of a misnomer, as was “soft bed”. Slightly more give than concrete but there’s not much in it. Don’t Vietnamese people have hips and shoulders? Took ages to get to sleep – every position was uncomfortable, but I think it was mostly because the train was throwing me around. But I eventually fell asleep…

28 October 201526 January 2018

Day 44 (Wed 28 Oct): Nha Trang to Quang Ngai (sleeper train)

I really don’t want to be here. Which is a shame as I was originally planning to camp in Nha Trang for a while to surf. But the lack of waves and character makes me want to move on. Thank goodness for my flexible schedule – it’s meant I’ve stayed longer in places I’ve liked (Siem Reap, Kratie, Kampot) and cut short time in those I’ve not clicked with (Banlung, Nha Trang). So off via the streets to the station:

No soft seats left so it was either a hard seat, hard bed or soft bed. My butt just couldn’t take any more so I upgraded to a soft bed, not really knowing what I was getting either way. For the seven hour journey, I paid an extra £6. Mind you, this was double the cost of a hard seat and I got four times the space. Let’s take a moment to put this in real terms:

You’re travelling from southern England to, say, Edinburgh. You arrive at the station to buy a ticket for £141, but there aren’t any seats left. So you’re offered a seat on the service for £314 for a “soft bed”. Or you can wait 3 hours and get the next service (which has seats for £141), but arrives into your destination at midnight. What would you do? Yeah, I’d probably wait, too. You’ve probably got the money, but don’t want to spend it on that. So here’s the question: how much money would you have to have/earn to make you take the sleeper option on the service you originally intended? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? It’s another £173 you’re paying so you don’t have to wait around for three hours. As this isn’t interactive, I’m going to hazard that, for me, I’d need to have about £100,000 in the bank to make me not think too much about spending £173 to make life easier. This isn’t a completely accurate comparison, because train travel is relativley more expensive in England, but you get the point. We’re rich in this country. Seriously rich.

Anyway, this is what rail luxury in Vietnam looks like, folks (actually, I think there were first-class cabins, but I didn’t enquire or poke my nose in):

Each carriage has a designated porter:

I’d chosen the train for this leg of the journey (which was during the day), so I could sit and take in the countryside. Being on the top bunk meant this was rather difficult. And some athleticism was required to get up there, so not for the immobile (but, of course, they are much fewer people here with limited mobility):

However, the kind lady on the lower bunk let me gatecrash her’s for a while. Beautiful countryside, shame about the bars on the windows:

And now the desire to be able to communicate with these people was overwhelming. Despite professing to be an English teacher, she spoke noticeably little English. How wonderful if I’d been able to speak to them in their native language – I wanted to ask them about themselves, their families and their way of life. But I couldn’t. I realised how much my previous trips have been enhanced by being able to communicate with the locals and resolved that, upon my return to England, Spanish and Norwegian learning will be renewed with extra vigour and motivation…