The Jaded Traveler in Sa Pa

Prior to arriving in Vietnam, we had a couple of cities in mind to visit.  It looked like we would have been able to see 4-5 cities, but would have been limited to ~2 nights at each cities w/ all the travel time in between.  So we had to decide between Sa Pa and Hue.  As you can guess from the title of this post, we opted for Sa Pa.  This is a little town in the northern hills of Vietnam, close to the Chinese border known for the rice terrace views and the minority people that live there, the Hmongs (pronounced Mongs).  We're sad to report that we might not have chosen wisely.  As beautiful as the hills and the views were, it was nothing compared to the views that we had in Sagada in the Philippines.  Sa Pa is just a little bigger than Sagada and the town is much more used to tourist as we were constantly asked to purchase a trinket or get a ride on a motorbike somewhere.  Even Cat Cat village, where you get to see the Hmong people live, felt like it was staged for the tourist.  It's pretty sad that we've become the jaded traveller and had a difficult time enjoying the beauty of Sa Pa without it's comparison to Sagada.  And we're left wondering if we would have felt the same about Sagada had we visited Sa Pa first.

We still made the most of our time in Sa Pa by renting another scooter and scooting around the little town and to a nearby waterfall.

A View at Breakfast

Love Waterfall

The other upside to our visit to Sa Pa was getting to be closer to the rice terrace and the caribiou (water buffalo).

South America...I mean, Phu Quoc Island

The beauty of having no set itinerary and the willingness to be flexible has allowed us to find small towns to visit and plan for it just a couple days in advance.  And that is exactly what happened in Vietnam.  The usual cities to visit are of course Saigon and Hanoi and then thrown into the mix are either Hue, Da Nang, Hoi An, Sa Pa, and/or Ha Long Bay.  But a place that hasn't hit the mainstream yet is a little island off the East coast of Southern Vietnam called Phu Quoc.  This little island, which is just south of Cambodia and has territorial disputes w/ Cambodia, is shaped kinda like South America and is slated to become a tourist destination...but not yet.  Plans for large resorts to be built haven't taken off yet.  So we decide to book a plane and book a resort and off we went.

Our resort has individual bungalows in a little garden that steps off onto the beach.  There are maybe a dozen resort on this beach, with each resort claiming the beach area right in front of their property.  While the sand was a little coarse and grainy (nothing close to the powder white sand that we experienced at Boracay), it was a perfect area and Darin and I were glad to have been back on the beach after a month of touring North East Asia.

Our Garden Resort, Thanh Kieu Resort

Our Resort's Private Beach

Since Phu Quoc Island doesn't have the massive amounts of people that Saigon had and that the island seemed fairly small, we decided to rent two motorbikes (at 120,000 dong or ~6 USD a piece) and tour the little island.  Having only one previous experience driving a motorbike, I was a bit excited and apprehensive at the same time.  It was wise of me to be apprehensive, since I almost crashed the bike after going only 20m.  With a little scrape on my shin and a tip from Darin, we were off again.    And after an hour, when I wasn't gripping on to dear life, I was able to look around and enjoy the beautiful scenery and feel the wind blowing through my helmet covered "beautiful hair" (the guy we rented the motorbike from apologized for having to wear a helmet and ruin my "beautiful hair").

In Phu Quoc Island, you can either stay within the city, at the beach near the city, or at the beach on the South East beach called Sao Beach.  This is the beach that the travel guide books says is more beautiful and contains only 3 resorts.  The down side is that since there isn't much else on this side of the island, you don't have much else to do except use the resort facilities and lay on the beach.  But with our rented motorbikes, we were able to visit this side of the island and get to enjoy the crystal blue waters and powder fine sand.  It's like Boracay again with a fraction of the people & resorts.

After an hour or two at Sao Beach, we jump on our motorbikes and head back to our resort.  This time, we travel along the west side of the island.  This road travels along the coast for ~12km and was the uber-highlight of our motorbike trip for the day.  This beach, known as Long Beach (but much nicer than the one in Southern California), is where the mega resorts are supposed to be built.  So perhaps one day, we can return when they're built and say, "I remember when..."

