Oct 11-23, 2019

Luang Prabang, Laos

We weighed the option of going the overland route from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang against the short flight. We had heard and read about the bus trip and slow boat option up the Mekong River as being an extraordinary experience, but this would have taken an extra three days and a long bus trip and would have meant navigating the Laos & Thai border on foot. The boat trip would have been 2 days on the river and an overnight in a small village, so we opted for the comfort and speed of the flight. We arrived in Luang Prabang and immediately felt relaxed and comfortable as it is a really chill colonial town. We found an awesome guesthouse with air conditioning, a pool, a room fridge, unlimited coffee or tea, and a terrific free breakfast that included a beautiful fruit salad at, a full cost of $11.00 CDN a night. I can see why retirees come to SE Asia; the dollar goes so far here.

At the recommendation of our daughter Sarah we arose at 4:45 one morning to go out and witness a centuries old tradition in Luang Prabang, the alms giving by the locals to the monks from the surrounding temples. We sat across the street and watched as families emerged into the early morning to lay their mats on the street and arrange their chosen alms to give, some giving sticky rice and others packaged foods or money. We chose not to participate as this is a solemn Buddhist tradition and we saw the spirituality of the giving process. As one articles stated, if you were not a Catholic you wouldn’t attend a service and take communion, which made perfect sense to us. Hundreds of families and monks participate daily and the very poor people of Laos follow behind, receiving donations from the monks from their collection of alms. Giving begets giving, really beautiful.

One of the benefits of rising early for the alms giving was we got to stroll through the early morning market that targeted the locals. There is a big market each night targeting the tourists where they sell the local handicrafts and clothes, the morning market is NOT that. We witnessed all manner of edible bugs, rodents, snakes, eels, maggots and just about anything you could think of. We realized we weren’t in Kansas anymore Toto.

We chose to take a couple of tours while in Luang Prabang, the first was to the Waterfalls, which were extraordinarily beautiful. We rode in an air-conditioned van, which was awesome because it was 35 degrees with 90% humidity that day. When we arrived at the national park we parked and worked our way through the many stalls and restaurants bordering the park. People working these stalls live with their families here and so there were kids everywhere, none are begging, just being kids.

The hike up to the first level of waterfall pools was easy and we went through a bear sanctuary that rescues orphan babies from poachers. When we reached the waterfalls we were astounded, the color of the waterfalls was otherworldly, and a color of blue I had never seen before. Before jumping in to cool down we decided to ascend to the upper pools. This was a fair hike of about 2.5 kms straight uphill so we were thankful of what remained from our C2C stamina, especially in the heat. For future reference, the effort wasn’t equal to the reward, the upper pools weren’t nearly as stunning as the lower polls. We descended and were treated to an invigorating swim in the cool pools and an unexpected bonus, a fishy pedicure. We sat with our feet in the water and little fish swam up and nibbled the loose or dead skin from the ends of your toes. It was a little weird, but once we got used to it we enjoyed the impromptu spa treatment.

The second tour was a Mekong River trip to the spiritual caves site. This was a fair replacement for the slow boat trip we opted against coming to Laos. The tour was a 4-hour return trip treating us to a glimpse of how the Laos people live and the close relationship they have with the Mekong River. The mid-point of the trip was a site of two limestone caves at the edge of the river that over the past 100 years have been filled with Buddhist statuary.  The lower cave was smaller and busier as it required no climbing. The higher cave required climbing 250 steps, but you were rewarded with a much larger deeper cave and almost no other tourists. 

This was a worthwhile trip and that night in the pool we discussed the trip with other traveller, some of who had taken the slow boat we opted against coming to Laos. They stated the 14 hours by boat began to drag on, so they drank the whole time, as did all the other travellers. It sounded like a frat house on water, Heidi and I were thankful we chose wisely.

Hanoi

After leaving Laos the sights and sounds of Hanoi were overwhelming, especially all the beeping horns in the Old Quarter. The Vietnam Department of Transportation reports there are 45 million registered motorbikes in Vietnam, one for every two people. I felt badly because I was pretty cranky for the first day, but thankfully Heidi didn’t lose patience with me and I eventually adjusted and began liking this frenetic city.

One of the most fascinating things about Hanoi is what we called the mayhem ballet, the free flowing traffic that includes 75% motorbikes and the rest cars busses and bikes. Intersections are the most fun as all traffic moves through without stopping, just adjusting to the people coming from their left and right, giving short honks to advise people ahead they were coming. It’s impossible to describe, you really must see it. Heidi posted a video on her Instagram page so go have a look to see what I mean.

The Vietnamese people are very friendly and gracious people and we liked all the folks we met in our daily interaction. As a socialist state there is an undercurrent of patriotism in the government signage and messaging but this society works, as a primarily Buddhist people we witnessed no overt anger or aggression even with the mayhem and honking.  I did some reading and found that Vietnam has less people living below the poverty line (6.9%) than Canada (9.5%) or the USA (13.5%) and in 2018 had GDP growth of 7.1% vs Canada (2.9%) or the USA (3.1%). This socialist society is working, and everyone just seems to gets along.

