Hoian cycling: Passing through Realities

By Mpom

I finally met someone who spoke English at my most frequented Hoi An culinary hotspot: the local market on the road to Cua Dai beach. Trinh, donning a mandarin satin uniform from her hotel shift, informed me I was eating banh bot loc, bite-size clear rice noodle pockets of shrimp and potato lathered in oily chili-garlic fishsauce and sprinkled with chives. She also equipped me with a number of useful phrases.

The next day, lathered in sweatproof 50 spf, I am prepared for a day of cycling Hoian with my Canon camera, large water bottle, and Vietnamese “hello” “what is this” “how much” “thank you” “what is your name.” Anxious to escape the countless tailor shops and chorus of Vietnamese-accented “hellos” ringing with the single-minded pursuit of cash, I peddle off toward the Cam Thanh fishing village. Past rice fields, their moist, sweet smell overtaking the toxic exhaust of whirring motorbikes. Past dry fields sprouting solitary concrete shrines, miniature marigold-painted, red-roofed temples perched on posts and filled with the incense remains of prayers past. Past a wedding reception, punchy Vietnamese hip-hop and raucous laughter spilling through the gauzy red and pink decorations onto dusty streets. Past tightly packed teams of bamboo trees standing in shallow water dotted with wooden canoes; the owners shade their faces with conical hats fashioned from tan, slender leaves as they pull clear fishing lines from the water without end, like magic trick ribbons from a spectator’s ear. 

I happen upon a small farmers’ protest in a town clearly surviving on the bamboo leaf industry, open-air sheds filled with drying stacks. Ten old men and women, skin shriveled brown and their few surviving teeth like cracked and blackened bits of corn, quack poorly coordinated group chants. They clank sticks on hollow bamboo poles, shouting as police in olive uniforms half-heartedly herd the farmers’ bare feet down the town’s one cement road. A few meters later, I discover two young men who accept my hand gesture request to watch them as they make bamboo siding. Around the corner and four thousand dong ($2) later, an eager woman, clearly awaiting any lost tourists who happen upon her home, paddles me amongst the bamboo forest, the easy-going whoosh of her paddle gliding us through narrow water alleyways winding amongst the trees.

After many thanks and photos, I decide to take a coffee break on the riverbank. As small restaurants and cafes are merely extensions of the family living room, I join an extended family as its three women make sugar cane juice and skin bamboo shoots while four men of various generations drink their 10 am beer and idle in hammocks. It is a dirt road town with few diversions beyond its natural beauty; I quickly become easy entertainment. An entire wedding party arrives and sheepishly indicates they would like a photo shoot with the disheveled American biker. (They are one of the 13 wedding parties I will see July 17; I find out over my dinner noodles that it is an auspicious day for weddings amongst the Buddhists in the area). We snap approximately twenty-three group photos and a series of individual shots, me in a sweat-darkened grey t-shirt, the men in their suits, and the party’s primped and whitened women in brightly colored and sequined ao dai, high-neck long-sleeved tops that fall to their knees slits up the thigh showing matching loose pants. (I love when enthusiastic, camera-happy groups attack me; it redeems me and gives me good travel photography karma.) Like confetti, the giggling party blows on down the street.

Seeing the fun has passed, a sinewy old man, one of the four boozers slouched in the hammocks, begins crafting bamboo leaf glasses so he can swap me for my black plastic frames. The family collapses in jovial howls. We start our own photo session using my camera. Then my coffee is finally finished. I wave and proceed to peddle around the area for another six hours before returning to my hostel near the Old City.

A few custom-made shoes and sandals, one more night in my slanted-ceiling, and a relaxing day at the beach later, I board an overnight sleeper bus to Nha Trang en route to the mountain town of Dalat, famous for its flowers and honeymooners. Away goes the swimsuit, out comes the jacket.  Fast-forward two days: I am riding on the back of Vietnamese Khein’s motorcycle on the winding roads beyond Dalat, poncho flapping around my body. I take in the chilly hillside.  It is a scene from my childhood: a Kansas patchwork quilt of fields, but here stretched over the rolling land and sprinkled with trees.

