Vietnam day 16 – Hanoi

Posted on Sunday, 09 Nov 2008 by Hattie

We arrive in Hanoi at 5am after a fitful night on the sleeper from Sapa.  The city is beginning to wake and dawn is breaking as we take refuge in the station waiting room.  There is  nowhere else to go at this time in the morning and we are able to catch the tail end of the Barcelona football match – always a bonus as far as Andy is concerned.  At about 6am we say goodbye to Daniel and Fiona and make are way to Vega Travel to see if we can take a room for the day since the bus to Hue doesn’t leave until 6pm and we are both feeling exhausted.  We’ve also decided to take the opportunity to go to the hospital to get some alternative anti-malarials.   Andy’s feeling a lot better although the stiffness in his calves is still making it difficult to walk.  Vega aren’t open so we find a little coffee shop nearby – one of the few open at this hour –  and supplement our drinks with breakfast bought from a street seller.  It turns out that there are no rooms at Vega – the owners family have  had to relocate here due to the recent flooding.  The Amex travel helpline had recommended the Hanoi French Hospital about 3km to the west of the Old Quarter so we make our way to the Accident and Emergency and are quickly seen by a doctor.  To our surprise he thinks Andy has Dengue Fever and after blood tests strongly recommends that he is admitted for emergency treatment.

The reception staff at the Hanoi French Hospital speak English, thankfully and Andy is seen by an English-speaking doctor almost immediately.  The doctor isn’t convinced that Andy’s symptoms are an adverse reaction to the doxycyline and thinks he may have Dengue Fever!  This comes as a bit of a shock to say the least – there isn’t supposed be any dengue fever in north Vietnam and it never crossed our minds that it could be a possibility.   The doctor wants to do some blood tests (a mere $214).  We are to come back in two hours for the results.  So we take a stroll round the immediate area.  But a street consisting almost entirely of medical supply shops doesn’t make for particularly interesting browsing.  A bit further away we come across a street lined with internet cafes (hard to find in the Old Quarter) and we spend the time catching up on e-mails and looking up details of Dengue Fever.

The hospital is spotlessly clean, the staff helpful, friendly and efficient.  This is no manic accident and emergency department here.  All is calm and sedate.   There appear to be only two reception beds and one doctor on duty.  Two other foreigners are brought in while we are here – a Swedish lady who has fallen as a result of tripping over one of the small stools that are common in cafes in Hanoi and a Russian man who has been knocked down by a motor bike and has two broken legs and a broken arm as a result.

The blood tests confirm that Andy hasn’t got malaria which is a relief, but his white blood cell and platelet counts are dangerously low.  The doctor wants to admit him straightaway;  this is a dangerous situation and we should put off our plans to travel to Hue tonight.  If this is Dengue Fever then 24 hours after the fever subsides is the most dangerous; apparently you can go into shock or coma.  We can hardly believe what is happening and the doctor can’t believe that Andy isn’t feeling ill and  we are still proposing to travel today.  We agree that Andy’s should accept treatment and – once we’ve paid $1500 deposit – is  immediately put on a saline drip.  I leave him in Accident and Emergency looking rather forlorn in his white gown, drip by his side.

Armed with a sheaf of  medical reports and blood test results I take a taxi to Vega to cancel tonight’s travel arrangements, organise a hotel and fax all the medical documents to AMEX.  Vega, as anticipated, are extremely helpful;  no problem to postpone the bus travel to Hue; they send my fax;  let me telephone the hotel we stayed at previously and get me and all our luggage into a taxi.  The hotel staff are also very sympathetic when I explain the situation and even discount the room rate!  After a telephone call to the insurers and the hotel in Hue I have a quick bite to eat and return to the hospital about 530pm to find Andy looking quite perky but bored.  He has a double room to himself for a mere $385 per day including food (we think) and English television.