As with all cities we visit we walked everywhere averaging 10-15 kms a day. Hanoi has an ancient old quarter that was our home base and enthralled us with the narrow street and alleyways stuff full of motorbikes. We did a fantastic food tour arranged by the travel company who arranged our Sapa trekking trip. Our guide, Ming, grew up in the old quarter and still lives there. We were treated to 14 different dishes over 3 hours and it ran the gambit, from dry Pho’ to self-rolling our own spring rolls and everything in between. We sat on tiny stools at low tables (my knees were screaming at me at the end), travelled alley’s only known to locals and climbed back stairs more resembling ladders to discover the gastronomic wonders of Hanoi.  It was well worth the price and time. If ever visiting North Vietnam we would recommend Friends Travel Vietnam as Sydney and his team really made our stay terrific and went out of their way to ensure our trips went off without a hitch.

Sa Pa Trekking

One of the most popular destinations in Vietnam is Sa Pa in the northern mountain region of the country. This is because travelers can sign on with a guide from one of the local tribes, primarily the women, who will show you the way through the local countryside filled with terraced rice fields and small villages where the tribes’ people live. We caught the night train from Hanoi leaving at 10:00 pm and arriving at 6:00 am to Lao Cai the local train stop on the way to Sa Pa. We lucked into an upgrade and had comfortable private bunks for the train trip up, both of us enjoyed a reasonably good night’s rest.

The van trip on up to Sa Pa was more eventful as Heidi watched her shoelaces rather than watch us passing on sharp hairpin corners with little regard for oncoming scooters, cars and buses. We both breathed a sigh of relief upon arrival to our meeting point with our guide. Sumai is a 26-year-old mother of two from the Red Dzao minority tribe that has inhabited this region for hundreds of years. Originally from China they made their way here during the Ming dynasty era when regional ethnic conflicts arose and they fled to northern Vietnam. The Red Dzao are known for their expertise with herbal medicines and their handiwork with needlecraft.

We began our day walking up through many small villages bordered by terraced rice fields and jungles. On many occasions we needed to walk by herds of water buffalo used by the locals to till their rice paddies. These massive animals are very docile and Sumai explained she was responsible for these giants when she was growing up and use to tend to and drive them up through the terraced rice fields to plough when only eight years old.

The Sa Pa trekking experience has been happening for 30-40 years but the Red Dzao tribe has only opened their villages and began guiding in the last decade. Most of their villages are made up of less than 15-20 families and the homes and adjacent rice terraces have been in the families for 100’s of years. We had the chance to see and visit three traditional homes on our trek, lunch the first day was served by her cousin at her home. They served us a beautiful meal consisting of four dishes, chicken with mixed vegetables, pork with garlic and spinach, morning glory with garlic and chili and rice. All fresh from their gardens or picked in the surrounding fields. Chickens and pigs are their own stock as well.

Most of the traditional houses are built the same using a great room concept with bedroom off to the side. Alongside the living area is the kitchen, which is high ceilinged with open gables to allow for air flow as the kitchen always has wood burning fires going with no chimneys. This is because the top of the kitchen area has attic like storage where all the family rice is stored and the heat and smoke help in the rice drying process. Amazingly our host and her family of four consume 1000 KGS of rice each year, over a tonne!! Even considering that 20% is set aside to supplement the pig and chicken food, and another 20% for making Rice wine, which leaves 600 kgs a year or almost 4 lbs a day!!!

Sumai and her husband San’s home was larger and more modern, built to accommodate homestays for her tours. She is the main breadwinner, but her husband stays busy doing most of the cooking, tending their hobby farm, chasing after their two young boys and growing orchids which are sold in the flower markets in Hanoi. We helped make dinner including making spring rolls and prepping all the vegetables for San. We had a 6-course feast for dinner with the family and had to push away from the table we had eaten so much. I had mentioned earlier the prowess of the Red Dzao tribe with herbal medicine and we experienced this after dinner. One of the fires always burning in the Red Dzao house is boiling the herb mixture for their baths. Their herbs are added to water and boiled all day to extract all the goodness. They then draw water and transfer to the tubs, (much like ½ wine barrels) and more cold water is added. We were invited to bath and of course we jumped at the chance. I don’t remember ever being so relaxed after this soak and slept like a baby waking miraculously to no sore muscles whatsoever.

The next day we set off for what was supposed to be a more jungle-oriented walk, which was great except the rain had made the track pretty muddy. With bamboo poles to steady us we took traditional trails travelled by the locals to navigate the jungle. As promised, we were slip sliding our way down the trails, looking like we had cement feet compared to our nimble guide. More than once we ended up on our backsides and were a muddy mess but enjoyed every minute.  She took us through her family rice terrace and pointed out the sections owned by her siblings and herself. This rice terrace had been in her family for centuries and provided her with 500 kgs of rice each year. The weather improved as the day wore on and we descended back into SA Pa happy to have spent two days travelling with this warm generous lady. After grabbing a shower and dinner we jumped back onto our night train for our return to Hanoi.