And this is what I love most about traveling: passing—biking, walking, hitching, swimming, busing—through people’s day-to-day routines. Rumbling along on the back of the cycle, I am seeing the 6 pm near Dalat. I can imagine the 6 pm Hoi An market with its faithful food stall vendors, perhaps wondering where the odd solo American girl has gone after nine meals in their company. Or maybe the absence goes completely unnoticed. In New York, I can see my friends on subways headed home from work. In Kansas, Mom is driving home about to feed the horses. For now, in biking Hoian, I am passing through these realities, like a  person entering a dance after it has begun, enjoying the beat while it is in full swing, and then gracefully bowing out before the music has a chance to trail off. It is the ability to enjoy each local’s unappreciated routines as if fabulous novelties. Traveling through these varied alternatives is the should-tap-whisper-in-the-ear that the reality of one place simultaneously exists amongst a million others, including the place I call home. And how quickly, when I once again begin to make my circles in that home place, my reality will misguidedly  become the world.

Mekong Delta Exploring

By Klassens

We have decided that it's time to give our feet a rest and put our butt's to the test.

Instead of navigating the maze of the Mekong Delta river ways on our own we decided to do it on bikes via a small tour group.  We picked a biking Mekong tour and were led by An, a sincere gentle soul who was very purposeful in leading us onward. Or perhaps his purposefulness came from trying to help us keep up with a very fun and very fit young couple from Germany? I'm not sure.

Before we could start biking, we needed to get away from the main cities, so onto a boat we went, passing small floating shacks with cat fish farms underneath.

The tour combined stops and information along the way to give us a better sense of how the locals live, and primarily do life on this vital body of water. One such stop was at a family farm where they had a large variety of fruit trees and vegetables which is more lucrative than growing rice.  We toured their home and kitchen and got a better idea of why they layout their homes the way they do, religiously and culturally.  Their homemade banana rice wine was pretty good for home made hooch and we sampled local fruits and homemade sweet rice cakes. One of our nights was spent in a very rustic guest house on the water.  Fairly open air rooms are set up on stilts along the water's edge.

A local house

Gorgeous sunset as we cruise to our evening stop.

Stopped  at a pottery factory for export. All handmade, and this kiln will run 24/7 for 20 days being stoked and fed constantly with rice husks for fuel. 

One of the things I enjoyed most was just knowing that this was the same body of water we were on while traveling from Northern Thailand through Laos to Luang Prabang, and in only another 150km or so, this water would empty into the South China Sea.

Actually, whining was not high on my list, as I loved the biking Mekong Delta trip.  Brad gets a rush weaving in and out of busy traffic, but I so enjoyed biking under a canopy of tropical greens of palm, bamboo, and so many varieties of which I don't know the name of.  Simply gorgeous and when you passed a rice field, you literally felt a cool fresh breeze wash over you as you pass by! 

In the outlying farms, family bury their dead on the land And bring regular sacrifice to help them in their next life.

Stopped at a Khmer temple and this new young monk (15 years old) will spend a year here in training.  Temple combines Hindu and Buddhist artifacts. He was very chatty with us and Anna, and amazed at how tall she was, especially compared to him.

Little school girls going home for lunch.

Again so many of the locals and children call out hello and laugh.  Why they laugh, I still don't know. Laugh because we are biking in the heat? Laugh because they just don't see many of us foreigners on the back roads? Laugh, because they are secretly making fun of us?  Not sure, but many hellos were exchanged with only a minor crash as children came out for a high five and when I tried to oblige, more came, along with a bike of two old ladies.  A minor crash with the elderly grandmas resulted in minor injuries, embarrassment (on my part) and one severe tongue lashing to the kids.....  So wish I could have understood it, but I couldn't and just sheepishly biked away to join the others.

Small bamboo bridges to homes across the river.  They are called monkey bridges.

A rice field

Loved the many bridges and paths  weaving along the river

What looks similar to our canoes, but called arroyos, we navigated through narrow waterways with spectacular foliage.

It's 3:00 in the afternoon. Temperature 30, feels like 38... Humidity 80%.

Last haul was up a massive bridge.  Never ending steady up.  Brad is cheering me on, I am down to my lowest gear.... I made it without getting off.

Damn proud of myself, though I might have had a minor breakdown after.... Can't remember! Blocked it out so I would choose to go back out again the next day!

Trekking Solo in Vietnam: Mt. Fansipan

By The Mind Room
Traveling alone in Vietnam kindles a love for the unknown and unpredictable. Modern Travelers follow in the steps of many past explorers.