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Vietnam day 15 – Sapa

Posted on Saturday, 08 Nov 2008 by Hattie

The hotel room in Sapa is pretty poor.  There is mildew on the wall and a strong smell of damp.  But then everything here seems damp until, that is, the sun comes out which it has today.  The sky is clear blue and a lovely day is in store.  We have free time until 1pm and Andy is feeling better (apart from very stiff calves), so we take a stroll through the main street and the markets around the square.   The town is bustling with minority tribes people who come into town every day to buy, sell and trade.  In the afternoon we meet up with our guide, Nem, for an easy walk with Fiona and Daniel to Cat Cat village.  This is a heritage village a few minutes outside Sapa and fees are charged for tourist visitors.  Apart from the paved path that leads from the road at the top of the village to the river deep in the valley below and a few handicraft stalls along the way, this is a traditional working village and the walk takes us down to a decommissioned hydro-electric power station built by the French in 1902 which is situated in a spectacular gorge.  In the evening we transfer back to Lao Cai to catch the sleeper train back to Hanoi.

Some of the Black H’Mong congregate outside the hotels to greet new arrivals with a barrage of questions:  ‘What’s your name?’, ‘Where are you from?’ ‘How old are you?’, ‘Will you buy from me?’ and ‘Remember me later!’  They wait patiently for the trekkers to leave in order to walk with them and hopefully sell something.  There are 60 ethnic minorities in Vietnam many of whom live in the North and several are thronging the streets this morning.  The Black H’Mong are by far the most numerous and persistant.   Less persistant  and less well-represented are the Striped H’Mong and the Red Dzai.  Both add a splash of colour, the latter with their elaborate red headgear with its profusion of tassles and the former with their embroidered multi-coloured skirts.  Show any interest in the goods and within seconds you will be surrounded by Black H’Mong all clammering for you to buy something.  Buy from one and they want you to buy from them all.  Having already bought the very thing they are trying to sell is no defence – why not just by a second?

Cat Cat is Black H’Mong village which is built on the mountainside.  Villagers are digging the foundations for a new house by hand – no mechanical aids, just hand hoes to loosen the earth and canvas stretchers to carry the it away.  Men, women, some with babies on their backs, and children are all lending a hand.  We visit a village house where flax is woven and dyed.  This is a traditional wooden house, no windows or chimney despite there being an open fire for cooking.  Large vats of blue indigo dye stand on the verandah and inside the house and newly dyed fabric hangs out to dry.  This is living at it’s most basic – very little furniture, no sanitation in fact nothing in the way of creature comforts that we would recognise.

At the bottom of the valley the long-decommissioned power station is used as a cultural centre.  A fast flowing torrent roars through a narrow gorge and is joined by a beautiful waterfall cascading down a rock face from the mountain above.  On the climb out of river valley we stop for a rest at a small cafe with spectacular views of the valley below.  From here we get a bird’s eye view of the ground clearing work that is still continuing in the village.

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Vietnam day 14 – Sapa

Posted on Friday, 07 Nov 2008 by Hattie

We wake to a beautifully sunny day and as we sit on the veranda waiting for our breakfast of pancakes and fruit, we watch steam rising from our shoes drying in the sun.  Three buffalo wander into the garden in front of the veranda and are soon shoo-ed off into the adjacent rice paddies by the one of the family.  Andy is still feeling very unwell and has decided not to continue with the trek, so he is getting an xe om (motorbike taxi) back to the hotel in Sapa.  As soon as the rest of us start out we are joined by two  Black H’Mong women who will accompany us to the end of the trek – I can see another purchase looming!.  The trek is tougher today – not sure whether that is because we are still tired from our efforts yesterday or it’s actually more difficult.  But there’s certainly more climbing and the trail is more challenging under foot.  Negotiating the narrow and extremely slippery edges of the rice paddies is tricky – slip one way and you could be knee deep in mud, the other and there’s a fall of 4 or 5 feet into the paddy below.  The Black H’Mong women save me several times from a muddy fall so there’s definitely a puchase on the horizon.  Buffalo graze untethered in the rice paddies which seem surprisingly undamaged by their lumbering presence.  We also spot the occasional black pig.  Our trek takes us through several tribal villages where young children play half-naked and covered in mud.

