Day 13: Cat Ba Island

I don't know how I could have forgotten to introduce you to SAPA!  Aaron and I always try to pick up some sort of souvenier that can be put on a bookshelf when we're traveling!  This trip, Aaron bought this hand made, hand stitched bull in Sapa!  I wouldn't normally pick something like this out, but I love it!  And he only paid $2!  We fittingly named it Sapa!

Okay, back to the story... So, we woke up bright and early: 7:00am to be exact,  to a knock on the door telling us it was time to check out and come to breakfast!  SAD.  We really wished we had booked 2 nights on the boat, instead of 1 on the island... but such is life.  So, we got up, had some breakfast, and then jumped on a small boat that ferried us over to another large "junk boat," where we caught a 2 hour ride through Halong Bay to Cat Ba Island. 

Cat Ba Island is actually the 2nd largest island in Vietnam, and approximately1/2 of it is a National Park, which is home to the highly endangered Cat Ba Langur, a crazy looking orange haired monkey with a black face! And since you're wondering, no we didn't see one! :(  Archeological evidence suggests that people have lived on Cat Ba Island for almost 6,000 years!  Now that's crazy! 

From the wharf in Cat Ba, it takes 45 minutes, by minivan to get to Cat Bat Town center... (This picture was taken off the internet, because we mostly used Aaron's camera today and he was shooting in RAW, which means I can't download them onto this blog.)  Sorry!

We checked into the hotel our tour had assigned us to, the Sunflower... dropped our bags and headed out in search of a scooter to rent for the day!  Wahla... didn't have to walk far... we had made a scooter deal within 5 minutes of our search, and for only $5.00!  We loaded on, and headed for Cat Co Beach where we spent the next 3 hours or so frolicking in the water, searching for shells, and drinking yummy drinks under these straw parasols.

After we had had our fair share of the sun, we both headed back to the Sunflower for some chill time!  I was dying to just relax and turn the TV on!  I know, I'm in Vietnam, why would I wanna hang in my hotel?  Well, I'll tell you... Because traveling can be exhausting, that's why! 

We regrouped around 6pm and took a walk down to the water to see what was going on.  I loved the way the sun was shining on this group of buildings along the shore...

All meals were included in the price of the Halong Bay tour, so we took advantage of the free dinner!  They always gave us WAY more than we could possibly have consumed!

After dinner, we walked out to the water again, and about 100 meters off the shore of Cat Ba Town, there are little floating restaurants!  The only way to get to them is to pay a guy 25 cents to row you in a boat out there!  We really wanted to go, but a lady told us we couldn't just go and buy drinks... we would have to order a whole seafood meal, and we couldn't possibly have fit any more food in our belly's, so we regretfully declined and headed back to call it a night!

Today was our first really chill day, where we were okay with not really doing anything!  We want to come back to Busan refreshed and relaxed, so today was our way of insuring that happened!  Tomorrow, we're headed back to Hanoi for the last 3 days of our Vietnam adventure!

Day 12: Hello Halong Bay! I think I love you!

Okay, so we made it to Hanoi... not the most comfortable way (crappy sleeper bus, stocked full of roaches!), but we made it, and that was great news!  The van dropped us off at the bus station at 4:30am, where we caught a taxi into the Old Quarter, to wait, in the dark, on the street, in front of our tour company's office until 8am.  Uuughhh.  As we were sitting there, we (and a South Korean guy who was waiting with us) had a little run in with 2 female gypsies!  Luckily, nothing was stolen!

At 8:00am, the mini van arrived to drive us the 3 hours to Halong Bay!  YAY!

When we got to the harbor in Halong, we were so excited to check into the rooms and take showers and sleep for a bit!  But... our tour guide told us we would be going to a cave and hiking and then staying in a hotel on the island (which wasn't AT ALL what we had payed for!)... so, I put on my fiesty face and basically had a stern talk with him, and the lady at the tour office until it was fixed!  Aaron said he thought it was sexy when I got fired up, because he doesn't ever see me like that!  I'm not gonna lie... it did feel kind of good to stand my ground and make sure I wasn't being taken advantage of or grifted any more than I already have in the last 2 weeks!  Very long story short, they fixed it, and we were placed on a more expensive boat than we had originally paid for and were told not to tell the people on the boat how much we had payed!  Done and done!

My home for the next 20 hours! :)

My room was nice and cozy, with a beautiful ocean view!

After checking in, Aaron and I gave ourselves a little tour of the boat!  I have never been on a cruise, so this was kind of exciting for me!