It’s 4:30AM, and we whiz over Vietnam’s dusty mountain roads on a tiny red motorcycle. My trail guide, Chah (5’1), revs the engine, and I cling shamelessly to his waist from behind. Every time we zoom around a tight curve, our entire outfit tilts precariously and threatens to fling my unwieldy 6’4 body off the narrow seat. Even though my Ichabod Crane-like knees jut out awkwardly, our speed is exhilarating. The preliminary rays of dawn are just beginning to illuminate the peaks above us, and we pass teetering fruit trucks and groups of colorfully-dressed Black Thai women jingling towards Sapa with baskets of hand-made trinkets.

The trailhead is an abandoned colonial French outpost in the middle of northern Vietnam's Hoang Lien Mountains. I pause for a few perfunctory stretches while Chah glances impatiently at me and then at the trail. I strap on my locally-purchased, counterfeit North Face daypack and clench my Black Diamond hiking poles. I'm ready to conquer Fansipan, one of Southeast Asia’s highest peaks.

Arrival

Not bothering to research the mountain’s location beforehand, my China Southern Airways flight lands me in Saigon (Ho Chi Hinh City) in southern Vietnam. It doesn't take long to figure out that Fansipan rises in Vietnam’s far north near the Chinese border. Doh! Looking at a map, I realize that I have a 2,000-kilometer journey, no knowledge of local languages, and no friends in the region. With only 13 days, I also have no time to waste.

From Saigon, I board what I think is a nonstop bus to Hanoi. Dozens of tourists and locals board the blazing red, and eight hours later we arrive at beach-city Nha Trang. Standing alone on an unfamiliar street corner, I watch nervously as the bus shuttles back towards Saigon. “Are we going to Hanoi?” I ask with trepidation. “Yes. Tomorrow night.” I've traveled in the developing world before and know never to depend on a detailed itinerary. Three days, three buses, and several more impromptu stops along the coast later, we finally reach Hanoi.

1647 kilometers down; 336 to go. My ever-helpful Lonely Planet guide leads me to Hanoi’s train station for a ticket to Sapa, the mountain town nearest to Fansipan. A German woman, flanked by a careworn husband and two terrified-looking children, yells angrily at an attendant in the station's lobby. I shuffle past and board a railcar: room 4, number 14. Five hours on a cabin bed is easy; my bunkmates, a friendly, middle-aged Singaporean couple, tell me all about their love for cruising their Harley Davidsons through Thailand. Afterwards, I nestle under my sheets and even manage to get some much-needed sleep.

The final, 2-hour bus ride from our mountain train stop drops me off in the middle of quant Sapa, an old Bavarianesque vacation spot for French colonials. I easily find a $5 dollar-a-night lodging at the sparse, but cheerfully managed Pinocchio Hotel and stretch out on one of the three beds in my room. Success! I appreciate the fact that I am in Vietnam’s northern mountains with plenty of time left to get trekking Fansipan. Suddenly, 2,000 kilometers of cramped and uncertain travel seems well worth the trouble. 

Hiking the Fansipan Trail

 

At first, the trail descends down several steep drops into a shallow canyon and passes a drying streambed that reminds me of scenes from The Thin Red Line. The hardened clay ground makes for sturdy steps, but the trail is clearly not maintained. We constantly maneuver around washed-out gullies and clamber up near-vertical inclines. At the far end of the canyon, the path climbs relentlessly upwards. Chah bounces effortlessly from rock to rock and tells me about his family. Looking younger than I am, he already has a wife and several children; they live with his parents in a neighboring mountain village.

Fansipan (10,312ft.) is often called the rooftop of Southeast Asia, and I am almost completely unprepared physically for the hike. Lonely Planet advertises only two local backpacking options: a strenuous three-day trip and the exhausting two-day option. The day before, I strolled into a cavernous touring shop punctuated only by a small school desk and chair. The elfish man behind the desk offered an unexpected alternative: “Would you like to hike Fansipan in one day?” Not backpacking would render 80% of my luggage unnecessary, but why not? I take it as a dare.