Halong Bay

The number one tourist destination in Vietnam is Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site northeast of Hanoi. The scenery is amazing with its emerald waters and thousands of towering limestone islands topped by rainforests. Small cruise ships, junk boat and sea kayak’s take visitors past islands named for their shapes, including Stone Dog and Teapot islets. The region is popular for scuba diving, rock climbing and hiking, particularly in mountainous Cát Bà National Park. We chose to take a three day two night expedition that had us on a four star cruise ship for the first night that had only 20 people aboard. The rooms were big and comfortable, and the food was excellent. We sailed amongst the limestone towers which make up the archipelago and almost impossible to capture in pictures.

Due to the intimate size of the ship we quickly got to know everyone on board as we shared kayaking, swimming and bamboo boat trips through limestone caves. Everyone felt we got good value for our money, even though it had a touristy feel. We initially complained about the early wakeup call on our second day, but in retrospect thankful to be the first boats through the limestone caves. These bamboo boats have been used for hundreds of years to moving people and goods through the region, but today it was just us. The captains were young and old, women and men all standing on the rear of the boat like Vietnamese gondolas.

We entered the caves having to duck through many sections and emerged to an amazingly quiet and serene setting in the inner lagoon that no other boat would experience that day. It was so still and quiet, except for the sounds of birds and monkeys or the soothing songs of the bamboo boat captains. By the time we made our way back through the caves there was a parade of boats making their way toward the caves and 50 boats backed up waiting their turn. We escaped the mayhem just in time.

After returning from the caves we were separated from our group and whisked away to our own speedboat that would take us to the homestay we had arranged on in a little village on Cat Ba Island called Viet Hai. It is nestled in a quiet valley surrounded by limestone mountains covered in jungle. Our little room overlooked a beautiful garden with a large koi pond and with the requisite hammock on our front porch. After chilling out for a few hours we joined a group for a hike to a lookout point at the top of one of the local mountains. The others in our group were in their mid to late twenties (pretty typical for the tours we had chosen) and had little trouble with the 2.5 km climb to the top.

We were thankful for what remained of the stamina we had gained on the coast to coast trek across England, but the steepness of the climb was very worrisome for Heidi, so the millennials went ahead and us, with Chili our guide, picked our way up to the top. We were rewarded with amazing views in all directions, east through the archipelago that makes up Halong Bay region and west back across the jungle filled island. The descent reminded us of what we hate about elevation, it’s not the up but the down that does both of us in with our surgically repaired knees.

We shared family dinner with the nice group of girls we met on the hike and then set out with Chili on our next expedition, night kayaking. This was exciting on several levels. I am an experienced motorbike RIDER not PASSENGER! We were told at the last minute that we would be motor biking to our rendezvous with the speedboat. We each hopped on the back of little 125 cc motorbikes driven by a teenage Vietnamese boy as our chauffeurs.  We set out in the dark on narrow unlit roads, me gritting my teeth to overcome my angst at being a passenger. We arrived safely after a 20-minute trip and boarded the speedboat for the second leg of our journey.

The one noticeable difference between Canada and Vietnam is the health and safety standards. As we sped away from the dock and reached speeds of 40+ knots both Heidi I asked where the running lights for the boat were. This was met with a curious tilt of the head but no reply per se so off we went throughout this archipelago in the pitch dark. We eventually came upon a floating village that provided ambient light but nowhere near would what be considered safe in Canada. We arrived at our destination, one of the floating homes that also serves as fish farms and recreational craft rental spot. We were outfitted with lifejackets, paddles, and kayaks and set out. Like our speedboat we were not provided lights but our guide assured us all was safe as he had placed a headlamp in the bottom of his boat and assured us the speeding boats could see HIM glowing in the dark. We asked, “what about us”, and all we heard was the sound of his paddles speeding away in the direction of the cliffs on the far side of the channel. We felt staying close to him would be a good idea, so we sped off to catch up.

When we arrived to the other side, we were treated to the spectacle that was promised from the tour, phosphorescent plankton. They congregate alongside the limestone cliffs so as you splash your hands or paddle the water lights up magically. We had witnessed phosphorescent in Mexico in the surf but not to the degree we were seeing here. It was amazing to see and felt somehow spiritual to me, the stillness of the water, the darkness and the illumination provided by these special creatures. We lingered here for an hour before gritting our teeth and making the pitch-dark crossing of the shipping lane to safety on the other side of the channel. After another dark speedboat ride and dark motorbike trip we arrived safely back at our homestay agreeing how worthwhile this day had been, regardless to the perceived peril we faced.