Showing posts sorted by relevance for query night train. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query night train. Sort by date Show all posts

06 April 2006

Night Train


My journey to Sapa began at 2pm on Sunday when I got in the taxi headed for the airport to catch my 4:30, two-hour flight to Hanoi. From Hanoi, I was to go to the Sinh Café travel office, arriving by 8pm in order to catch the 12-hour night train to Lao Cai. From there it is an hour bus trip up the mountain.

I had decided to fly with Pacific Air rather than Vietnam Air because it was $30 cheaper and I figured nothing could be much worse than Vietnam Air. I had wanted to get the earlier flight at 11:30am just to make sure I had enough time in case there were any delays, but that flight was sold out. When they announced that there would be a slight delay for the 4:30 flight, I started to get nervous.

At 4:45, every seat of the beat-up, old airplane was filled. This aircraft had been a former member of a Spanish speaking country, with bilingual cabin signs like occupied/occupado. The interior boasted its original everything, and I only hoped that they had spent any revenues on engine maintenance, since it obviously hadn’t been used on anything that I could see. Glancing at my watch, I willed them to shut the doors and take off. And just at that moment, I heard a thunder clap and the rain started to pour. Now I hoped that the pilot would do the smart thing and delay take-off. He didn’t, and we were soon in the air, cramped and uncomfortable. For the first time in my air flight life, I realized why those seats feel much worse than they probably are: it’s the seat in front of you. It invades your personal space and one is constantly trying to mentally push back from it.

Flight over, and at the baggage carousel, I met a woman from Zimbabwe who worked in Hanoi. We shared a taxi into town, which is an hour drive. She had recently been to Sapa so gave me a few tips. It was almost 8pm when I finally got to the tiny Sinh office. I had made it in time!

Shouldn’t we leave for the train station? I asked. “No”, the young office agent said, “there is plenty of time”. While I sat there I asked about who I would be sharing a room with, each berth having four beds. “We don’t know”. I asked about how many people would be on the trekking tours. “We don’t know, but not more than five”. At 8:15, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut and asked, aren’t we going to miss the train? “No,” she said, “the train doesn’t leave until 10pm”. Well at least I was glad I hadn’t taken the 11:30 flight. But something didn’t make sense. If we left at 10, and it was a 12-hour trip, how was I to make the 8am breakfast and 9pm short trek? I asked. “The train arrives at 6am”, I was told. Things were looking a little better; it was only an eight hour trip.

At 8:30 the agent called a taxi over and we were off. A short drive later we picked up three other tour people, a Vietnamese woman in her 30’s and her parents. Arriving at the station I was once again glad I was not doing this alone. The streets were dark and teeming with people and taxis and motorbikes all making their way to the entrance. I secured my belongings with an iron grip and trailed closely behind the travel agent.

After passing through the ticket gate, we walked over to a poorly lit platform, squeezing through the crowds of loud people. One train had just arrived, the passengers moving towards us, making maneuvering even more difficult. We rounded the end of one train, then crossed over several tracks to another platform and waiting train, then down to the very last car.

When I got to my berth, I realized that the three people we had picked up were to be my cabin mates. Somehow, three of us walked into our tiny room at the same time and I had a near claustrophobic attack. Since two of our party were rather old, I said I would take a top bunk, dropped my bag, and went out of the train to clam down. I didn’t know how I was going to survive all night in such a tomb-like enclosure. I stayed out until it was time to take off.

Passing the other berths on the way to mine, I saw they were filled mostly with groups of foreign tourists, who seemed to be having a good-old time. Once inside mine, I climbed up to my perch, which didn’t even have enough space to sit up in. Surprisingly, once I lay down, the claustrophobia somewhat disappeared, even after the door was slid shut. I pulled out my book and proceeded to read. The cabin had a small table and lamp between the bottom bunks, and a small light over the door.

Around eleven, I looked down to see that my roommates were asleep, but had left the light on for me. I gingerly climbed down managing not to step on anyone, and made my way towards the bathroom at the end of the car. As much as I enjoyed the rocking of the train, I knew that taking a pee would be a challenge. The toilet was a squatter with hand rails on two sides, and as much as I did not want to grab on, there really was no choice. Squatting there, I thought of my friend who had done the trip while she was six months pregnant, getting up every two hours to use the facilities. I don’t know how she managed.