Chah darts ahead and skips gracefully from step to step. He shouts back at me, “Come on!” as I struggle over a lengthy and precipitous slope. The topography is confusing. Before coming to Vietnam, my impression was that the entire country is covered in uninterrupted jungle. Even though everything is green in northern Vietnam’s mountains, the forests are thin and leafy. We are also constantly surrounded by blackened earth and the burnt husks of dead trees. Chah explains that, at lower elevations, the hill tribes periodically burn the forests in order to discourage undergrowth, avoid wild predators, and clear land for agriculture. Far removed from the constraints of such a life, I am disappointed. The only “wildlife” we see on the entire hike are three bored cows chomping a bush.

As we gain altitude, the woods thicken. The morning fog starts to dissipate and the jagged edges of slim mountain ranges appear above us. Beautiful ribbons of mountains connect and separate in all directions; ridgelines are barbed and dramatic. We scramble up mud-covered and slippery ravines. Suddenly, we reach the foot of the range’s razor-edged backbone, and the trail becomes discernibly maintained with clumsy side rails and an even path. The going is slower as the trail ascends more quickly, and I take my time clinging to the rails. I pause for a moment to take in the vistas. “Come on!”

Previous trips with friends in the developing world gave me confidence to set out on my own. Traveling solo through Southeast Asia stirs unwanted but somehow alluring memories of the first European explorers in the area. Milton Osborne’s The Mekong outlines their adventures. After securing a trade empire based at Malacca (in present-day Indonesia), Portuguese explorers plodded throughout the region’s interior by the mid-16th century. Names like Tome Pires, Antonio de Faria, and Ferdinand Mendez Pinto appear who explored the coastlines of present-day Cambodia and Vietnam in the 1540s. Contemporary maps of the continent’s untamed interior attest to their forgotten exploits seeking trade, wealth, and conversions to Christianity. I imagine the wonder these men must have felt as they traveled in such distant and untouched native societies and contexts. Every sight was a new discovery; every jungle bend presented these men with something new to grapple with and understand.

I briefly begrudge the mass communication of our internet age for spoiling Vietnam’s many unique surprises. Before disembarking from my plane at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, Google Images already illustrated the sights of Vietnam to me: the peoples’ dress, the natural scenery, and even my journey’s probable obstacles. But venturing out alone without a detailed plan rekindles an adventurous spirit of the unknown. Topography and cities are new; relationships are always novel, and never knowing what to expect next is invigorating. Even in a modern age, travelers can catch a glimpse of 500-year-old adventures. Never mind the every-moment control we exercise over our lives here in the United States; in Vietnam, I am immediately addicted to the risky unknown.

Mt. Fansipan, Vietnam

The trail’s last push is extremely difficult. My legs and chest sting with pain, but I scramble up a muddy embankment encased with dense, leafy ferns and trees on either side. Chah disappears somewhere ahead. Suddenly, the peak appears out of the mist in front of me. I made it! The jungle stops at the base of a 50ft.-high pile of rocks at the summit, and I carefully wobble to a perch at the pinnacle. Two Australian cyclists are eating a snack with their guide, and we chat briefly about trail conditions. After they leave, Chah and I gaze out across the mountain range. Chah tells me that Dien Bien Phu lies further west. Sapa is hidden 20 miles north.

A small, silver pyramid marks Fansipan’s apex and predictably reads: “Fansipan/3143m”. I sit next to a nearby statue of the Buddha which someone cemented onto the rock. On his pedestal lie an orange, a mummified apple slice, and a package of four cheese-filled crackers. I snap a few pictures and relax. Hooray! Only five days ago, I arrived at the wrong side of Vietnam. I close my eyes and wonder what I should do next with the remainder of my time here. Before I can finish my thought, I am interrupted by Chah’s shrill voice: “Come on!”

A great trip to Halong Bay

By Ornthordarson

From Hue, we took the fourteen hour sleeper bus up to Hanoi that arrived just before seven in the morning. We moved quickly and booked a three day - two night Halong Bay tour, departing at eight o’clock that same morning.

Halong Bay is about 170 km. from Hanoi.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, a beautiful bay with just under 2,000 majestic limestone-cliff islands scattered around the bay.  We took the bus to Halong City (with a stop in a souvenir store of course) and there we boarded a nice three star junk with eleven other passengers and a crew of six.

A typical view in Halong Bay

At first it felt like stepping into a ski-lift, going out on that boat.  At any one time there are about 300 similar passenger boats sailing around Halong Bay and they all have similar schedules so we could always see a few boats behind us and a few ahead of us, all heading in the same direction. 