Within a couple minutes, the engines started, lunch was being served, and we were headed for the bay...  There were 14 people on our boat, from all over the world: Denmark, Australia, Chile, Vietnam, Serbia, Germany, and then us!  Such a fun group of people! 

After lunch, most of us headed to the deck for some sun!

There were a few other boats in the area!  We are happy to be in Vietnam during the low season!  I'm sure when peak season rolls around there are tons of boats, swarming the area! 

It doesn't get much better than this!  We could have stayed here for the whole 17 days!

We set the timer on my camera to take 4 simultaneous pictures in order to get a nice one of us together on the bay... I thought the progression was kind of funny!

Around 2pm, we all hopped onto a smaller boat...

...said goodbye to our big boat, and headed for a cave on one of the 1969 islands in the bay!

  

Hang Sung Sot cave was discovered by the French in 1901.  It's gigantic... but more imense than any cave I had ever seen before! 

 At points, the cave's ceiling is over 90 feet high!!

We came out of the cave to this gorgeous view of the bay!

We got back on the mini bot and were taken to a fishing village where we could go kayaking if we wanted to; which WE DID! :)  Unfortunately, I deleted the pictures and videos off my underwater camera before they had fully loaded onto my computer tonight, so there are no pics to prove our adventure!  I will say though, it was awesome, and Aaron and I kayaked to a little beach on one of the islands where we did a little swimming and I, of course, searched for shells!

Then, it was time to go back to the big boat!  There she is, in all her glory!

Everyone was talking about wanting to swim, so Aaron grabbed a beer, me a Coke, and the two of us headed up to the top deck to check out jumping spots! 

The boys were much braver than the girls!  We liked jumping from the 1st deck!   Here's Aaron and the boys, jumping from the top! 

I had some awesome videos of everyone jumping... but like I said, they're ALL GONE!  (Well, except for this one, which 1/2 way downloaded before I deleted them off the camera card...the sound it off, and sort of in slow motion, but still fun!

 Poor Aaron almost had a breakdown when he found out I deleted them!  That goes to show what an aweosme videographer I am that he would be so bummed!  haha!  With that said, you're stuck with the pictures instead!

We all had so much fun swimming in the refreshing water, cheering each other on to jump from the boat, while the sunset over the bay! 

The sky was stunning shades of purple, orange, and blue!

At 6:45pm, our tour guide had a cooking class for us on the top deck, where he taught us to make Vietnamese spring rolls! 

I tried my hand at rolling a few! :)  I'll definitely be making these when I get back to Korea!  They're so simple!

This was our boat's server and cook!  She brought one of her stoves up to cook on the deck!

Dinner was ready shortly after. which was DELICIOUS, and more food than any of us could possibly have consumed!  We had develed crab, veggies, french fries (random), rice, soup, fresh fish, fried fish... and some other stuff I can't remeber!

Then, they started the karaeoke and squid fishing on the back of the boat!  Aaron headed up the squid fishing! :)  My little country boy! It must not have been squid season, because after an hour or so of all of us shaing turns holding the 5 poles, we only caught 1 little guy!  Super fun none the less!  We did see 2 huge jellyfish in the water!  Our guide ripped one of their legs off with his squid bait!

Aaron and I spent the last 2 hours of the night lounging on the top deck, star gazing, and enjoying the moonlight on the cliffs of the bay!  It was definitely one of the highlights of my life!  This pictures obviously doesn't do it justice AT ALL because you can't see everything...

Just take my word for it; There were clear skies, bright stars, calm waters, beautifully lit boats nearby, a shooting star, and the love of my life next to me!

It wasn't just good... it was down right perfect!

Day 11: My 2nd day in Paradise... Sapa!

We woke up this morning with NO plan in place, so we asked for a map from the reception desk and picked a route for the day!  Yesterday, we did the red route... today, we decided to do to the green one and check out Ta Phin village! 

This time we decided to hire a motor taxi for $10.00 each, to drive us the 10kms there, wait for us at the other end of the village... a 7km trek, which we soon realized was ALL UPHILL!   Then, when we were finished, they would take us back up the mountain to Sapa.

We felt like we probably could have done the trek without our guide yesterday, so today, we were all on our own... a fun feeling actually!  We only ran into 4 other foreigners along our 4 hour trek! :)  We did, however run into plenty of local tribes people!  This little girl was herding her buffalo... As soon as she saw me behind her, she tapped the buffalo's butts and they quickly lined up, single filed!  If only it worked that well on elementary students!