Back in the berth, I turned off the table lamp and tried to get comfortable. The bed was narrow, and I sort of wondered how many people had been railroad-rocked off the top. I moved closer to the wall. I tried everything I could do, but just couldn’t sleep, mainly because that damn night light over the door shone directly into my eyes. I fell asleep for thirty minutes and woke up with a headache, swallowed a pill and tried again. This basically went on all night, but I have to say it still beat the crap out of the same amount of time squeezed into an airplane seat. It didn’t seem to affect my roommates who were out cold all night. Finally, at 5:30 in the morning, with daylight breaking, I got up and went out to stand at the end of the car and look at the scenery through the cloudy glass and bars. I noticed that every exit from the car was either paddle locked or barred and tried not to think of cabin fires.

I figured we only had a short while to go when I met another passenger in the hall who said that the train was supposed to have arrived at 5:30am, but that the conductor kept adding hours. It was now due at 8:30. I was feeling rather rotten, so didn’t care that I might miss early morning activities in Sapa. Getting closer to our final destination, I put my hand to the glass window expecting it to be ice cold, but it wasn’t. I noticed the people we passed were not bundled up against the chill. I began to think about the clothing I had packed, and when I finally stepped off the train I said, Damn! Foiled again! It was pleasant and warm and I had all the wrong clothes.


Everyone I had spoken to who had taken the same trip had warned me that the bus up the hill from Lao Cai to Sapa was horrible simply because it was after such an exhausting train trip. I didn’t see it that way, even though I was sardined into a tiny fold down seat in a mini-van packed with twenty people. It was such different, beautiful scenery. I started to see people dressed in ethnic clothes which seemed odd and I couldn’t exactly explain to myself why I had this reaction. Maybe it was the sight of such completely different dress alongside western wear. Or possibly that they wore clothing one sees in postcards and books, but not walking around unless they are at some sort of multi-cultural festival.

We passed groups of water buffalo being herded up the main road along with people in various local dress with baskets on their backs; some filled with wood, others with vegetables, and some of them on motorbikes. As we climbed higher, I looked down the mountain to see hundreds of terraced farms, seemingly encompassing the entire valley.



Sapa is a small town, originally built as a “hill-station”, not that I am exactly sure what that is, other than a retreat for the Europeans wanting to escape the heat. Even with all the building that has gone on in recent years, it still feels quaint and peaceful. It was certainly evident that a booming tourist industry has taken hold. There are lots and lots of small hotels and café’s and gift shops. There are hundreds of tourists walking around and equally as many of the indigenous peoples either going about their daily business or trying to sell their wares.

I was the last person to be dropped off at my hotel, the Golden Sea. (I have no idea about the name.) It stood at the end of a road, with nothing around it but mountains. A young man from the office came out to tell me that I wouldn’t be in the main building, but next door in the Golden Sea 2, because they had a group of fifty arrive the day before. I followed him over to the other building and up to my room on the second floor. I walked in and noted that it was clean and new and completely adequate. The hotel guy opened up the balcony doors, and started to tell me about the plans for the day.

At this point I was feeling like total crap. Too many hours traveling, not eating, and then there was that altitude thing. I started to say something then stopped mid-sentence because I had just bothered to take a look out of the balcony and onto an unobstructed view of the mountains. It was absolutely breathtaking, and I was later to learn that I probably had the best view of any hotel room in town. Not only was there nothing to see but nature in every direction, there was no noise, only the sounds of people walking up and down the trail that lead to one of the villages.

I showered, unpacked, went to the main hotel to eat some very unimaginative food, then back to lie down. I really hoped I would feel up to the 2pm mini-trek.
And I was, but that will be told in the next chapter.

Kate

01 March 2011

Travelling to Mui Ne

The only way to get to Mui Ne Beach is by bus or train. I didn’t relish the thought of either even if it was only four hours away. It has to do with the one major downfall of travelling alone; who watches your bag when you go to take a pee?


A bus trip would have meant going to the very crowded backpacker section of Ho Chi Minh City, which gets even more crowded in the morning when all the buses line up to take tourists and locals to vacation destinations. It would have meant watching your suitcase get thrown in the storage unit under the bus and then just hoping it will be there when you arrived. It also meant a long, uncomfortable trip, maybe with a potty break; maybe not.
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So it was to be the train. And what the heck was wrong with me? I come from a long and honorable line of railroad engineers; it’s in my DNA. I love trains. I love the sound and the chug-a-chug, and the ability to get up and roam around. Except there still remained the problem of who watches the bags. Worst case scenario I just might be able to avoid leaving my belongings in search of the train loo if I stopped drinking anything 24 hours before the trip.
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I came to Vietnam with a big suitcase, a small suitcase, and a backpack that contained laptop and camera. There were definitely things I could leave at a friend’s house thereby deleting the small suitcase. As I sat on the larger one trying to zip it at 5:00am yesterday morning, I wondered how I still had managed to be travelling with so much weight.