But we were quick to shake of the ski-lift feeling.  Sailing around the bay in those boats is soooo relaxing and nice.  The bay is very quiet and the scenery is so astonishing that you get the feeling of moving around in slow motion.

We visited a big cave on one of the islands, went kayaking Halong Bay and visited a floating village where the people live in houses build on rafts and underneath they have enclosures filled with fish, squid and lobsters that they feed until they are big enough to eat.

Kayaking towards the floating village

The first night we slept on the boat but on the second day we went to Cat Ba Island and stayed in a nice new hotel in Cat Ba town.  In hindsight we should have stayed two nights on the boat though.  The hotel in compared to how nice it was on the boat.

Relaxing

We were picked up the next morning and sailed quietly back to Halong City where we took the bus back to Hanoi (with a stop in a souvenir store of course).

Trying to be brave :)

All in all the tour was great, the scenery was fantastic, the food was good and the accommodation cozy and nice.  For people considering to take a similar trip I would recommend taking the two day one night on the boat option on a three star boat or even three days two nights on the boat option.

Our cabin on the boat

The Untouched Gems of Northwest Vietnam

By Shivya
For many travelers, Vietnam is the cities of Ho Chi Minh & Hanoi, and the tours that take you around the area. While some of these are pretty and tourist-friendly, most of these are fabricated versions of Vietnam’s real beauty and people. We managed to ditch most of these must-tick boxes in our Vietnam itinerary to explore the less-treaded North Western highlands of the country.

Mai Chau

Mist in Mai Chau

No Lonely Planet overview can prepare you for the gorgeous, mist-covered mountains that greet you as you enter the village of Ben Lac, nor for the hospitality of its White Thai folks. There are Mai Chau trekking tours from Hanoi that take you there.

Biking on the hill slopes of Mai Chau

We stayed with a couple in a traditional stilt house, and were flattered by their openness, despite the language barrier, and by the lady’s (vegetarian, as requested by me) cooking. We spent a surreal morning Mai Chau biking on the slopes of the village, passing stilt houses and open rivers & streams, into the heart of the mountains which never for a second failed to enchant us. Time didn’t permit us to explore other surrounding villages or trek up one of the mountains, but it sure gave us a reason to visit again.

A traditional house on stilts in the Ban Lac village of White Thai tribes

From Mai Chau to Dien Bein Phu, via Moc Chau and Son La

If you haven’t been to Vietnam, the names will sound very strange; they might sound strange even if you’ve been to Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. Let’s say these are some of the most offbeat routes in North West Vietnam, and that is a huge blessing. If Mai Chau was beautiful, I am at a loss of words to describe what we saw next. The journey from Mai Chau to Dien Bien Phu is like entering a post card and never getting out. The Tonkinese Alps (rightfully called) are as stunning as they are imposing, and we traveled for miles without taking our eyes off them. The thrill was heightened by our insistence to travel in local buses with various tribes of people who board and alight at obscure stops, many of them dressed in colorful ethnic costumes and carrying their babies in kangaroo-like sacks.

The sky en route to Dien Bien Phu

The sun decorating the mountain skyline

From Dien Bien Phu to Lai Chau, via Muong Lay

Dien Bien Phu is a sleepy town, significant in French history in relation to the Vietnam war, and made just an overnight stopover for us.

Can you close your eyes and picture the backdrop in Pirates of the Caribbean? In this journey, you can see that backdrop with your eyes wide open, stunned in fact, because it’s hard to imagine that such beauty exists in such a remote part of Vietnam. If you ask me, you haven’t seen Vietnam if you haven’t done this route. Referred to by locals as the “Halong on Land”, the scenery is magical, with slopes of the lush Tonkinese Alps enclosing a river that runs for miles (possibly the Mekong River).

Muong Lay, the old Lai Chau, was a thriving community until the river flooded and submerged the town a few years ago. A new river-side mountain-side township is now under construction and promises to be an unparalleled attraction if discovered by enough travelers. Between Muong Lay and Lai Chau, I saw the most beautiful mountain landscape I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen my fair share of hills and valleys in Asia. Lai Chau is just another sleepy town, just barely alive to break the journey for the night, onward to the touristy valley of Sapa.

The beauty is so virgin that we couldn’t get ourselves to capture it in photographs, for fear of contaminating and misconstruing its purity. Apologies for not sharing pictures on this part; no pictures could do justice.

