Back from Asia and back to work.
The AFL launched their Indigenous Round at Kuarna Plains School in Adelaide today and I covered it for GSP Images. Port Adelaide was chosen as the team to launch it with AFL Indigenous great, Michael Long speaking also.
Pix attached.
Lonely Planet and few other sources had talked up Ninh Binh, 97 km south of Hanoi, as a place to see the real Vietnam. Rice fields, farms and pushbikes, but having taken the train through the mountains to Sapa we'd seen it all and more. The city is sleepy and whilst that is a characteristic that shouldn't be considered undesirable, it's perhaps something we were looking for in a small town rather than a big, loud city.
Lizzie wanted a hairwash and cut, and Steve and I were well due for a shave, so we found a 'salon' around the corner. Steve went first, and at the halfway mark I decided to stick with the beard. This left Lizzie nervous as to what was in store for her, but she escaped fairly unscathed with clean, and slightly shorter hair. Not at all confident that we weren't at a motorbike repair shop rather than a hair salon.
Ninh Binh does hold the record for our cheapest meal in Asia - 57,000 dong for a bowl of duck pho and a bottle of coke for the three of us; AU$1.20 Each! The next day we rented motorbikes and paid for a guide so we zoomed off chasing our man into rural Vietnam. To its credit Ninh Binh did have some amazing scenery that we would have greatly appreciated had we not just been in the North West Mountains. A climb up thousands of stairs and we had a great view over the rice fields and limestone stacks, and if there was ever a place for a coke machine it was a the top, but alas, just a strategically placed pagoda.
Once we were on the motorbikes we found the journey far more fun than the destinations - Tam Coc near Ninh Binh is on a river where we paid to be rowed in a boat through the limestone stacks, but it was too hot, and suffered from day-trip package tourists from Hanoi venturing down and ruining the serenity.
The road-toll in Vietnam is horrific, on average 36 people die per day, and given their population is just four times Australia's they're clearly doing something wrong. We rode motorbikes through tunnels under construction, on roads inches from rollers and graders, and at one stage on a huge concrete storm-water drain on a 45 degree angle. We loved every minute of it and with a decent motorbike and a GPS I could be very tempted to go on a moto odyssey through Asia.
We went to a National Park on the next day which consisted of a 6km walk. The Vietnamese are not big users of trundle wheels though, and it was more like 10km, and our guide, nor map mentioned it was up and down a mountain. The park has a monkey sanctuary that made the long trip worth it; endangered species are bred in captivity, and reintroduced to the wild. Dozens of zoo's from around the world have donated funds and expertise, and it was good to see the Adelaide Zoo was a contributer.
Before we knew it and we were on the train back to Hanoi, where we were meeting Shannon for the Australian Chamber of Commerce's Big Day Out. To be continued![gallery]
For people who don't know me I'll let you in on a secret - I've got a lot of time for bakeries. So when Lizzie was looking for accommodation and found Baguette et Cocolat I was sold. The experience sleeping in one of the four guest rooms, and waking to the smell of pastries being baked in the basement was nothing short of sensational.
I had read plenty of reviews and travel reports about Sapa, and had heard that it can get pretty chilly and wet. I thought I was smarter than the average traveller and had kept track of the weather at nearby Lao Cai. Little did I know that Lao Cai was only 38km away, but 1km lower than Sapa, so a pleasent 28°C, Sapa was rarely above 15°C - shorts and t-shirts were no longer the appropriate attire.
After enjoying a great breakfast we headed off towards Cat Cat Village, just a short walk from Sapa. The views were spectacular, and we were accompanied by three women from the Black H'mong tribe. These women, like nearly all tribal women we came across, were selling everything from scarves and pillow cases to silver jewellry. It was clear from the start that they were going to follow us until we bought something, but after Lizzie broke early and purchased a bracelet for a sizable figure (by Vietnamese standards) it was obvious we would have them with us for a great deal more time. We actually skipped past Cat Cat as there were hundreds of package tourists jumping out of their buses when we arrived, so we just kept walking along the path past houses and small farms all built on steep terraces.