The taxi dropped me at the station at 6:15 which gave me forty minutes to wait on the platform and try to sort out just how I was going to get that heavy bag up onto the train and after that, just exactly where I was going to put it.
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Luck would have it that this guy saw me walk over to get on. He looked as though he might have spoken English, but he didn’t say anything. Just pointed to my bag indicating he would help, then hauled it up onto the train and without my even asking, shoved it behind the last two seats. Fantastic! I was set. Except that that wasn’t my assigned seat. Once again, I had forgotten to think things through. I should have requested an aisle seat, I should have asked for the last seat in the car. I got anxious for no reason at all since it turned out those last two seats were empty. And it was then that I realized that in the future I will just pay for two seats and make sure they are in the back of the car. Considering the trip only costs around $4, double that price is worth the comfort and freedom of mind.
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The ride was comfortable since I had two seats and when I did need to get up and move, I looked around the train car; people looked normal. I didn’t see any thugs or shady characters so just left my backpack in my seat. The train toilet was at the front of the adjoining car. Having been in a Vietnamese train bathroom before, I knew what to expect. A squatter toilet. On a rocking train. Much more dangerous than on an airplane with turbulence. I then made the mistake of hitting the flush pedal and only speedy reaction time saved me from a soaking wet shoe.
I was now no longer so obsessed with watching my belongings. I stood between the cars and let the rhythms run through me. I began to hum along with the four measure repeating cadence that the train made as we rumbled through farm land and jungle. It was as close to a samba beat as I was going to get and seeing that it is just about Carnaval time, I did a few Brazilian steps to the tempo of the locomotive.
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The scenery was lovely and I thought of pulling out the camera but with dirty, scratched-up windows, nothing would have looked very nice. Also, it was simply too labor intensive to haul it out.
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Once at the train station in Phan Thiet, I hopped in a taxi for the twenty minute ride to my hotel. Yet another harrowing trip along a narrow two-lane road, taxi driver honking and passing everything in sight. At least this car had functioning seatbelts.
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Within twenty seconds of arriving at the hotel, I was already getting bad vibes. I could see that the rooms were not what I had expected. Although on the beach, there were no “sea views”. Two long buildings of guestrooms ran along either side of a central garden/courtyard. I passed one with an open door and it was pitch black inside at twelve noon. But what was most troubling was the surly staff.
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In all my travels in Vietnam, and in fact the world, I don’t think I have ever been to a hotel where the staff made me feel as if I were imposing on them. And then the gal at reception tells me there are no rooms because they over-booked. I pointed out I had a reservation and she got upset. They finally took me to an upper level room. I saw at least four other empty rooms.
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The room was small-basic-basic, but since it was relatively new, it was clean. Being upstairs it was bathed in sunlight from the huge windows that ran across the front of the room. OK, that was nice. But then I noticed that the windows didn’t open. And I noticed there was no mini-fridge, but there was internet access. That’s another major change fro just five years ago; no budget hotel had internet then and now every place, from cheap to five star, has Wi-Fi available in the rooms.
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The place was fine for the night but not for anymore than that. Just before I had left HCMC, I ran into a friend who had given me a name of a hotel in Mui Ne that was reasonably priced and very nice. So after dropping off my bags, I headed out to walk down the street to find it. On the local map I had picked up, it was just down the road.


After walking twenty minutes I realized this was another Vietnam tourist map that greatly distorted distances. I stopped to ask how far the hotel was and found out it was another 5K. This time I did not mess up the conversion to miles. I then asked about a city bus. I just happened to be at the bus stop and one would be by in fifteen minutes.
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I instantly fell in love with the new hotel the minute I walked through the front entrance. It had beautiful gardens, and wide open structures and it just had to be way above what I had hoped to spend. But I persevered. A smiling young man came out to greet me and I explained what I was looking for. He took me over to the front desk and handed me a room price list. There must have been something wrong; rooms for $16? I must have looked shocked because he quickly explained the 10% discount. Still not quite believing that this could be true, I asked to see the rooms. They were similar in size and darkness to where I had just come from. I asked to see something with more light. I have booked the room for a week and will move there in a few hours. I will pay $18 a night because I want hot water and breakfast, otherwise it would be $14. This still just doesn’t make sense, when everything else around here starts at close to $40. Even the backpacker places are $12.
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I will be very happy to finally unpack for a while and not have to get on a plane or train. And I am at the beach, the most wonderful place to be in the world.
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Kate

13 April 2006

Journey Back To HCMC


While I was packing, I kept hearing lots of voices and noises outside my window. I finally looked out to see a throng of Hmong men standing amongst large bags of an unknown substance that was being off-loaded from a massive, flatbed truck. Finally, I thought. I would be able to get pictures of the men.