Trekking Northwestern Vietnam

By Audrey

A knock on the carriage door. The scent of fresh coffee being poured into cups. The gold duvet wrapped around my body. Thick fog hanging over the sleeping hills. The halt of the train pulling into Lao Cai – a train station which lies only 1 kilometer away from the Vietnam-China border. A little van chugging uphill as it follows the curvature of the mountains.

That was my introduction to Sapa and I felt like I was falling into a dream as opposed to waking from one.

There was something magical about travelling all night aboard a train and waking up to an entirely different landscape in such a remote part of the country. How was this still Vietnam? But that’s the thing about this country, it has one of the most diverse terrains; you can be in a bustling city like Hanoi fighting scooters for a little trekking Sapa in one day, and then you can find yourself wandering the streets of a small hillside village the next.

Sapa won me over with its mountain views and small town feel on the first day, but it was things like pumpkin soup, water buffaloes roaming the streets, gnocchi Bolognese, fresh mountain air, and strawberry tea, that made me want to linger. (Yes, most of my reasons are food, but trust me, this town knows what it’s doing in the cooking department.)

Here are a few photos from my time in Sapa:

Stunning terrace field

Enthralling scenery

H'mong woman plays with her daughter

A man balances two baskets on the back of his motorcycle

Top 5 Reasons to Cycle Cambodia

by World Biking 

Cambodia is well-loved for its exotic temples and spicy cuisine.Rachel Hugens shares some of the reasons why this southeast Asian country is a current hot-spot for bicycle tourists.

Reason #1  Location, Location, Location

Cambodia is a wonderful destination for a short cycling trip or travelling through as part of an extended adventure. Nestled between Thailand to the west, South Vietnam to the East, Laos to the North, and a coastal region to the South, there is so much to see in Cambodia and many border crossings.

Our trip started in Bali, Indonesia 3 months earlier and we cycled into Cambodia from Bangkok to Siem Reap on the dustiest road ever! As you pass through the border from Thailand, there is a switch from riding on the left side of the road to riding on the right and you begin to see the land of extremes.

Reason #2. Land of Extremes

You see ox carts that you later recognize as the same as the stone carvings on the walls of the ancient temples; overloaded vehicles (trucks, wagons, motorbikes, bicycles) carrying people and anything from live pigs to ice. Locals are wearing rounded straw hats or checkered scarves wrapped around their head and face or face masks to protect from the dust. Big black vases at the side of buildings collect water. Batteries are left at the side of the road to be recharged. There are no coins for money. Prices are quoted in US Dollars. Contrast this to the Lexus and Landcruisers carrying tourists or NGO personnel.

A taste of the exotic.

Because of the history of Cambodia, landmines are still being found, so it’s not recommended to free camp or get off the trusted footpaths. The good news is why would you want to camp in a tropical climate when there are wonderful guesthouses with reasonable (cheap) rates, hot showers, western style toilets, and TV with BBC news?

Reason # 3  Friendly People

As you cycle by you hear the children shout, “Sah- bye- dee, Sah- bye- dee, and bye-bye”, all in one sentence. School kids on bikes riding to? from? school any time of the day, and we never figured out the school hours.

Lots of waves and shouts!

Reason #4 Culture and History

Siem Reap with the ancient temples (wats) is Cambodia at its best. Plan to spend time in the city to see all the temples of Angkor. You can cycle or hire a tuk-tuk to take you around to see the sites. Besides the temples, it’s fun to see the monks in Cambodia known to carry umbrellas.

Phnom Penh with the history of the Vietnam war, Khmer rouge and the killing fields is at its worst. Though grim, the killing fields is a must see to understand the country you are traveling through.

The grim side of history.

Reason #5  Food

The French left a legacy of good coffee and baguettes. As you look at the food stalls along the side of the road or in the city markets, you see anything that crawls has been deep fried: snakes, frogs, crickets, scorpions– things people learned to eat to survive during dark times. To pose a question: Did the French teach the Cambodians to eat escargot or did the Cambodians teach the French to eat snails?

Come on, try something new for a change.

Our route through Cambodia was crossing the border from Thailand to Siem Reap. We took a boat to Battambang and cycled to Phnom Penh before continuing on into South Vietnam and eventually to Llhasa Tibet. We want to go back and explore more. Cambodia is a great country to see by bicycle!

