Day 2: Discovering Hanoi, Vietnam

My morning began very similar to the day before, having my breaki on the rooftop of my hostel being served toast, eggs and fruit.  Of course no morning is complete without my coffee which luckily is served all day long.

This day was similarly rushed, as I had only 12 hour to discover Hanoi before my 9pm sleeper bus takes off to Sapa.

To start out my city tour, I walked towards the parliament and the presidential house.  I figured fro. There it is easy to tag along a tour. I did manage to join a tour but it turned out it was a paid service and I was not able to follow this group to the next location.  I parted ways from this group at the one pillar pagoda and started walking towards my next destination.

As I walked towards the Ho Chi Minh museum....and older gentleman approached me.  Not speaking any English, he quickly hands me a little black book with handwritten notes in them.  As i read each page....I notice that these are comments and feedback from tourist who have used his tour service.  Withing a few pages i find myself convinced that I too will use him as my tour guide around Hanoi. 

If you cannot trust a 65 year old driver, who can you trust in this world?

The day went as follows:
1. Prison museum
2. Woman's museum
3. Lunch break
4. Puppet show ticket
5. Vietnamese Notre Dame

                             

While he did charge me a hefty price of $20 or more, I was happy to have my private scooter and not have to drive myself around in the crazy Hanoi traffic. Five hours by scooter and 4 hours walking, all well spent, and I was ready to leave the city behind for some much needed Sapa hills experience.

My bags are packed and at 10pm, Vietnam time is similar to Africa time, I was picked up and taken to a place where I boarded my very first sleeper bus.

The details of this 3 day journey will be explained in the next post.

Cheers 

-R :-)

Day 5: Phong Nha, Vietnam

After spending nearly 5 days in northern Vietnam it was time to make my way to the central.

I took a 9 hour night open bus which meant I can hop on and off at the locations of my choice.  Due to my limited time, I had to skip a few places and head straight to Phong Nha. The bus dropped me off at 4 am, in the dark, under millions of stars....again ☺

I was told that the bus stops near my hostel however, it was too dark to see where anything was.  Of course, once the bus moved out of my way...the hostel was simply across the street.

Prior to check-in, I started my day with a shower and bunh mi for breakfast. During my shower I got to enjoy the sunrise and notice yet again that I was surrounded by beautiful hills.  I think this is the kind of place sometimes people refer to as paradise. And I have 2 days to enjoy this pretty hidden gem!

The Easy Tiger hostel has a pool, open roof showers, great food and a tour guide who works at the hostel, from the UK, maybe, and gave us a few lessons on this magical place. 

It turns out that actually this place wasn't always so pretty. This is a place where many of the large caves were used to hide the weapons and bombs during the Vietnam war.  This place was bombed so much by the US, that it would take 1000 years to clean up any remainder inactivated/dead bombs. He also reminded everyone that all hiking plans must be confirmed with tour companies prior to going alone or in a group as wondering these forests are not allowed....due to the hazards.

On this first day, a group of us decided to visit Phong Nha and Tien Son caves via a boat tour. They both hold some of the oldest limestone formations ...while Tien Son offers a 400 stair hike ...but the view from the top is magnificent! Both caves display the bullet marks left by the US army.

It is considered a world heritage site ...
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/951/

This is the tour:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/vietnam/north-central-vietnam/phong-nha-cave/sights/natural-landmarks/phong-nha-caves-boat-trip

Day 2 - A visit to the Dark cave then free styling the rest of the way!

I met Mia from Denmark on my very first day at the hostel.  We immediately connected and enjoyed talking, just about everything.  While we enjoyed the tour on our first day....we were not very keen on following a large group of young people all stuffed I to a bus...all day.

So we decided to take matters into our own hands.... rent a scooter and adventure our own free way. 

First we drove to the Dark cave...where I tried zip lining for the first time! Not too bad...but unsure if I would do that again.  From there we walked into a large cave in nothing but a swim suit and a hard hat on as we were heading towards a mud trail....leading to a mud pool.  Head to toe covered in mud...inside a dark cave!

This trip for me was recommended by a friend who visited this same place just a year earlier....and well....I will continue the recommendation as this place was awesome!

http://sondoongcavetour.abstravel.asia/phong-nha-cave-chay-river-dark-cave-by-boat.html

Unfortunately, the group was very large, about 30 people ...and made the experience very loud and hectic....but I can imagine if it was maybe 15 people....it would have been a much more joyful experience!

Anywho.....after all the mud we kayaked a little and got cleaned up.  Since we had our own ride...we decided to drive the 60 km loop which was the entire Phong Nha national park.  We skipped the Paradise cave and botanic gardens....and just spent the entire day driving.

While driving through the jungle:
- We tried chocolate Vietnamese coffee
- Saw some incredible looking butterflies
- And took some large deep breaths of the clean rainforest air

    

By sunset we noticed that we still had 3/4 of a tank left....so we decided to drive off the map and visit the farm stay which is affiliated with our hostel. Here we enjoyed a few bevies...watched the sunset over the rice fields...and the cows finding their way home...followed by the water buffalos. We stayed till dinner and enjoyed a few meals over an acoustic guitar and 2 singers.  It was lovely....!  We shared great stories which made Phong Nha my second favourite place after Sapa.

We enjoyed a full day of fun, broke most of the rules....driving in Vietnam...going off the map....however, we wore proper helmets and footware ☺

So lucky to have met Mia!  It really makes a trip that much more enjoyable!

Cheers

- R

Visiting Arviat

One of the perks of my work is having to visit the communities I'm responsible for in the Kivalliq.

I was given the green light to visit Arviat, a community south of Rankin Inlet and a population size comparable.  My Monday and Friday was already spoken for which left only 2 nights and 3 days for my travel.  This already a red flag since traveling in the North is not a quick process.  In general, people can be delayed or missed flights anywhere from 2-5 days at a time. But being myself, I was determined to fly on a Tuesday and be back to Rankin on Thursday and attend to Friday's scheduled work.

Tuesday at 7:30 am I get a ride to the airport and I stay there till 4pm when my flight finally takes off.
Why?

For one, we are told each hour that another 10min and we are getting out of here.  However, 8 hours roll on and I could have probably had lunch and dinner at home or my office, and save the food I have packed for Arviat. Anyways, the food was consumed and I managed to land in Arviat at 4:30 which gave me 30 min to drop my stuff off and still introduce myself to everyone before the office closed at 5pm.

Wednesday was nothing greatly out of the ordinary, accept for not having hot water to shower in the morning.  I grab a kettle and a turkey roasting pot (as my bucket) and get my shower on.  This day will not be ruined by lack of hot water as long as I remain creative :)

The days went well and I really enjoyed my time in Arviat.  I spent on carvings, paintings and a wall hanging which are very different from the styles in Rankin.

I was hoping to spend my Thursday lunchtime with the nurses before my flight out at 1:30pm however, they got very worried that I have yet to call the airline and confirm my flight schedule.  So, when I called at noon, the answer was: "You need to come to the airport immediately!"

I borrowed cab money and took the taxi to the airport (a 5 min drive) and arrived in good time to....wait.  I sat at the airport from noon till 2pm ...at that time they loaded the plane.....I doze off only to wake up 1 hour later....and we are still on the tarmac. Yes, at 3pm, I was still in Arviat due to loading the wrong cargo onto the plane.  So finally at 3:30pm the plane takes off and I arrive in Rankin by 4pm.

Overall, mission accomplished and I managed to complete this trip on time and make it in for Friday's important meeting.  However, I could have used an extra day to discover the community.

I look forward to visiting Arviat again hopefully if the opportunity arises.

- R :)