I checked a few camera angles and could see that I was too far away to get a decent shot, so proceeded throwing items into the extra bag I had to buy to accommodate all my purchases. As I hoisted said bags onto shoulders, I wondered how I was ever going to carry all of it. Being in the abandoned section of the hotel, it was not like there was anyone to help.

Stumbling down the stairs and trying to push open doors with no free hands, I eventually made it outside where I had a closer look at the goings on. This was obviously the distribution point for the bags, which were now stacked on both sides of the narrow road. I saw that a few men were tallying and allotting sacks, while others stood around getting ready to take their portions. A fair number of motorbikes had arrived, ready to transport the supplies down the hill.

Once inside the main hotel, I asked what was going on. The sacks were filled with grain to grow rice. Since I had still had time before the van picked me up, I asked if there would be any problem in taking pictures of the goings on. I was told that it would be fine.

I started down the stairs and out the front door, then had to go back in. The monster delivery semi was attempting to turn around on a narrow dirt road that had the hotel on one side and a sheer, 3000 foot drop on the other. I couldn’t watch. Either he was going to back off the cliff, or ram into the hotel. The driver, with the help of his partner, somehow managed to back up, drive forward, back up drive forward, over and over again, until they finally made it out intact.

I went out and sat unobtrusively, I hoped, on the edge of a planter box, watched the action, and started to shoot pictures. I listened to the conversations in Hmong all around me and tried to identify its sounds. Directly across from me, a few women stood, rolling hemp into twine, waiting to help with the motorbike loading.

One woman in particular, was the group clown. Obviously, I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but could tell that she was cracking everyone up. She had this essence of fun that translated across language lines. When it was time to load sacks on bikes, she’d tuck her hemp back into her waist band, lift her half of the sack onto the bike, all the while cutting up. I was trying not to laugh, imagining what she was saying. Everyone around her was laughing and smiling.

I watched as two sacks at a time were loaded onto a motorbike, sometimes with another person on back, for the perilous ride down the mountain. One industrious crew bound two sacks to the sides, secured them with rubber bindings, then loaded a third onto the back seat. I wondered how he would make it down without either dropping a sack, or having it burn up on the exhaust pipes. I figured they had probably been doing this for years, so I shouldn’t worry.

I would have preferred to get closer shots but, as I have said, felt that it would be too intrusive. At one point, an ancient man bent over to see the picture I had just taken of his grandson. He smiled when I showed it to him. I must have sat there, feeling invisible, for at least thirty minutes. It was one of the most interesting, enlightening, segments of time I had had on my trip. It ended when my van showed up.

My original trip back to Hanoi was supposed to have been on the day before, but I had extended a day. I had called the gal at Sinh Tours in Hanoi, who’d told me that she would send a new train ticket up for me. By the time my pick-up had arrived, the ticket was not there. I was assured that I would get it in Lao Cai, at the restaurant where I would wait for the 9:00 train. An hour down the mountain, and our group was deposited at a tiny restaurant that stood next to other restaurants, around the square in front of the train station. I sat at an outdoor table and looked at my watch. I had three hours to wait.

Lao Cai, at least from the few blocks around the train station, resembled any interior town in any country I have ever been. Kind of grimy and dilapidated. The restaurant staff and the people in the streets had the same type of appearance. All, that is, except for the owner, Ms Phuc.

Ms Phuc, model thin, looked like a high class madam. She wore a tiny, black, satiny top, with a matching, clingy, three-quarter length skirt, slit up the back. She wore black open-toed heels, and clutched a cell phone. Her long black hair was tied in a pony-tail, and she wore beautifully applied make-up. She did not look cheap; just totally out of place. When things got busy at the restaurant, she’d bark orders to get people moving. I’d asked about my ticket and she said it would be there by 8:00. The people at the table next to me were also waiting for tickets.

Somewhere, during the past few days, I had found out that Lao Cai was only 3k from the Chinese border. I had planned on grabbing a taxi to drive over there just to say that I had seen China, but no longer had the energy. I also realized that I should eat something, so ordered rice and tofu. As I sat, more and more travelers arrived and were dropped off at my restaurant or a neighboring one. A young Korean woman joined my table. We started to talk and I found out that she had also been in Sapa alone, at the same hotel, and that we’d both spent the previous night alone in our rooms. I wish someone at the hotel had thought to introduce us.

I talked with other people around me and found out that the train left at 8:30. I had thought it left at 9:15. Apparently, there were several different trains leaving at various times, both coming and going. So how was it I managed to get the latest one in both directions? I asked Ms Phuc and she said she would get me on the 8:30 departure.