ACTIVETRAVEL ASIA would like to recommend Cycling Angkor Temples tour. Let’s discover the world’s remarkable awesome historical site through this adventure trip and grasp the reasons why the Tomb Raider’s film maker team chose the Angkor Complex in Siem Reap for its screen backdrops. Also experience the biodiversity of Tonle Sap listed as the World Ecological Wonder.

Highlights: 

• Beautiful cycling roads 
• Impressive Angkor temples
• Boat trip on Tonle Sap

Trekking in Sapa and the Hill Tribes in Northern Vietnam

After our return from Halong Bay – which I will write about in a later blog post – we took the night train from Hanoi to Sapa, a remote town in the mountains of Northern Vietnam between China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. 

The landscape around Sapa is breathtaking and makes it a great destination for trekking. In addition to that a lot of interesting ethnic minorities live there – different hill tribes, each with their own language, traditional lifestyle and clothing. During our trip there we met the Red Dzao and the Black Hmong people.

Sapa

The night train left Hanoi at 9pm and was surprisingly comfortable, and it was possible to get a good six hours of sleep before the arrival in Sapa around 5am. We had a long breakfast, and strolled a little bit through town before we were able to check into our hotel and get ready for a day of trekking.

The landscape around Sapa is beautiful and I was looking forward to my first hike after knee surgery earlier this year.We spent the day hiking with her and two other Black Hmong women – very nice and friendly people. This is one of the other Black Hmong women who came with us on the trek.

The Red Dzao women shave the top of their head and their eyebrows after they get married, as this is thought to be more beautiful and also to bring good luck. They wear striking, elaborate red headscarves with fringes attached to them – the more fringes the more important the person .

Red Dzao women

The Black Hmong women wear a really cool outfit that consists of several layers…

 Black Hmong women

They wear the beautiful traditional clothing every day – independent of age and they grow their own hemp to produce the material for their clothes. During our hike we were surprised to come upon big patches of tall marijuana plants, which, they told us, are used to make hemp. The women also grow the plants that they need in order to dye the cloth indigo – and that is why they have blue stains on their fingers.

Many of the minority villages are several hours of walking away from Sapa, and a lot of these women walk to Sapa and back every day in order to sell their handicraft to tourists. They carry everything in woven baskets on their back.

 Black Hmong women

When they have babies they do the same walks and simply carry the baby on their back instead of the basket.And they learn at a very young age how to do that.One of the main characteristics about the landscape in Northern Vietnam are the terraced rice fields. The hill tribes are subsistence farmers who live off their land and the livestock they own. They do not pay taxes, but at the same time also do not receive any government pensions or other social services. They grow rice for their families, which is backbreaking labor – and in a bad season the land does not provide enough rice to feed them. In that case the Vietnamese government helps by distributing 300kgs of rice per family to the villages.

Hill Tribe People on Rice Field

Water buffalo are an important part of life here…

Water buffalo 

Sapa has a much cooler climate than the rest of the country, and in many ways it doesn’t feel like Vietnam anymore – some of the minority people speak better English than Vietnamese; but then you look around and find propaganda of the Vietnamese government even in the most remote villages. Note the first billboard below is hand-painted and shows people of different ethnic minorities…

Lately the Vietnamese government has been building schools and has started to provide electricity also for the more isolated areas – which the people in the villages appreciate a lot. We passed one of those schools, and school kids were practicing a dance – obviously overseen by Ho Chi Minh outside the school as well as inside the class room.

School

At the end of the trek we arrived at the home village of one of the women – and her best friend was waiting there for her with a bottle of rice wine. We were invited to try the wine, and it was seriously strong stuff!

Women with a bottle of rice wine

The next day I couldn’t resist buying a second-hand Black Hmong outfit to take home with me, and while Nat was climbing Mount Fansipan I had a lot of fun with the Black Hmong girls helping them sell their handicraft to tourists while dressed like one of them.

Source:Shetravel.org

ACTIVETRAVEL ASIA would like recommend Sapa trek & Topas Eco Lodge tour.At an elevation of 1,600 meters, Sapa is a delightful former French hill station situated in the mountainous region of Vietnam's northwest, close to the Chinese border. The region is home to many ethnic minority groups, each wearing traditional and colorful attire. This trip includes a trek through the hills and valleys of the Sapa region, discovering several different minorities along the way. You will experience overnight accommodation in the hospitable villages of Dzay and Tay ethnic minorities. Round off the trek with a nice stay in Topas Eco Lodge. The apparent hardships are worth it though as we walk through some of the most spectacular scenery that Vietnam has to offer and experience unique villages culture.

