On Saturday morning we took the train to Schiphol, our national airport. Here we had to wait 3 hours before our plane, from Cathay Airways, should bring us to Hong Kong in China. The flight took us about 11 hours, which was long, but we had some entertainment like movies & video games on board. The flight was on time and we were on time in Hong Kong to get the connecting flight to Hanoi, Vietnam.
Cees Verburg, a dutchman living in Hanoi, picked us up from the airport and brought us to our first hotel, very welcome after a journey of a total of 20 hours. Cees runs a travelagency in Hanoi. He can arrange all transportations, transfers and hotels in Vietnam and Cambodia. If you ever want to visit Vietnam ... make sure you give him a call, he will be glad to help you. Or just look at his wonderful site:
click on the picture for more
The next day we took a trip through Hanoi, walking. We visited a few old temples (Pagoda's) and wanted to visit a few other things but all were closed on Monday. But we had fun, and later this day we visited a water puppet theatre. Here we saw and we heard (in Vietnamese ofcourse) stories of the past, local legends. It was fun even if we could not understand a word of course. We ended the day with our dutch friend and went to bed early because the next day would be a long one.
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At 7 am (too early) we left in a big Toyota to the north of Vietnam to a place called Ha Giang. Here we stopped after 8 hours of driving. Most roads are okay, but because of the heavy rainfall some were in bad shape ("massage roads"). Later we even had to make a detour of 3 hours because the road was closed due to earth erosion and the street was blocked by dirt and stones from a mountain.The first evening in Ha Giang we just walked around the city a little only to end up in a restaurant and had some dinner. We still were very tired due to the time difference (5 hours) which we didn't get used to yet.
The next day we went up more to the north to visit a local market in Lung Phin, where the local people from several minority groups live. It was a colourful market, the pictures will show you. But we were not only looking at them.... they also were looking at us because they are not used to such big white people.
The next day was all about sitting in the car again, but the scenery was amazing. All mountains between 1000 - 1500 m high and sometimes with amazing views. It was the road between Dong Van to Meo Vac in the North-East of Vietnam, close to the Chinese border.
Since the Vietnamese people eat everything, yes...not only dogs but all other things that move... they also ate everything that lived in the forest. Monkeys too - so there are none left. Next stop... Ba Be.
Today we have a boat cruise on a river, until we came to a beautiful lake Ba Be where Hilke and I had a chance to swim. At the end of the day we stopped in a small village near this lake to stay in a guesthouse.
It was fun to be there, even though our "room" was open and we heard all the noises, like roosters all night long, ducks, frogs, insects, pigs, people playing drums at 04.30. But it was an amazing experience to stay there instead of a hotel. And best of all... the food: finally something edible.
Our next stop...... Cao Bang. The next day we would visit the Nguom Ngao cave and the big Ban Gioc waterfall at the border with China.