It was now dark, and although not brutally hot, I was already sweaty and grimy and I had a whole night ahead of me to just get more gross feeling. At 8:00, people started to leave for the station a block away. I again asked Ms Phuc about my ticket that hadn’t shown up. A few minutes later, I heard her yelling into her cell phone, then rushing over to my table and the one next to me saying it was time to move. She took off at a fast clip. I went to retrieve my bags and realized I would never be able to carry it all and make it onto the train in time. I had lots of tipping cash, so looked around and asked one of the staff for a hand. Even with one of them hauling my heaviest bag, I was still weighted down, and trying to keep up.

We rushed to the station, falling in behind Ms Phuc and assorted travelers, pushing through crowds and finally to the ticket entrance, where we met up with the lady who had our tickets. I got mine, and followed my porter out on to the tracks, the straps of my bag digging into my shoulder.

Luckily, my car was very close. As the conductor took my ticket, he said something to my helper, and we set off in the other direction. It was the wrong train. We carried on until the end of that train, crossed the tracks, then walked to the end of the cars, finally arriving at the correct one. We were really rushing, seeing that the train was to leave in about ten minutes.

I got help getting to my berth, but thought it was odd that no one, other than two western women, was on the train. Not that I would argue about a cabin to myself on the ride back. Really drenched and miserable at this point, I dug into my bag to get some money for my bag-carrier. I was worried the train would take off with him onboard. Then I looked at my ticket and saw that I had a top bunk. There was no way I was going to do that again, so went to look for train personnel.

On my way down the deserted car, I stuck my head into the room with the women. I asked if they knew why the train was empty. Simple answer: it didn’t leave until 9:15. All that running and sweating for naught. I continued down to the end of the car and leaned out to where the conductor was having a smoke. I did my song and dance routine to try and explain that I could not be on a top bunk. I think he said that it wouldn’t be a problem. Back at my room, I liberated a bottom bunk, piled all my junk on it, and lay down to read. I was not moving off it until Hanoi.

Eventually, the car did fill up. My roommates were three young Vietnamese women who had no problem with sleeping on the top. The rest of the car was filled with Chinese men. I really hoped I would be able to sleep this time.

As I lay on my bunk, I started to think about some of the other things I had noticed on my trip and all the information I would need to understand it. Like the green pith helmets that I’d seen on lots of men both in Sapa and Lao Cai, but never in HCMC. And then there were the woman with the black teeth. I am not even sure which minority group they belonged to. I actually don’t think their teeth were black; it looked more like they had black mouth guards over their teeth. Also, the Red Zao women either had shaved hairlines or it was genetic. It was hard to tell because of their head scarves.

Between reflecting on my trip and reading a book, it was soon 11pm, and my roommates were sound asleep. It was time to turn off the light. Even though it was much more comfortable on the bottom, and I didn’t get a headache, I couldn’t sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time. Knowing that the train should arrive around 5:30am, I got up at five to go to the bathroom, wash m face and brush my teeth. Then I sat on a stool at the end of the car and tried to look out the grimy window.

This was the part of a trip that I hated. You feel so totally alone in the world. I was tired and filthy and probably hungry and thirsty, and it would be hours until I got home. I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text message to the one person in the US who not only knows how to message people, but answers me. So here I was, in the back waters of Vietnam, at five in the morning, feeling pretty down, sending a message to a friend in California. Within a minute I got a reply, and the gloom lifted.

Soon, all the Chinese men were coming out to use the toilet, and in no time there was a line. The conductor came by, saw the men waiting, and unlocked a small hatch at the bottom of the exit door, indicating that the man could pee out of it. I went back to my berth.

Twenty minutes later we arrived in Hanoi. I loaded up, and waited until the car was empty to make my exit. I had to walk through fresh pee on the stairs out. Still in pretty much of a daze, a man came up and asked if I needed a taxi. I hesitated only a few short seconds before saying yes. He grabbed my bags and flew off. I had to nearly run to keep up. He took me outside of the station and handed me off to a friend with a taxi. I had no change, so he got a serious tip. However, I think he may have said something to the taxi driver as the trip to the airport was over double what it was coming in.

I got there at 6:30, and had a plane reservation for 10:30. The first thing I did was to see if there was an earlier flight. There were three, but all with Vietnam Air, and I was on Pacific. I did manage to leave my bags at a check-in counter so I could go to the bathroom, change clothes and kind of clean up. That left another three hours to check in.