We end our trek at Giang Ta Chai, a village of the Red  Dzao people where I buy a small hand-embroidered bag made of flax from my Black H’Mong companion.   A car is waiting to take us back to Sapa and lunch.  We have to traverse a number of fords along the mountain road where steams caused by the heavy rains are running across the road.  A bus driver has parked up in one and is taking the opportunity to wash his bus!  I’ve arranged with Nem to accompany Andy and I to the local hospital to translate – I think it’s time to get Andy some medical advice.  But when I get back to the hotel he says he feels much  better and doesn’t think a hospital visit is necessary.  Even so his calves are very painful and his finding it difficult to walk.

Our trail shoes are definitely the worse for wear after two days trekking – wet and covered in mud.  The hotel offers a shoe cleaning service and within an couple of hours our shoes are returned looking as good as new and, importantly, dry – all for £1.50 a pair!

We spend an hour or so looking around Sapa, but Andy is hobbling painfully, is tired and feeling cold (despite sitting immediately in front of a large log fire in a local bar), so we head back to the hotel.  He really should see a doctor but he’s still insisting that all that’s required is a change of anti-malarials.  A ‘right stubborn bastard that one’ as described by the man himself.

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Vietnam day 13 – Sapa

Posted on Thursday, 06 Nov 2008 by Hattie

We had a reasonably comfortable night’s sleep although Vietnamese sleepers are definitely not the quietest we’ve experienced.  Andy is still not well – high temperature, low energy, lethargy, headache, nausea, loss of appetite – we are wondering whether we have made the right decision continuing with this trip,  particularly as we face  one-and-half days trekking through the mountains.  We are met at the station and transfer to a mini-bus for the hour’s journey to Sapa town.  We are doing this trip with Daniel and Fiona, two young Australians that we met on the Halong Bay trip.  There will be just the four of us and a guide, which should make for a good trek.  After a shower and leisurely breakfast our guide, Nem, arrives for our 10am start.  The weather is drizzly and the surrounding mountains and valleys are shrouded in thick mist and low cloud obscuring, for the time being at least, the famed beauty of the landscape.  Not the most auspicious of starts and we soon discover just how slippery this weather makes the trails.  My first, and most useful, purchase of what will be many  along the way, is a bamboo pole for 10,000 Dong;  a snip at 38p!  I now feel equipped to met any challenge.  Today’s trek is about 7km and we make several stops along the way including one for lunch in large two storey cafe-cum-kitchen with  DIY, open-plan cooking facilities.  It has rained incessantly since we left Sapa and despite our rain gear our clothes are damp mainly from condensation under our ponchos.  Nem cooks us a delicious meal of Pho – Vietnamese noodle soup – followed by fruit.  Not surprisingly given his condition Andy is struggling but we make it to the family homestay in the village of Ta Van around 4.30pm.

We are accompanied all the way to our lunch stop by a group of Black H’Mong women.  Eight of them walk with us assigning themselves in pairs to each of us, giving unsolicited assistance if we are in danger of stumbling or slipping.   Andy finds them incredibly annoying while they don’t seem to concern themselves with Daniel and Fiona.  So it is only me who bears the brunt of this attention.  My arms and hands being grabbed at every slightly tricky spot and I’m guided along, shown where to put my feet and constantly asked ‘are you OK?’ at every slight slip or unsure footing.  Underlying this arrangement, of course, is an unspoken contract which involves buying some of their handicrafts as a reciprocal payment.  Trekkers have a mixed reaction to this quasi commercial arrangement – some like me go along it, purchasing  jewellery, bags, cushion covers or some other embroidered items which they draw from their baskets,  while others refuse to be pressurised, seeing it as a kind of emotional blackmail.  I end up buying four items of jewellery;  one from each of our four ‘helpers’ all for the princely sum of £4.