Drivin' Around in Our Moto-mobile

Back in 2007, my friend Cathy made a short video about the bike nation that is Vietnam.  So it was definitely exciting to get to see it in person.  But it was still rather mesmerizing to see how many motorbikes (scooters) there were and to hear them whiz by you.  They zig-zag around cars and each other as they jockey for a better position.  At times we would even see a motorbike riding on the sidewalk or even riding in the opposite flow of traffic.

One Way Street? No Problem, Just Ride on the Sidewalk

And even in the rain, they put on their ponchos and motor along.

So then what does a visitor do to get the feel of the true Vietnam?  Go on one of the bikes and join the masses?  Are you nuts?  It's pretty hectic out there just looking at them from the sidewalk let alone amongst them on the streets.  So we decided to be a little nuts and join them, but not on our own.  With locals that navigate the streets and around these motorbikes on a regular basis: www.mytigertour.com.

So Darin and I signed up for the twilight tour where we were picked up at our hotel at 5:30pm greeted by the sweetest 4 Vietnamese girls.  We were a little shocked that they were girls but even more surprised that there were 4 of them for just us 2.  There was one to drive Darin, one to drive myself, one main coordinator/photo taker, and one to drive the main coordinator.

So we said our hellos, showed briefly our route, jumped on the back of the motorbikes, and off we went.  Since it was around 5:30 pm, I was guessing that it was still in the thick of rush hour.  But thinking back on it, it seemed like there were a lot of motorbikes all the time.  The cool part was being able to Vietnamese people on their bike and so close.  On the sidewalk, they whiz by so quickly.  On the back of a motorbike, you're travelling at nearly the same speed, so you can look at them and wave and smile.  I even saw a girl ride her scooter with 3-4 inch heels.

Overall, the sights we saw were just mediocre (though where we had dinner was pretty yummy) but the company we had was awesome.  In between stops, we can chat it up w/ our perspective driver.  I found out where the expensive part of town (District 1), where the teenagers hang out on their dates (by the river or the park), that my driver, Chuc, is about to finish up school, that she loves Bangkok, and that she wants to learn French.  At dinner they taught us how to say "delicious" in Vietnamese (ngong wa), how to toast (1, 2, 3, YO!!!!), and how to wrap a spring roll, though we already knew that.

In the end of our tour, we were dropped off at our hotel and said our good-byes.  They then told us, if we ever need any help during our stay in Vietnam, to give them a call and they can help us out and even translate for us if needed. A couple days later, they e-mailed us w/ our photos from the evening and a little video compilation.

So if you ever find yourself in Saigon, we highly recommend this tour group.

Vietnam Cities Visited

Just left Vietnam yesterday and we had a great time.  A country that we would highly recommend to anyone.  We'll hopefully have posts up about the country sooner than later.  In the mean time, it's time to update our cities & transportation tallies.

Our last tally had us at 24 cities.  So on w/ our Vietnamese cities:
25. Ho Chi Minh City (AKA HCMC, AKA Saigon)
26. Phu Quoc Island (located just South of Cambodia)
27. Hanoi
28. Sapa (an 8 hour overnight train ride NW of Hanoi)
29. Halong Bay

Map of Vietnam; Hanoi in the North and HCMC in the South

Map of South Vietnam

Map of North Vietnam

Our transportation tally:
Hong Kong to HCMC by plane
HCMC to Phu Quoc Island by plane
Phu Quoc Island to Hanoi by plane
Hanoi to Sapa by train to Lao Cai, then van to Sapa
Sapa to Hanoi by van to Lao Cai, then train to Hanoi
Hanoi to Ha Long Bay by van
Ha Long to Hanoi by minibus

Plane rides: 8, previously at 5 plus the 3 listed above
Car rides: 10, previously at 7 plus the 3 vans listed above
Bus rides: 5, plus the minibus listed above
Ferry/boat rides: still at 5
Train rides: 17, previously at 15 plus the 2 listed above

Lots of travelling around!

