Towards the winterland
Yeah, I left warm Saigon to winter Hanoi for one of my best friends’ wedding, and New year trip to Sapa.
Arrived in Hanoi, I just had enough time to get a quick lunch at my favorite restaurant and then taking a walking tour around Hanoi center while catching up with one dear friend in Hanoi before setting off to Sapa.
It was the first time I took a train in Vietnam (my first ones was from Singapore to KL and vice versa) and the railway station looked really interesting for taking pictures. However, light and time weren’t sufficient enough so I was just able to take a couple shots.
After 8 hours on train from Hanoi to Lao Cai and then more than 1 hour on bus from Lao Cai to Sapa, we finally got to our hotel for an early check in. Then we decided to take a 2 hour nap to charge our energy. As girls, it took us another 1 hour to get prepared :P
Get ready
We were starving by then, so we went for a lunch of salmon first thing first. Man, I love love love that kind of fish but has only seen it in shasimi pieces so I was a litte curious how it looks alive. And here it is, rather small Vietnamese salmon
Only when we were full, we realized that our road to The Silver Waterfall was covered in deep fog. According to our motobike driver, Sapa was in the cold wave at that time so it was very cold, wet and foggy. You can hardly see things beyond 2m and hence hardly can have a clear picture of whatever you can see by your eyes. No matter what, we didn’t change our plan.
Here is the Silver Water fall in cloud.
And me on the way up there. I think that I look like an Eskimo coming from the Stone Age.
Finally, on the top.
And play sexy …
Leaving the waterfall, we headed to Ta Phin Village. It was late in a cloudy day so we didn’t see many persons hanging around the village roads. So we spend the rest of the day to discover Ta Phin Cave, playing climbing in the dark.
Our cute guides
Inside the cave, we figured out that climbing up and down those rough rock with only the flashlights was not easy at all. On the way, we asked the kids if there has been anyone fallen in the cave, they said there were a few. So we asked if anyone has fallen to death in the cave, they said no, noone has died in the cave, there was a man fell off and died on the way to the hospital. Huh???? :P
And this bamboo brigde made my friend quit, leaving me going on with my tour guide.
Getting out of the cave, it not what I saw but what I could do was the reward for the time and effort. Well, you can tell that I’m happy with that :D
Back to town. Here’s Sapa at night.
It’s New Year Eve. But despite how hard we looked around, up and down all the roads all over and over again, we couldn’t find any signal that there was any countdown in town. And only when we found out that no one left on the street, we came back our hotel at 11:30pm and countdowned in bed. Hula New Year everybody!!!
The next day, we woke up early for a longer trip. And it was even more foggy than the previous day so we took 2 motobike drivers to get us down 25km moutain pass to Ban Ho Village instead of driving by ourselves. Soon enough we realized that it was a smart decision as the road was in construction so it turned out all slippery and dusty under the deep fog. At some points, I found that I was just no more than 30cm from the eadge of the abyss, on a motobike. I swear that it was a hip more scary than the fly roller coaster.
The bad
The worse
and the worst
Fortunately, the more we go the clearer the sky were. And the scenes was breaktaking.
And we were all happy to finally reach the destination.
This village is very popular for trekking and homestay. We saw a lot of wester groups trekking down here on our way. I think that they are quite professional on the service.
It’s definitely a beautiful village to discover.
Nice roof
Whose scarf is it?
Peaceful view
I long for a house like this, do you?
I couldn't help wondering how they could stand the windy winter with such frail houses
The flower-like veggie
A nice decorative stuff
Nice fence
And lots of kids
A corner of life
I don't know what it is. It just caught my eyes.
A hairy pig
And a big belly guy. Must drink beer alot huh.
Dancing ducks
Not only the scene, but also the wonderful ethnic minority people, who caught my friend’s eyes unintentionally.
They are so cute and friendly.
Just after the pictures, the kids was willing to take us to the beautiful stream in the mountain. It look like just a daily fun walk for them.
Here come the stream. It’s so beautiful. If the weather was not that cold, I could have been taken off my coats and jumped in the water without hesitance. Well, it’s winter so it’s safer to take picture on the bank.
And to rest 
While we were playing down the stream. My little cute guides made their way higher.
And this is how high they were
Even I didn’t want it, it’s time to leave. The village in the dusk was so peaceful.
And this one cracked me up. A western toilet in a ethnic minority village! It’s weird, but not as weird as a toilet withour doors :P
Ok, here’s the secret. They put a piece of board on the of the toilet, when you use it, you bring the board to cover you. One board for 2 door, well, wish you luck!
On the way back to Sapa, we stopped over at the Rattan Bridge. It is more a sighseeing spot than a real bridge. But I do think it look great.
This is how it looked on the way back.
To close the day, we had the ethnic pig for our dinner. Does it look good? It taste good too.
The last day. It was colder and more cloudy than the previous days. We had to cancel our plan to visit nearby spots, knowing that even reach there, we could neither see anything nor take any pictures. We played around our castle-like hotel.
And the warm heater, which I fell in love at the first sight.
And around town
Then we sneaked into a nearby bakery shop, read book and enjoyed warm chocolate with delicious tiramisu and cheese cake to spend the evening away.
Before leaving, we saved the time for the best beefsteak in town.
Back to Hanoi, I met up with other friends, hung out for a couple hours before getting to the most important event of the trip. My best friend’s wedding. It was a great night. Happy wedding, LX & BB. I love you guys.
Labels: Travel
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