The Black H’Mong are one of the many Hill Tribes that live in the villages of this area.  The men are rarely to be seen, but the Black H’Mong women are in evidence in the villages along the route and shadowing the few trekking parties that we come across.  These tiny women are a distinctive sight  with their indigo-dyed traditional dress, umbrellas and cylindrical baskets slung on their backs.  At each stop groups of women are standing in the rain waiting for their trekkers to resume their walk.  At the lunch stop there must 30 or so women congregated outside in the rain, waiting patiently for their trekkers to emerge and buy from them.   But despite their persistant presence they are an engaging people, with their infectious smiles, direct questions and the often repeated refrain ‘you buy from me?’

We arrive at our homestay wet and tired, our shoes are sodden and it is still raining.  We are soon sitting on the veranda with a cup of green tea (later to be followed by a beer) in dry clothes and feet in dry shoes the latter courtesy of our hosts.

We are staying overnight in the village of Ta Van.  This is a village of the Dzay people and we are saying at the home of a local family.  The homestay is in a fantastic location at the bottom of the valley overlooking a fast-flowing and noisy river, swollen by the heavy rains.  This family have trekkers staying three or four times a week and can accommodate up to 20 people on the gallery in the main house.  Mattresses with mosquito nets are laid on the floor – basic but surprisingly comfortable.  The family sleep on the ground floor which is a single large sparsely furnished room – four beds, a television and a couple f chairs –  with a beaten earth floor.  A veranda  on two sides of the house overlooks the river and the encircling mountains covered in terraced rice paddies;  this is a  view to die for.

Andy, who has struggled through the day despite feeling terrible, is spark out on one of the mattresses.

We are invited into the kitchen to watch the family prepare dinner.  The kitchen is a separate building adjacent to the main house and consists of  half-brick, half-bamboo walls, a corrugated roof and concrete floor..  There is an open fire with a trivet for the wok and a large sunken area where spring water runs constantly into a metal bowl on the floor.  This serves as the sink and food preparation area.  Here our hostess squats whilst she chops the ingredients for half a dozen or so dishes that we will  be eating tonight.  We eat a delicious meal with Grandma, Grandad, Grandaughter (2) and our guide, Nem.  Andy doesn’t eaten anything and is very subdued.  He struggled through the day despite feeling terrible, and has spend most of the time since we arrived at the homestay spark out on one of the mattresses, refusing even  glass of beer – a sure sign that things are serious.

By 7.30 all the washing up is complete and the family are retiring to bed!  We turn in shortly afterwards – we have a half-day trek tomorrow.

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Vietnam day 12 – Halong Bay

Posted on Wednesday, 05 Nov 2008 by Hattie

We leave Cat Ba town at 8am by small junk which takes us to rejoin the larger junk for the journey back to Halong City and lunch.  From there we transfer to a mini-bus for the long three-hour drive back to Hanoi.  It’s a glorious day, the sun has made an appearance at last after two days of overcast if warm weather and the sea is like a bath.  As we chug lazily back across the calm waters glistening in the sun we contemplate the bay filled with some 3000 islets rising perpendicular from the sea.  These craggy limestone outcrops, many covered with lush green vegetation, have been weathered into weird and wonderful shapes with descriptive names like ‘fighting cocks’, ‘elephant’ and ‘roof’.  All have been undercut by the power of the sea and sit as if hovering slightly above the surface of the water.  The bay is made all the more fascinating and mysterious by the presence of numerous hidden inlets, tunnels, enclosed lagoons and caves.  Now you may be able to envisage a fraction of the beauty and magnificence that is Halong Bay in the Gulf of Tonkin!    What a glorious spot to meander in a junk.  Halong Bay ‘where the dragon descends to the sea’ was according to myth (and Lonely Planet) created by a great dragon who lived in the mountains. As it charged towards the coast, its tail failing, it gouged the valleys and crevices and when finally it plunged into the sea the bay filled with water leaving only the pinnacles visible.  A World Heritage site and worthy rival to Guilin.