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was tossed into the trip almost as way point rather than a destination. Anthony had been there before and loves the city so he was willing to return, and I didn’t really have any unique interest, but was up to visit.  So we hopped on an overnight train and nearly 24 hours later, we were in Hong Kong.

Darin in his Bunk on the Overnight Train to HK

Trying to Walk Through the Cars; One of the Many Looks Anthony Got For His Mohawk

In no time, I started to like the city as well. There is something familiar about Hong Kong, which probably has something to do with the 130 years of British rule. Because of this, there is less of a language barrier and it makes traveling that much easier. I would guess that around one third of the menus are written in both English and Chinese, with almost all expensive restaurants having both languages. The cross walks have beeping noises, subways remind you to "mind the gap", and double decked buses swarm the streets. Although the city has over 7 million inhabitants it never felt that crowded.

Tall, Skinny Trolleys of Hong Kong

There is a good big city/small city balance that seems to have been struck. Also, the people of Hong Kong are friendly, polite, and considerate. It could have been because we had just come from mainland China where there exists a different set of social norms to Hong Kong but it seemed to have a much more laid back feel.

Overlooking the Hong Kong Skyline from Victoria's Peak

One day as Anthony was resting from traveling, or resting from me, I went out and explored Hong Kong. I visited a park called Nan Lian Garden in the center of the city. The garden is located next to Diamond Hill subway stop and is surrounded by a shopping complex, schools, and some high rise apartment buildings. Outside the garden you can feel the full force of modern Hong Kong, but inside is an oasis. The garden is one of the meticulously maintained gardens that I have ever seen, so much so that many of the plants look plastic. While walking around the inside of the garden you can't hear the traffic and no one is in a rush to get by, the air almost feels cleaner. The juxtaposition of the calm garden against the big city is as bright as the sun and I tried to capture that contrast in these photos.

Shopping, Hong Kong Style

Shopping is one of the biggest attractions of Hong Kong. When Anthony posted on Facebook that we would be visiting the city, most of the comments included "I just love the shopping in Hong Kong". Even though neither of us are big shoppers we went out and explored this highly diverse shopping. Like most big cities, Hong Kong has all the big name luxury brands: Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Coach, and whole host of stores with names I could not pronounce and store fronts too expensive for me to walk into. It also offers Chinese made shirts for a few dollars and Louis Vuitton (or Luis Vitton) for a few dollars as well.  You can get a good quality tailored suit for only 100 USD. Not needing suits, and having only one set of clothes to wear since we were having our laundry being washed, we ended up in what we think to be a local Hong Kong brand store, Samuel & Kevin.  There, we bought two shirts, a belt, and six pairs of underwear for 425 Hong Kong dollars (55USD). Hardly a bargain but we look great!

Showing off our Snazzy New Outfits at "Dialogue In The Dark"

Dialogue in the Dark

Speaking of "Dialogue in the Dark," its not the best place to show off cloths because the entire exhibit is in complete darkness. Coming highly recommended on Tripadvisor and Wikitravel for activities in Hong Kong I booked us an English tour and we set off. Dialogue in the Dark has nothing to do with Hong Kong per se, since there are exhibitions all over the world.  It's an exhibit/activity that helps you understand, through experience, what it is like to be blind. You are given sticks and explained how to properly maneuver them side to side and then led into complete darkness where you meet your tour guide. Our guide walked us through different recreated urban environments and would ask us questions like, "When can we cross the street?" and "Are there any men's adult magazines on the newsrack?" At the end of the tour, still in the dark, we ordered some drinks, sat down and talked with our guide who informed us that she is in fact blind. Paying for drinks in the dark in Hong Kong is easy because all the bills are different sizes and have various textures that are easly recognizable. I asked our guide if it is hard to tell the money apart in the United States and she responded that its hard because to her they all feel the same, so she separates the bills in her purse and places different denominations in different parts of her purse. 

This was a wonderful experience that we both recommend. It not only helps you understand some of the daily challenges of being blind but it provides a new way on "seeing" the world. On our trip we are constantly running around when sightseeing and to look at one building or another. This exhibit reminded us to listen, taste, touch, and smell the sites as well.