I didn’t have any luck finding food, so settled for coffee knowing there would be a meal on the flight. It took all my powers of concentration to stay awake until the 10:15 boarding. By that time I was really looking forward to getting some nutrition in my body, but I was tricked again when I found out that the menu only contained foods which I do not eat. I got two dinner rolls.

I eventually made it home, threw clothes in the laundry, took a shower, and ate. I also realized that although I had thought it was hot in Sapa, I had been mistaken. Compared to HCMC, it was only mild. Not that I minded at all. It is nice to get back to your own bed and shower, especially after such a whirlwind adventure.

I have already received emails from the girls, always with the same three sentences they know – “How are you? I hope you are fine. I miss you.” I continue to reply in similarly simple language and hope that maybe they will start to improve their reading skills.

I still have stuff to unpack and put away.
Kate





29 March 2006

Winding Down


Two more days until the end of the term. One more day of finals, and all the reading of essays, marking, recording scores, and handing in paperwork. Then one day of teaching, although I doubt more than a few will turn up, if that. And on Sunday I leave for my trip up north.

After I finished marking about as many exams as I could for the day, and knowing I had to be home before 5 for my acupuncture doctor, I grabbed a taxi for the Sinh Café tourist office to purchase my train ticket/tour. I had only ever been to their office in the backpacker’s section of HCMC, but saw that there was a second one not far away.

I pretty much detest the backpacker area. It is jammed with cheap guesthouses, travel agents, low-priced cafes, somewhat costly boutiques, drinking establishments, and hookers. Quite a lot of people from work live in, and/or hang out there. I have no idea why. It’s quite the seedy locale. The Sinh office, right in the middle of it all, is a ghastly, hole-in-the-wall, with over-worked, under-paid, rather unpleasant staff. I was hoping that their sister office was better, and I was not disappointed.

Although it is walking distance from the nasty branch, it is a different world. I only saw a couple of foreigners on the street. The office actually looked like a tour office, and the ladies there were helpful and pleasant. Well, as helpful as they could be with limited English and my zero Vietnamese. (my language classes have again been put on hold because the teacher is out of town, but that is a whole, other, boring story.)

I pulled out the information I had picked up over the weekend and asked about other Sapa tours they might have. It all got very confusing. Mostly because a 4-day, 3-night trip, includes 2 nights on the train, and only one night in Sapa. I just can’t seem to get my head around flying up to Hanoi, a 2 hour flight, on Sunday, then boarding the train at 9:30pm, and arriving in Sapa at 7am. I think I am then taken to a hotel and either go village trekking right then, or after lunch. I finally decided to just pay for it and if I want to stay a day or two more, I’ll deal with it when I am there.

The whole idea of a 12-hour, overnight train ride, in a “soft-sleeper”, (which is a cabin with two bunk-beds), with three people I have never met in my life, sort of makes me itch. My worst case scenario is being stuck with a bunch of drinking, smoking, 20-somethings, or a local family who have brought on pots of fish and rice and screaming kids. I know I will never be able to sleep, and what do I do when I have to walk to the end of the car to pee? Will my clothing be safe? I can’t very well take a travel bag into the loo. I tried to see if I could pay extra for my own “room”, but was told I couldn’t. I felt totally trashed when I left the ticket office, but told myself this is how it always feels, and once I am on my way it will work out.

I really should stay either a few more days in Sapa, or take a few days in Hanoi. It’s just that I don’t like to do more than one thing a trip. And then there is the problem of taking cold weather, trekking clothes to Sapa, which will not be appropriate for Hanoi. Once again, the whole by-yourself-luggage hassle. Not to mention the freeze factor.

Lately, in HCMC, it has been 100ºF, (37ºC), and it stays toasty all night. Sapa might get up to 60ºF, (16ºC), during the day, and around 53ºF, (12ºC), or lower at night. That is a drastic climate change. And I do believe that it is 6000 ft elevation, so not only will I be experiencing hypothermia, but I will get altitude sickness. And no, I do not have the right clothing, but will make due. One friend told me not to worry, that they had the fireplaces roaring in the hotel. I simply can not, as I sit here drenched in sweat at 10pm, even imagine being cold, let alone cold enough for a fireplace.

But look on the bright side, I say to myself. I think there is still a bit left of that solar eclipse going on, somewhere in the world. Mercury is out of retrograde. I will pull out my tarot cards to make sure all the forces are in alignment, and if I had any incense, I’d burn it.

Best reason of all that I have to go is that I need new photographs. I have been reduced to this latest, which is another neighborhood shot. I refer to it as the Wisteria Lane/Stepford/Hollywood- back-lot, section of the burb.