We arrive back in Hanoi around 4.30 pm and have some spare time to kill while we wait to get the overnight train to Sapa.  Andy is still not well, so we find and internet cafe and make a call to American Express Travel Insurance helpline to see what they recommend.  Andy suspect that his symptoms may be an adverse reaction to the doxycyline we are taking to prevent malaria and wants to get some alternative medication.  Amex suggest we go the the Hanoi French Hospital to seek medical advice.  Not a practical option given we have to be back at the travel cafe at 8pm for the train for Sapa so we decide to wait until our return to Hanoi on 9th.

We catch the 9.15pm sleeper train  from Hanoi to Lia Chau.  We share our sleeper compartment with John – an Australian newly arrived in Vietnam, who has left his wife in Hanoi with an injured ankle to spend a few days in Sapa – and a Pole who is so enormous in every direction that he fills the whole compartment!  John, (like us)  is a more mature traveller and likes to talk about world politics and the economic melt-down and we chat a while as we wait for the train to depart.  Mindful of our early start tomorrow we turn in about 9.30pm in the hope of snatching some sleep.

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Vietnam day 11 – Halong Bay

Posted on Tuesday, 04 Nov 2008 by Hattie

Andy is still not well – energy levels are down and he has a temperature.  But he struggles on gamely.  Today we change to a smaller junk leaving six of our fellow travellers behind;  they are returning to Hanoi today whilst we are visiting Cat Ba National Park and will stay overnight in hotel in Cat Ba town.  Cat Ba is the largest of the island in Halong Bay and approximately 50 percent of it is a designated National Park.  This morning we are doing a two-and-an-half hour trek through the park jungle with our guide Hien.  There is a track of sorts, but it is quite a scramble over rocks and rough terrain with some steep climbs and descents – no one warned us beforehand!  It is worth the effort however, even though we don’t see any wild life apart from the odd spider.  In the afternoon we have just about enough energy left for a short kayak trip, although Andy can hardly manage to paddle the short distance to another enclosed lagoon.  All he wants to do is lie down and sleep.

One of our group turns out to have a fear of snakes and is  all for turning  back at the start of our trek.  I must admit the it does look daunting, but, too late the junk has left and there is no mobile signal.  She’s faced with continuing the trek or sitting tight and hoping that a some point during the trek our guide can get a signal and arrange for the junk to come back and pick her up.  Sensibly she decides to continue.  During the trek we stop for a break at a clearing in the jungle which is home to an old couple who retreated here from Hanoi 19 years ago.  They live a very basic existence in an open-sided shelter with a thatched roof, their only furniture a platform bed and a table and two very narrow benches.  Alongside is a smaller shelter for cooking over an open fire. They survive on the fruit and vegetables they grow on the surrounding land and the eggs from the few chickens they keep – presumably supplemented by fish from the sea.  We are invited to take a seat at the table and while the old man scales a bamboo ladder to pick half a dozen mandarin oranges for us to savour.

The kayak trip turns out to be something of an ordeal.  Unlike yesterday we do at least have proper kayaks but the paddles are made of wood and are ridiculously heavy probably because they are water-laden.  This combined with Andy’s lethargy and our general tiredness from this morning’s  trek makes the short trip hard work.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Halong Bay is the floating fish farms.  The locals live in floating houses which are little more than huts usually with a wooden veranda, a couple of dogs and a network of fish nets strung from a horizontal bamboo structures all of which are kept afloat on either oil drums or some other highly buoyant material.   Approaching Cat Ba town there is a huge floating fishing village hugging the cliffs of the island complete with floating shops!