The coffee we drank on the walk back is worth mentioning. Just past Cat Cat, but not on the itinerary of the tour buses, we stopped for a 10,000 dong coffee (about 75c.) It was the coffee that could start wars and solve world peace all at once; even stronger than the water buffalo that greeted us on our walk. Turns out it’s also the same coffee that people in Sydney are paying up to $50 a cup for, you know the one, where the cats eat the berries then someone goes through their number-two and gets the coffee bean.
On our walk back we went to a ‘restaurant’ that we’d walked past earlier that had some amazing looking skewers getting cooked on a small charcoal fire. It was nothing more than a spot in the street with a tarp for sides and a roof, but the food was spectacular, barbecued pork, charcoal rice, Bun Cha, which is pork soup, charcoal greens, a bowl of rice, and a couple or rounds of cold beer, all for a couple of dollars each. So good, we even went back for dinner that night. Which goes to show that Sapa is a little lost on their food - the place is fully set-up for tour bus package tourists, who are eating mostly western food, with some Anglophil asian dishes thrown in for good measure. We just couldn’t find anything that was good, cheap, and local that wasn’t street food.
After our lunch we bartered with three motorbike riders to take us to Tram Ton Pass, which was a road under construction at the time of riding on it. It took us from Sapa to the road to Lai Chau, which in turn takes you from the coldest town in Vietnam to the warmest. We didn’t head into the town as the 30km ride on the back of the bike was pretty tough work, but the ride was for the views, which were absolutely breathtaking.
Our last day in Sapa began with another brilliant breakfast (I’m getting a few jibes about constant referrals to food, but I insist, I’m on ‘culinary journey’) and then met our motorbike riders from the previous day. A quick trip down the hill to see a Red Dzao village resulted in more shopping for Lizzie, Stevo firing a cross bow in a house, and me being the token photographer trying to take buffalo photos.
Lunch was in the Sapa market where we were served Bun Cha again, and the pork that was going into our soup was getting charcoal grilled before our eyes. The temptation grew too much and we asked how much to grab a chunk of grilled pork and have it sliced; 20,000 dong - about $1.25 for enough meat for three of us! It was like having a sunday roast in the market.
Before we knew it the time had come to head back down the hill to Lao Cai, and with some help from a cafe owner we had our train tickets in our hands and we made it on the the plush Livitrans Express back to Hanoi.
Our knack of finding the locals again proved true as we spent most of the trip back to Sapa in the bar drinking counterfeit Jack Daniels with the security guard, Ha, which resulted in victorious arm wrestles for Australia, and a mind-blowing hangover for me.
Off to Ninh Binh south of Hanoi now...
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5.20am and we're faced with the prospect of sitting on a wooden bench with no A/C for 9 hours to Lao Cai, but a $60 bribe would ensure our comfort would be increased dramatically as we'd be in the soft sleeper. Done. No, not quite, the sleeper isn't soft. In fact, it has absolutely no cushioning at all, so it was a wooden plank to Lao Cai. The train departed and we weren't sure how well it would go, but a few hours sleep and it appeared that the 9 hours would rapidly countdown and we'd be in the mountains.
The scenery wasamazing, and we to this time cannot understand why not a single other western tourist wasn't on the train. We got to chat to locals the whole way, we crawled over sacks of rice and motos through the freight cart to get to the restaurant. We ate bowls of pho on the train, then jumped off at a stop and ran back up to our cart as it began moving again. The 9 hours quickly became 12 hours, and still I don't think we complained.
Simple message to anyone heading up to Sapa - give up your creature comforts for 1 day and see Vietnam in its majestic glory. Our only regret of the day was getting invloved with the rabble that is the mini-bus crowd from Lao Cai to Sapa. It's a total con, but after 12 hours on the train 100,00 dong doesn't seem like much to travel 38km in a van. After half an hour of waiting we got piled into another van, and we counted 21 people in a van with 9 seats, further, it should have cost no more than 25,000 dong. A great day though, and we weren't going to let a few greedy rip-off merchants cheat us out of remembering how fantastic the experience was.[gallery]