Highlights: 

• Awesome scenery
• Rice terraces
• Colorful minority groups
• Homestays in minority villages
• Topas Eco-lodge

9 Stunning Landscapes of Vietnam

At just three percent of the land mass of the United States, what most surprised me during our time in Vietnam was the diversity of the scenery. From white sand beaches and turquoise water to black rock forests and mountains that hug the clouds, here are some of the most amazing landscapes we came across.

With a coastline of over 2025 miles, it's no surprise that Vietnam has a ton of beautiful beaches. And when the rest stop during your bus trip looks like this, you don't have much to complain about.

Rest stops in Vietnam are sometimes on beautiful beaches

The biggest beach destination in Vietnam is likely the town of Nha Trang, which boasts all day boat tours and all night parties. If you're missing Miami while in SE Asia, this is the closest we found. The beach in the main town is pretty nice, but the offshore islands are where you want to head if you're looking to snorkel or dive. With perfect visibility, good quality coral, and thousands of multicolored fish flitting about, having a great day is easy, especially since the all day island-hopping tour costs approximately $6.

Great beach for snorkeling near Nha Trang

But Vietnam's coastline isn't all sparkling white sand and clear blue water. Our favorite coastal landscape was the sand dunes around Mui Ne, which come in both red and white varieties. Whether you jump, run, or slide, it's hard not to let the beauty of the dunes overwhelm you. Stretching for what seems like miles, the dunes are something you'd expect to find in Africa. Instead, they're here, only a few minutes away from one of the best places in the world to learn to kitesurf.

Red sand dunes of Mui Ne

Most countries with a coastline have beaches, but they don't all have rice terraces, especially ones that look like this.

Rice terraces of Sapa

The terraces in Sapa were carved over two thousand years ago by hand and are still inhabited primarily by the Black Hmong tribespeople. These mountain dwellers live off the land, planting and harvesting rice year in and year out in order to sustain their families.

A Black Hmong man takes a break from working in the rice terraces outside of Sapa

Tourists can explore the terraces by taking a multiday trekking tour with a Hmong guide. You'll stay in homestays run by the local villagers, get knee deep in mud, and appreciate rice way more than you ever have.

Wide view of Sapa's rice terraces

Further north and to the east of Sapa lies the unexplored Vietnam of the Ha Giang province. You need a permit to stay the night and a camera with lots of battery power to take all of the photos of the immense scenery that surrounds you as you drive by on your motorbike. The most beautiful part of the road, and arguably one of the most beautiful drives in the world, is the leg between Dong Van and Meo Vac. Here the road darts in and out of rock crevices and up and down mountains and valleys.

Windy road in Northern Vietnam

Children in traditional tribal outfits scream "hello" from above and below as they carry double their weight of sticks in bamboo baskets. Men wear high-necked black tunics and matching berets and women wrap electric pink scarves over their hair, giving the game of "I Spot" a whole new meaning.

Rock forest in Northern Vietnam

Perhaps the most quintessential scene of Vietnam is the floating limestone karst formations of Halong Bay. Best seen on a multi-day boat tour, these rocks rise out of the still water and emerge through the mist forming, if you look hard enough, the shape of a descending dragon. At least that's what the locals tell you, and how Halong Bay gets its name. Kayaking through some of these formations is a must, as is sitting back on your boat tour and letting the scenery and mist envelop you.

Kayaking Halong Bay

Source:huffingtonpost

ACTIVETRAVEL ASIA would like recommend Motorcycling adventure in Northern Vietnam  tour.The mountainous area of Northern Vietnam has long been famous for its beautiful scenery and great diversity of ethnic minorities. With our adventure motorcycling trip you will make a big loop to experience all the bests that area can offer. Starting in Hanoi you will explore Northwest before jumping into Northeast, back to Hanoi after a day relaxing in Ba Be Lake. The perfect itinerary and the support crew ensure you get the most out of the trip in terms of comfort, enjoyment and adventure. Along the way we encounter dramatic landscapes and sweeping panoramas as the rural population goes about its business. Highlights include the terraced valleys of Sapa, beautiful Ban Gioc Waterfall and many different colorful minority groups.