If I don’t find anything to write about before I take off, you’ll hear from me in about a week.
Kate


25 March 2006

Trip Plans


I have one more week of work, then a week off. I have been planning on going to the north of the country for some time, but am just now looking into how to do it.

You can put me on a plane with a suitcase and $100, fly me to any far-off corner in the world where I don’t know a soul and don’t speak the language, dump me on the tarmac, and I will be happy. And not just happy; thrilled. Within a week I will have a place to live and a job. But once I am there, I never seem to travel much.

All of a sudden, getting on a bus alone and going out on tour just seems too problematic. It has nothing to do with being alone, but everything to do with practicality. I mean, who watches your bag when you need to use the bus station bathroom, or when you dive into the surf at that beautiful beach? That being my general mindset, along with preferring to stay home and do all the things I never seem to get done when I am working, I don’t ever take full advantage of the places I have lived. Or haven’t until I came here.

Now, every break I’ve had, I’ve gone somewhere. Once I am on the road I love it and wonder why I’d spent time debating whether or not to travel. In the past week I have, once again, been thinking about not traveling during my break. Should I go, should I stay, should I get a tour, should I go it alone, should I book with this travel company or that? It seems so overwhelming that giving up on the idea presents a fairly nice alternative. Making all those choices and decisions alone, when one has limited information, sucks.

One of the reasons I like to live around the world is so that I can experience the local culture, especially that of indigenous peoples. I am entranced by their lives and clothing and artwork. In Vietnam, the remaining ethnic minority groups, as they are referred to here, live in and around the city of Sapa, way up north. I knew I wanted to go there, but didn’t, and don’t, know very much about them and the area in which they live. This last week of trip planning has proved educational.

First of all, I found out that I can fly to Hanoi, but then must take a 12 hour train ride up to Sapa. (again, who watches your bags on a 12 hour trip when you go to the head?) Staritng to think twice about it all, friends reassured me that the train ride is at night, in a sleeper car, and is very comfortable. Ok, so I guess I can manage that, but then I had to get some sort of tour because you just can’t hike around the hills looking for villages.

Following the suggestions of various colleagues, I went online and checked out what was available. Unfortunately, it seemed all the trips were designed for people coming from outside of the country. I was looking for a 3 or 4 day thing, and the ones listed were a minimum of ten days. The prices were ok, but not cheap, especially considering I would have to pay for the airfare and train trip.
I then remembered Sinh Café Tours. They run those $8 day trips to the Mekong Delta and other places. I hadn’t used them before, but remember running into an older couple who swore by them and who had had a fantastic time in Sapa with one of Sinh’s tours.

I got to their web site and was very happy to see that they had three day trips, starting from Hanoi where you get the night train, and the price was at least two-thirds less than the other companies. However, I then went on to read the details of the trip which included the word trekking. Right. I should have done better research, because I was sort of surprised to find out that one had to walk lots of kilometers to actually get into the village areas.

Once again I thought of not going. I am a walker and can walk and walk for hours. But trekking sounded scary. I walk on my own time at my own pace and a forced march is not my idea of a vacation. Did that also mean I had to be a backpacker? What was I to do but to put it off until a later date and maybe find someone who knew more about traveling in the north and might even go with me? I thought about it. If I don’t go in April, I won’t have a chance until the fall, and by then it would be the rainy season. Trekking down mountain slopes in the cold and rain is simply not an option for me. Besides, I reasoned, I was being very silly to not go to the one area I most wanted to see simply because of the word trekking.

That settled, I went into town to do some power shopping before hitting Sinh Café’s office. And since it was 200 degrees at 2pm, I stopped off for a cold drink where I ran into two friends. Both of the guys had been to Sapa, so I pumped them for info. Tell me about this trekking, I asked. My friend laughed. It’s an easy walk. The jeep drops you off at the top of a mountain; you leave your bags with the driver, who later hooks up with you at the bottom. The other friend went on to tell me that it was lucky there was only on Sinh Café in HCMC. In the land of no copyright laws it seems that numerous industrious individuals in Hanoi have ripped off their good name and ideas to get a piece of the action.

Once at the Sinh office, I requested information about the three day trip. The man at the counter got out a travel itinerary brochure and pointed it out. But this is different form the on listed online, I said. He just looked at me. I tried thumbing through the pamphlet, but couldn’t find what I had seen. I told him I would print out the online one and be back.

At home, I got on the computer and found the trip, then matched it word for word with the brochure I had been given. Well, it was almost the same. I looked at the logo. It was the same. Then I looked at the website listed on the brochure and it was not the same. Similar, but slightly altered. I remembered what my friend had said about the copycats. When I finally got the real Sinh Café online I saw hat they had included a notice about other companies that had stolen their name, logo, and trip description. And people wonder why I opt to vegetate at home.

