Travels in Asia: 2005

Hey Everyone.

It';s true and it';s sad.  Paulina has left me.  She';s deserted me.  Now I am left all by myself...

Well.  Hanoi was nuts - chaotic, busy, crazy, big, modern and yet still somehow Vietnamese, traditional and fun.  You just need to ignore the chaos, let it go by while savoring the fact that something is going on rather than the way it was in Laos.  However, one thing you can't ignore is the heat.  The humidity was just insane.  I felt like I was melting alive and that by the end there would be nothing left of me.  Even the nights were no respite.  We would be swimming in our bed to the extent that I would go under the shower and soak myself - including my PJs just so that I could stay cooler for a while longer. 

But yeah... now out of Hanoi in slightly cooler regions.  I dropped Paulina off at the taxi yesterday morning and just meandered my way around Hanoi for the day.  At night I caught a sleeper train to Sappa.  Soft sleepers were sold out but the hard sleeper didn't prove any worse.  Used to sleeping on stone hard beds by now so the thin mattress in the train made no difference.  What was god sent was the airconditioning and it was the first night in quite a few that I actually got a decent amount of sleep.

Sappa is nice enough - northern highlands with many local minority groups.  THe probelm is that ti's increatdibly touristy.  Wanted to just hike around some of the villages here for a bunch of days but it turns out that you need permits to walk through the countryside - enough to make me not want to do it.  Hence you have 2 options.  You either stay in the increadibly touristy town where all the "minoirty" people keep on sticking their hand out for money for posed photos or try to sell you something while trying to dodge the busloads of tourists that are arrivign here by the minute.  Or option 2 is you buy a tour that takes you to these villages, pay money to see the countryside and life that is once again geared at the tourist.  Neither one too appealing... yet I have 10 days and nothing to fill them with...

We'll see what comes of it.

Kasia

PS:  Sorry can't post phtoos because Paulina took the CDs with her

PS:  Nancy - thank you very much for that list.  Greatly appreciated.