While we were in Hanoi, we stayed just north of the old French Quarter near St. Joseph’s Cathedral. In the neighborhood, there are many hotel options for all price ranges, yet we were very hard pressed to find a decently priced meal in Hanoi. Vietnamese food seems to be focussed on fish and sea life of all varieties, but good, cheap food is extremely hard to come by unless you’re craving noodles in beef broth — Pho — 3xDay. In contrast, we were tripping over great food all over Thailand and especially Laos.
I’ve been able to upload several items of note. First, we recorded a video of our experience arriving to Cat Ba Island without the use of a tour company, here:
Next, while visiting the “Hanoi Hilton”, Mary snapped my picture standing next to John McCain’s flight suit from when he was imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam’s infamous POW prison, here:
Finally, on our way out of town, we swung by the Hanoi Water Puppet theater for an afternoon show of tradition song, music and water puppetry. The art form was impressive and not just in the “I’ve been going strong for 10 centuries” sortof way. I was impressed by the puppets’ speed and the dexterity of the puppeteers given that they were sloshing through water several feet deep.
This morning, we arrived in Sapa (AKA Sa Pa or Cha Pa) on the overnight ’soft’ sleeper train from Hanoi. After we boarded the train, the car started to fill with smoke — not from some emergency or a small fire, no. The smoke plumed out of the 2 cabins next to ours FOR hours. We cranked the window down in the hall to relieve our burning eyes. Upon request of the conductors, the dozen chain smokers sealed themselves in their cabins long enough for us to get ready for bed. My last train memory was watching the smoke billow through our door frame and over the internationally vivid no-smoking sign.
We toured the town and have set-up a 3 day, 2 night trek up to the “Roof of Indochina”. Fansipan (or as I’ve been mispronouncing as Fancy-pants) rises to 3143 meters and we’ll hike most of the way up tomorrow with the remainder on Saturday. Sunday will be all downhill as we trot back into town after becoming “vanquishers of the mountain” (straight from the Vietnamese tourist posters). So, no contact for the next 4 days while we’re trekking.
On Monday night, we’ll take the overnight train back to Hanoi, sitesee a bit more and catch a flight to Ho Chi Mihn City (Saigon) at 1:30 PM, Tuesday.
Mary & Pat….so much to catch up on. I’ll have to show all this to Mr C since her served in Vietnam and will be able to relate to the country. Continue to stay well. I remain in awe of your journey.