I had NO IDEA buffallo were so tame!  This guy let me walk right up to him to snap a picture! 

For the sake of saving myself a lot of "typing time," I'll just simply say, the following pictures were from our trek, up the mountainside of Ta Phin Village... enjoy!

Aaron, embracing the paradise around him!

There were puppies EVERYWHERE along our trek!  Usually with an angry and protective momma dog to watch out for! 

a muddy pathway to someone's home in the village...

Inside this little shack, local tribesmen were crafting these awesome drums!

This might have been the only child in Sapa who didn't ask for money!  He just wanted to hang out!  We loved him!

The weather was great: a little drizzly rain here and there, blue skies with misty looking clouds dispersed throughout... Sometimes it was just nice to sit, take a break, and enjoy it all!

  

5 baby pigs, 1 lazy dog, and an unsupervised little girl with no pants on!  This pretty much sums up the life of a toddler in this village! 

I think this little boy was imagining he was a warrior, ready to take over the village around him! ... I also think he may have been a little special.  Cute, none the less!

 Towards the end of our trek through the village, we came across this makeshift bridge off the road and headed towards it.  On the other side, was a family, all hanging out outside their home...

This girl came and met us near the bridge, asking where we were from, and if we wanted to buy anything from her!  (I'm telling you... EVERYONE tries to sell you something!)  We ended up chatting for quite a while.  Her and her neice were so sweet! :)

We jumped back on our motor taxis, who were waiting for us, just like they said (I love when people are dependable!) and headed back to Sapa for a late afternoon lunch here in the center of town! 

I'm quite confident these were in the top 3 best spring rolls I've ever had! ($2.00)

Across the street from the restaurant, tons of Hmong women had gathered and were yelling, "You buy something!  Buy from me!" to everyone eating on the deck of the restaurant!  The only thing I can compare them to is a peacock!  When someone looked even slightly interested in buying something, they all unfolded their colorful blankets and flashed them for all to see!  It was like a peacock fanning it's tail feathers!  AMAZING!

 After lunch, we took a little stroll / turned hike, through the "behind the scenes areas of Sapa," meaning outside of the fancy shops and restaurants and into where the locals really live! 

This old man was awesome!  He was just sitting on his stoop, reading a book.  Aaron got an amazing picture of him upclose, but I didn't have time to download it!   You'll just have to imagine! :) 

I would love to know what the writing on the wall says...

All these cute dogs definitely makes me miss my Macy girl!

This little cottage had the most incredible orchard out front.

We spotted this narrow pathway, leading down the hillside and in true Aaron and Jill fashion, decided to explore!

If you look closely, you can see a Vietnames woman, wearing a traditional hat, working hard in her garden!

On our way back to the town center, we stopped in the market, once more, just to make sure we didn't miss anything! :)  That's where I met Zschan, a local Hmong woman.  It was the typical encounter, "You buy something from me?"  "NO THANK YOU!"  Then, I turned to look at her, and saw her beautiful smile and said, "You should be a model!  You're so pretty!"  From that moment on, we were friends!  haha... no, but really.  We walked and chatted the whole way back to the hotel, and she NEVER once tried to sell me something!  In fact, she gave me a bracelt and a headband (which she had hand sewn at her home) as a gift to me!  If you ever go to Sapa, call her (seriously... she gave me her #... 016-6373-3367) ! Her family would love to have you stay with them in a REAL HOMESTAY! 

 At 6:00pm, we caught our van back down the mountain to Lao Cai Train station.  We arrived there at 7:45pm, and checked our tickets to make sure we were in time for the train!  I looked at it, and it said, "Departure: 20:05."  Okay, 9:05pm, perfect!  We have over an hour to grab some dinner and relax in a cafe!  I'm sure by now, you've figured out my miscalculation!  Long story short, we showed up for our train 1 hour late, and it was long gone!  Uggghh... to make things worse, the only other train headed back to Hanoi tonight was completely booked, except for one train car (The Victoria!  Which was $295.00 per person!)  Seriously, who pays that?!   We obviously weren't going to!  Instead, we got stuck on a $12.50 piece of crap sleeper bus!  Did we sleep at all tonight?  Not a wink!  :(

On the bright side, tomorrow we'll be heading to beautiful Haong Bay for our overnight boat cruise!  Hopefully we'll get some shut eye on the top deck... and a tan to go with it! :)