Hanoï

After ten days in Vietnam, I meet on Monday, 5^th November, Morgane – alias Momo. It’s a real pleasure to see her again after more than one year, at 10000km from France. Momo, I met her in 2014 in the University of Troyes (North-East of France). We did our Master together. 5 years later, we have made progress since then, and now we are in Hanoï. I discover the capital with her. We stay a day and half, time to wander in the old town, to discover the two lakes of Hanoï, its street food, its night market, the Temple of the Literature and the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (don’t go by walk from the city centre!).

Sapa – Tàvan

And after a days walk (a lot), we take a sleeping bus to Sapa, in the North of Vietnam, in the mountain (1500m), famous for its many paddy fields. We start an obstacle course to arrive to our homestay in Tàvan. Normally, it take 20 minutes between Sapa and Tàvan, we made it in two hours. We negotiated a taxi who told us everything is ok. But he never found our homestay and we finish by walking. But it was worth it. We were very well received by Cookies who served us a good breakfast with view on rice fields. In the afternoon we took time to discover Tàvan village where we meet a painter in her gallery. We also stayed at the homestay, to have a break, it is a haven of peace and to be ready for the next day. In the evening, we help to preparing the diner and after to eat with everybody (travellers and workers), an amazing melting-pot.

The next day we are going for a beautiful trek with our guide Thi Mây. We are crossing villages, rice fields, streams, where we learn a lot about the culture of the different ethnic groups from Sapa region: The H’Mong (the more numerous) or The Red Dao (like Thi Mây). We teach her French, she teach us her language (I forgot everything). Amazing day, we arrive at the good moment, after it starts to rain. It rains a lot in Sapa, we are lucky, it was raining just that night. So we stay in the homestay with others to share a good diner, hairstyling and clairvoyance moment.

We didn’t have a plan for this Friday morning, first we enjoy our awesome breakfast : bananas and chocolate crepes. And finally, Thi Mây come back for another trekking day with an Irishman, she is accompanied with Trung, a French with Vietnamese origin who is fall in love of this region. He lives now with Thi Mây and her family, and he helps them to make a homestay. He invites us for lunch at their home, we follow him after some shopping in Tàvan. We cross a bamboo forest, rice fields, hills, amazing views and now we are in Grang Ta Thai, their village. We are visiting the “Happy dragonfly homestay” (I advertise for them). And in the kitchen, below the stock of rice, Trung teaches us how to cook a Vietnamese meal. We are feasting on our lunch! We come back to the other side of our homestay, we take a bridge to cross the river, waterfalls and other villages.

Tonight, we have our last diner at “Lazycrazy homestay” before to take a sleeping bus from Sapa to Cát Bà Island. We arrived in Sapa three days ago in the early morning, we discover Sapa during the night, very different with hectic streets. But we are not going to drag it out, we have twelve hours to Cát Bà where we will arrive at 6.30am.

Cát Bà Island

After a horrible night in the bus, we take a breakfast in Cát Bà before we go on to our hostel. Momo tried the egg coffee (speciality of Vietnam, she liked), it was a noodle soup with chicken for me. We find two moto-taxi to go in the “Woodstock Beach Camp”, which is outside of the town, in front of the beach and sea. It’s a hippies houses. We planned to enjoy the beach and maybe to walk this afternoon, it starts to rain… Sapa is famous to be a raining region, we had three beautiful days, on the contrary, Cát Bà is known for a dry winter, and we had two days of rain. So, for the Saturday, we stayed with the others, playing cards. There were some travellers like us or expatriates (English teacher come in Cát Bà for the week-end). In the evening we had a great concert on the beach!

The rain didn’t stop, so we went on a boat for the day to discover the Halong Bay from Cát Bà. When we got out of the port, we could see a lot of floating villages before we saw our first limestone karsts. And despite the greyness, the view and atmosphere was amazing. We stoped to do kayaking around the limestone rocks, unforgettable moment: we felt very small. We discovered, sadly, a polluted sea, we were regretting we did not have a net to pick up the waste which was staying at the top of the sea. We had lunch on the boat with a French couple before carrying on our tour in the Halong Bay. We stop on the Monkey Island but it was raining a lot now, we couldn’t see the view. This afternoon was wet, and we finished to swim in the Halong Bay!

Ninh Binh

We finished the day under the rain. And the next morning was the same. So we decided to leave earlier to Ninh Binh famous also for its limestone karsts but around the land. We took boat and bus; we left this island to go to the South. We arrived in Tam Coc, close to Ninh Binh but more touristic. It was not 6pm but it was time for a beer, so before to go in our hotel, we offered ourselves our first veritable restaurant. There were lot of choice, we stoped in a kitsch restaurant but very good (little bit spicy for Momo who spat fire after she confused a chilli pepper with cherry tomato!). After that we went to “Green Moutain Homestay”, a beautiful hotel outside of the town where we stayed four nights.

Because there was a lot of things to do in this region. We started with a boat ride in Trang An Nature Reserve between limestone karsts, caves and temples. This experience is unique when you cross the caves with new landscapes. After that, we were riding our bikes to Hang Mua, a little mountain with lots of steps (450!!). But it’s worth it, the view on the top was amazing on Tam Coc region. Sadly, we were not alone on the top. And to finish firming up our buttocks, we continue to ride to Ninh Binh, but we were disappointed. There is nothing very interesting and to find an ice cream man is difficult!

The next day, despite our buttock pain, we took our bikes to Tam Coc to discover this city and the Bich Dong pagoda. There are three pagodas on the side of the mountain so we had also a beautiful view from the top. Always motivated, we continued by bike to Thung Nham Bird Garden. I don’t know if it’s because we had enough of biking or because this park is very touristic and not natural, but we were very disappointed. They speak about a natural reserve, but finally it’s more a landscaped Park where lot of things you pay. For the price, we regretted to come and we stayed only a short time. And it was the right time to come back in Tam Coc, to find a cafe as it started to rain. In the afternoon, the sun came back as we were going in our hotel, slowly, between rice field with buffalos who graze, spectacle of women and we just arrived for the sunset on the limestone rock in front of our room, beautiful.

And for our last day, unable to ride the bike because of the dented roads, we rent a scooter. I am riding but a little bit scared with Momo behind me and with my little experience. But we can go more far away, to the Bai Dinh pagoda. It is the bigger pagoda of South-East Asia and has 12 nationals records, its surname is “The Disneyland of Buddha”. This complex building in 2003 is very impressive. There are so much to see, we were very exhausted after this visit. After that, we went to Hoa Lu, the old capital of Vietnam in the Xth century. We tryed goat for lunch, it was dry. We visited the temples inside the enclosure, beautiful and very well preserved. Our trip in Ninh Binh was finished, the next morning we took the train to Hanoï.

Hanoï (again)

Hanoï is not unfamiliar for us. We wandered again in the old town; we did a cooking class to learn to make spring rolls, a salad with banana flower and the “Pho” (beef soup, famous in Vietnam). Delighted and full, we visited the Vietnam Women’s Museum – beautiful expositions of the role of the women in Vietnam and during the Vietnam War. And in the evening, even if the Vietnamese food is very good (but lot of noodles and rice), we had dinner in pizzeria.

It was time now to say goodbye. 15 amazing days with Momo, we discovered a lot about Vietnam, its culture and beautiful different landscapes. Momo took the plane to France, I took the bus to Laos. The adventure continues.