We spend the night at the Holiday View Hotel in Cat Ba town.  This is a tower block on the sea front and our room has a good, if partial, view of the bay and the many working boats harboured there.  The town itself is quite small and we take a short walk along the front stopping for dinner in one of the many restaurants that line the seafront road.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha_Long_Bay

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Vietnam day 10 – Halong Bay

Posted on Monday, 03 Nov 2008 by Hattie

We packed our bags and paid our hotel bill last night in preparation for our early morning departure today for Halong Bay.  We leave at 7.30am and make the 10-minute walk to the Vega Travel office – in the rain – where we are leaving our luggage and picking up the mini-bus that will take us to Halong City.  There are ten other people doing the trip;  Mark and Sue from Brisbane, Daniel and Fiona from New South Wales, two Dutch couples and an another Aussie couple.  The trip takes three hours and is very uncomfortable;  the ‘mini’ in mini-bus  has been taken a little too literally  and we are squashed into the seat over the rear axle.   Andy isn’t feeling too good – either from lack of sleep or the onset of flu or possibly both.  We arrive in Halong City to stunning views of the karst landscape and a glimpse of some of the thousands of craggy outcrops that rise perpendicular from the bay.  And, importantly, no rain!  We transfer to a small junk with sails not yet unfurled and probably more for decorative effect than for any practical purpose.  A delicious seafood lunch is followed by a visit to ‘Surprising Cave’ and a chance for some kayaking.

The cabins are ‘cosy’;  space enough for a double bed – just as well we are travelling light.   There is no storage apart from a few hooks on the wall and a couple of bedside cupboards which are too big to fit the available space and have been jammed in sideways!

There is a mist hanging over the bay giving it a slightly mysterious air, but the sun is trying to make an appearance, so perhaps we may see some good weather at last.  Our first stop after a delicious seafood lunch is ‘Surprising Cave’ which lives up to its name.  Discovered by the French at the turn of the twentieth century, its small entrance belies a complex of caves each larger than the last and all  remarkably dry and warm.  They contain an impressive array of stalactites and stalagmites one of which looks uncannily like a turtle.  In the late afternoon we get a chance to go kayaking to an enclosed lagoon accessed through a tunnel and surrounded on all sides by perpendicular cliffs. There is a narrow beach on one side where a couple of monkeys with rather colourful posteriors are foraging for food.  As we head back to the junk the light is beginning to fade and we are struggling to identify our junk from the half a dozen or so others that have moored up for the night.  The crew have kindly raised the sails and moved the boat to another spot, making it that bit more difficult to find!

Andy is definitely not well – hot to touch but feels cold.  Hopefully a good night’s sleep will sort him out.

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Vietnam day 9 – Hanoi

Posted on Sunday, 02 Nov 2008 by Hattie

The rain has eased off and this morning is dry.  The long-range weather forecast has downscaled the likelihood of rain over the next week, so we’ve decided to go to Halong Bay tomorrow and Sapa on Wednesday evening.  We’ll then go to Hue on 9th November.  The travel agency have been very accommodating and we have had no problems changing the dates of our trips.  They also provide luggage storage so we can travel light, and a room with shower between trips.  We went to the Temple of Literature today but it started raining as soon as we got there and didn’t let up until mid-afternoon.  We got scammed by the cab driver – his meter was on double time at least and the fare was twice as much as it should have been,  much to Andy’s annoyance;  he says ‘his meter was faster than Linford Christie’ .  Having said that it was only £4!  Apparently it is quite common for the taxi drivers to fix the meters in order to over-charge tourists.  The Temple of  Literature is, according to Lonely Planet, ‘a rare example of well-preserved traditional Vietnamese architecture’.  It was founded in 1070 and Vietnam’s first university was established here in 1076.  The temple is made up of five separate courtyards and gardens and the inevitable souvenir shops selling, among other thing, a range of water puppets.  A peaceful spot to wile away an hour so away from the hustle and bustle.