I really think I might now have the right information. I will check with a few other people on Monday to make sure the local Sinh Café is the outfit to go with. I then have to get a plane ticket, then go book the tour. Which brings up another problem. I either take a morning flight and hang out in Hanoi all day, (who watches my bag?), or take the night flight which doesn’t give you enough time to make it to the train station so you have to stay in a hotel, and then you still have to do Hanoi all day. So why don’t I just stay a day or two and check out Hanoi? Because I choose to do one thing at a time and this time it is Sapa.

I need to buy some warm clothes.
Kate

06 May 2011

No Power



It was one of those god awful days in Mui Ne when the electricity is shut off from 8:00am until 5:00pm for routine maintenance. There is no prior warning and this is the fourth time it has happened since I’ve been here. I only have a fan in my room, no A/C and that’s never a problem except when there is no power and with no cross ventilation, it is impossible to breathe in there. I can’t write because my laptop battery won’t last more than an hour. I had things to do so I just took off to worry about it later.
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On the way to the bus stop I went over the errands I needed to do; first was to go and pick up my train ticket for next week, next was to go to the ATM. And oops; no electricity means no ATM. The bus had arrived so I got on.
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My guy who had the ticket was out and wouldn’t be back for two hours. So I walked to my next destination, the internet café where they sold blank CD’s. I mentioned my ATM problem and they assured me that ATM’s would work. I doubted this but gave it a whirl. No luck.
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It was only 10am. Too early to go get that meal I had been dreaming about and too hot to do much else. I caught the bus back home.


Now what was I to do? I tried stretching out on the bed to read the one book I had and didn’t much care for, but just wasn’t not enough air. I tried sitting on my front porch but it was too uncomfortable.
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Time crept on and I tried not to think about it being a wasted day. Then just when I was again thinking it was a wasted day I spotted a beautiful lizard on the rock right across from my room.
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I do love lizards and had seen a spectacular blue-headed guy near the front of the hotel a month ago. Back near my room there are only these rather plain ones. This one didn’t have a colorful head, but he was of that pre-historic dinosaur body style. I ran to get my camera.
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Carefully stalking him and trying to get a good shot did not turn out the way I had hoped. I only have one lens on my camera, but there is some zoom capability. And since it is my new, very expensive DSLR camera, I was sure it would suffice. Wrong. I’ll work that out later. But as I was trying to get a clear picture of my reptile who had noticed my approach and scooted up a coconut tree, I found a second brand of lizard.
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Talk about camouflage! This critter was about 4 inches long and looked like coconut bark. Had I not been right on top of him in my attempt to capture the image of lizard number one, I would never have seen him.
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I still have hopes of getting a picture of the blue lizard and this unbelievable moth I have only seen once. It was an army-green-cami painted moth.


It turned out that they do have a very noisy generator at the hotel which they turned on at 2:00pm. I flipped on the fan and cooled down and planned the rest of the day. Since I rarely walk to the beach at sunset I thought I should try to get a few more photos before I leave in a few days.
 It’s lovely in the early evening as the sun goes down at 6:00 pm. The tide is way out and local folks keep busy picking up various types of edible shell life. The families from the neighboring little shops walk through their backyards down to the beach. Kids and mom’s and dad’s and dogs romp in the shallow water. My favorite little tiny dog seems to be the alpha who lords over the big ones.
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Feeling invigorated by the cool evening weather and wonderful sights, I smiled as I unlocked my room only to be greeted hundreds of flying termites.
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I’d had this problem after the rains when I lived in HCMC. I’d learned that one need only turn off the lights and open the windows. When the bugs had attacked the room a few weeks ago after some rain, I did just that. But this time the windows had been closed so I didn’t understand where they’d come from.
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I walked to the bathroom to make sure its window was shut and was greeted by a horror movie scene; one million flying and crawling termites covered the sink, tub and walls. These guys don’t bite, but they were flying down the back of my shirt and I couldn’t deal with the invasion until the next morning. I went to the front desk and two of the ladies came back with me to fix the problem.
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They came with a can of bug spray which I always try to avoid using, but this was desperation. As I sat outside my bungalow, they sprayed and swept and washed away the invaders. At one point I walked back in to see that one young woman, after spraying half a can of insecticide, had closed herself in the bathroom to clean it. I told her it was not safe and to open the door. No problem, was her response.


Eventually all the bugs were gone. I installed the mosquito net over the window as I do every night, turned the fan on full-force, and kept a wary eye out for any more flying bugs.


I went to bed and was glad the day was over.


Kate