Hello Vietnam

10/30/2023 - 11/13/2023

We flew on to Vietnam in what was probably the smallest budget airline (Ryanair can pack). We now have three months until the next plane we have booked takes us to Tasmania. Three months in Southeast Asia. Three months in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, or maybe Laos or maybe Malaysia. We just don't know where life will take us yet.

We have noticeably slowed down a few gears and are actually just living through the day. In the morning, depending on the weather and, above all, our mood, we decide what we want to do.

When we arrived in Hanoi, we visited the grave of the highly revered party leader Ho Chi Minh, which was guarded by soldiers. Yes, it was very hot that day, which we were not used to in Japan, and Tine was wearing a tank top and shorts. When we got there, the sergeant made it clear to us that this was not appropriate clothing. If we could have figured it out beforehand, it wasn't Tine's first vacation in Southeast Asia - we just put it down to the unpleasant flight and the jittery anticipation of these three coming months. An older gentleman was waiting around the corner in front of the main entrance for his daily business: selling pants and scarves to tourists like Tine. Well then we paid the tuition fee and we were able to visit the mausoleum. It was a completely unfamiliar climate, especially for Flo, damn hot and then there was this high level of humidity. From the time we left the hotel until we showered in the evening, we only stuck together once and that for the entire 10 hours.

Over the next two days we visited, among other things, the famous water puppet theater in Hanoi. Typical Vietnamese life scenes performed on a stage in the water using wooden puppets attached to long poles. All of this, of course, with traditional live music on traditional instruments, accompanied by singers. It was a great, entertaining event that we both enjoyed. Another highlight is simply strolling through the crowded streets in the evening, when the fairy lights are on everywhere. Everywhere people, especially locals, sit together on small plastic chairs, eat freshly prepared food from the street kitchens and enjoy life. A unique flair.

From Hanoi we continued with a six-hour bus ride north towards the Chinese border to Sa Pa. This town is known for the highest mountain in Indochina, the Fransipan at 3143m, which we could greet every morning from our hotel bed, and its endless rice fields through which you should go on a trekking tour if you visit Vietnam.

So put on your hiking boots and go. We had clearly booked the hard route... initially it was 500 meters straight up, no scooter can manage this incline, everything the people up there in the mountain villages need they carry up on foot in huge backpack baskets. When we arrived on the mountain, we briefly had a foggy view of the elongated Sa Pa. Five minutes later, at the top of the mountain, we were already surrounded by clouds and could no longer see anything except the soup of fog. He walked through meadows and fields, along dry but also muddy streams, we climbed over pasture fences, made the acquaintance of grazing horses, water buffaloes, met domestic pigs, countless chickens with their flocks of chicks and of course we kept trying to avoid giant spiders. We saw indescribably beautiful nature, never-before-seen happy flower plantations and seemingly endless rice field terraces. Our guide is a Hmong, a woman from the mountain villages there. As a child she sold souvenirs to tourists and learned to speak English. The currently 35-year-old earns her money through trekking tours, which she mainly uses for the schooling of her children, some of whom are already teenagers. Has chickens to look after and some fields to cultivate for his own use. By our standards, it is very early for Hmong women to marry or be married young in order to then have children quickly (officially you can get married at the age of 18, but this often happens at a younger age). Many young women, almost children, carry their babies on their back bags as they try to sell souvenirs to tourists on the streets of Sapa. Our guide was very open-minded, told a lot of private things and was also very interested in our lifestyle and whether we already had children. “Yes, she understands that, everything is more complicated with children, you live mainly for the children, you have them no more money to travel…” Unfortunately, she never made it further than Ha Long (450km).

We were lazy the following days, also because the weather changed completely, which it already did every 10 minutes, but now it just poured rain. So take time for yourself, Tine treated herself to a massage and Flo was happy to spend a day gaming on her laptop.

Still immersed in the rain, we left Sa Pa on a “sleeper bus”. This time the loungers were worlds better or maybe we just knew what to expect and that's why we were so relaxed and didn't find the 9 hour journey all that strenuous.

Visiting Ha Long Bay is on every Vietnam traveler’s to-do list. Almost 2,000 limestone cliffs rise high out of turquoise water. They are covered with rainforest and are therefore home to monkeys, goats and many birds (including our family members :-) ) and have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994. We also wanted to cruise through Ha Long Bay for two days. But we are now overjoyed that we followed our hostel's advice and booked the three-day tour, as it gave us the opportunity to travel further into the more remote parts of Lan Ha Bay away from the tourist crowds with a few three-day travelers. There we kayaked through large caves in bays, anchored on the tiny sandy beach to jump from the ship into the sea. You have to cool down somehow in these temperatures. We had a lot of fun these days, of course also through many great encounters with other travelers, with whom we enjoyed karaoke in the evening with delicious cocktails.