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Vietnam day 8 – Hanoi

Posted on Saturday, 01 Nov 2008 by Hattie

There has been torrential rain all through the night and it is still pouring down this morning.   CNN are reporting widespread flooding through central and northern Vietnam particularly in Hanoi where there was 300 mm (!) of rain yesterday.  The worst of the flooding has been south of West Lake to the west of the Old Quarter, where the water has been waist deep and homes have been flooded. All caused by a high pressure front over the South China Sea.  There appears to be no immediate end in sight;  the long-range weather forecast is for rain through to the middle of next week.  Someone forgot to tell the man who manages the weather that this is supposed to be the dry season and instead we experiencing the worst rains in 20 years.  We decide to postpone our trip to Sapa until Wednesday.  This afternoon the rain stops (hurrah!) and we go out for a walk.  There are few signs in the Old Quarter of the flooding of yesterday:  a tree has come down blocking one of the streets, there is mud deposited in the gutters and Hoan Kiem lake has broken its banks, otherwise things seem to be back to normal.  But it has started raining again this evening so who knows what awaits   us tomorrow.

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Vietnam day 7 – Hanoi

Posted on Friday, 31 Oct 2008 by Hattie

We have had torrential rain all night and right through this morning, with only short periods of respite.  There is a break in the rain around lunch-time and finally we manage to get to the bank to change our travellers cheques.  Now we are able to book our trips to Sapa and Halong Bay.  We’re leaving Hanoi on the overnight train to Sapa on Sunday night.  The rain starts up again with a vengeance while we are having lunch – but that’s not a problem we have our ponchos with us today. So we head off to find the exchange bookshop;  we are going to swap our Insight guide to China for a Lonely Planet guide to Thailand. (The LP Vietnam Guide has already proved invaluable.)  It continues to pour down all afternoon and we take refuge in several bars along the way.  The rain is so heavy that there is flooding in some of  the lower lying streets and we end up wading through water on our way back to the hotel.

The rain is so hard it must bounce back off the ground at least 6 inches- I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a prolonged downpour.  We stop at a small Bia Hoi pavement bar  to shelter.  Perched on small (child-size) plastic chairs under the pavement awning we get chatting to Tom from Denmark who arrived in Hanoi yesterday.  As we sit enjoying a beer or two (at 12p a glass)  the water is steadily rising around us. Before we know it the water has risen about eight inches and is ankle deep on the pavement forcing us to sit with our feet on small stools to keep dry. One by one the shops are taking in their goods and pulling down the shutters.  But the rapidly rising water doesn’t deter our lady bar owner who is eager to sell us more beer or the cars and mopeds which create a backwash that laps at the entrance to the bar and splashes up the backs of our chairs.  And this is supposed to be the dry season!!

The rain seems to provide an excuse for people to chuck their rubbish into the water and soon we are watching debris float by.   A bit short-sighted we think, because it is sure to block the drains when the water starts to subside. After a couple of beers, the rain is easing and the water recedes quite quickly once the rubbish is retrieved from the drain covers.  We take the opportunity to head off for the book shop where we successfully change our guide book for just 75p – a bargain!  It’s still  raining heavily so we dive into another bar and start chatting to an American from Hawaii.  It turns  out that he is in Vietnam on an extended holiday involving three weeks teaching English in Hanoi.  He’s waiting for the flooding further down the street to subside so he can reach his hotel. But  he may have a long wait as the water continues to creep up the street while we talk.  We push on through the rain and end up wading shin deep through water that has collected in a lower lying street.  Once more on higher ground we make for another bar – the rain is proving a great excuse for a bar crawl!  Not that Andy needs an excuse, as many of you will know.

By this time our ponchos are beginning to feel the strain and we are soaked.     But it’s warm enough not to care, although Andy is bemoaning the state of his new(ish) trainers which are sodden.  Our final stop is the Bia Hoi bar near our hotel which we discovered a couple of days ago.  Today it is deserted, the locals no doubt having taken the sensible option and retreated indoors.  The streets are eerily quiet;  no sign of cars, bikes or peds now despite it being still relatively early.

We are beginning to wonder whether going to Sapa on Sunday is going to be such a good idea after all.

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