Sapa: Hello, you buy from me okay?

This is the first of a few back-dated posts about the last 3 weeks of my Asia travels.

We left off in Halong Bay, Vietnam; I'd just come back from a gorgeous 3 day cruise in the world-famous limestone karst landscape that included much relaxing, sailing and lying on a beach. Time for a change of pace: leave the heat and humidity behind, trade it in for rice terraces, remote hill tribes and some good hard trekking. Sapa here we come!

I went to Sapa with David and Sean, a couple of guys I'd met in Hanoi. David was a friend of a girl in my dorm, he came out with us on Independence Day and enjoyed 20c keg beer and rice crackers at the local bia hoi. For those of you not in the know, Bia hoi: keg of beer with no preservatives which must be drunk in one day, hence the ridiculously cheap price, even by Vietnamese standards. And yes, of course you have to sit on kiddie chairs on the side of the road. That's the only way!

David and I enjoying criminally cheap beer and rice crackers

Holly, Lindsey, Quang, Me, David

Kiddie chairs are just so degrading.

It was over a few beers that David wangled a train ticket out of Quang (Lindsey's Vietnamese boyfriend who kindly used his native Vietnamese-ness to organise all kinds of things from train tickets to deep-fried frogs legs to airport taxis for me), so we were on the same overnight train to Sapa. David had bumped into Sean in Hanoi somewhere and brought him along, turns out Sean had been in my dorm at the Hanoi Backpackers. Small world! :)

11 hours and 300km (give or take) later, we arrived in Lao Cai bright & early. Lao Cai was still fairly hot & steamy, much to our disappointment, but after a further 1hr minivan ride to the town of Sapa itself we were rewarded with a cool 25 degrees and normal humidity. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! (remember that I'd been in 35 degrees+, so 25 felt cool indeed)

We hadn't even gotten off the minivan when the hordes arrived. The very interestingly-dressed, very smiley and very friendly Hmong hill-tribe women were there en mass to greet us - the newest busload of cash-laden tourists looking for an authentic cultural experience. And how convenient, it comes right to you! Our morning went a bit like this:

"Hello! Welcome to Sapa! What is your name?"
"Ok you are my friend, here is a gift for you, free, no charge, it means we are friends" (ties bracelets on all 3 of our arms)
"You want to come to my village? I take you, we go now!" (it's 7am)
"You like my jacket? You buy from me!"
"No, not too small, have bigger in my shop!"
"You like necklace? You buy from me" (it's 7:30am)
"You come to our village? We walk with you, you stay with us, you be our guests!"
"Ok you have breakfast first, we wait for you!"

Arm candy - as a traveller you collect bits all over the place. In Sapa, the bits collected us.


While it seemed very kind of them to take us to their village, and the trusty Lonely Planet had said it was as easy as bumping into someone on the street, we wanted to be sure we weren't being taken for a ride. A quick trip to the local info centre revealed that the friendly traditionally-dressed hilltribe ladies on the street they weren't officially allowed to be our trekking guides. After much faffing around (by David, I let him be project manager on this one) we ended up with an official guide from the Mountain View Hotel for $30pp including 1 night accom in the village and all food. Mint! The ladies were not that easily deterred, however. They stayed friendly but persistent, and even when we set off with our official guide they followed us. This seems to be their business strategy: follow tourists around, be as friendly as you can and stay in their faces so they buy stuff from you in the end. We all bought stuff.

Our welcome wagon

But now for some pictures! On the first day we trekked 14km uphill and downhill, through some of the most beautiful scenery I've seen in my life! The trekking itself wasn't difficult but we were all reasonably fit, and it felt good to do some physical activity. We just couldn't stop talking about how comfortable the climate was - it's unbelievable how much impact the humidity has on your comfort levels! We trekked through endless rice terraces, villages made of stick huts and buffalo herds, free-range (:P) chickens and pigs and money-grubbing children. It's rice harvesting season; the rice is ripe and ready to be cut with a scythe and beaten to get the grains out. Over the course of my trip I'd seen the whole rice cycle, from dry fields and planting to harvesting.




Around 5pm we arrived in a Hmong / Giay ("zay" - remember the practical-joke transliteration project?) village, where we stayed the night with a Giay family. Our lovely hostess had garlic fries and cold beer ready, I've never tasted better beer in my life!! She prepared a HUMONGOUS dinner and force-fed us lots of homebrew rice whisky, we probably downed 6 shots each before we'd finished the spring roll entrees :/ If the hostess raises her glass to a toast, you can't say no. And she liked to DRINK. She'd hosted enough foreigners to crack a few drinking-related jokes, her favourite was the buffalo taxi that would take us home (or upstairs) if we found ourselves legless later in the evening :P

Our hostess

In honour of our alcoholic hostess, I named this puppy "Whisky"

Beautiful Hmong embroidery on their jackets. They use the indigo plant to dye their clothing dark purple (looks black) but unfortunately their technology doesn't extend
to dye fixers so when it rains... everything turns purple.

This girl, Pan, is 21 and has 2 kids. Her job? Following tourists. She was very nice and invited us into her home when we got to the village, to see her baby. We printed off some of these photos and gave them to her when we got back to Sapa, she was so pleased!! That's a great part of travel, and is very rewarding.

Day 2 was a hard slog - the sun was out in full force and we had to scale a mountain valley to get back to the main road. We were rather underprepared in terms of water & food, I was running on empty for the last hour and was having serious doubts about whether or not I'd make it. But it was equally stunning scenery, we went through a bamboo forest and Red Dzao villages, saw a million and one uses for bamboo including gates & pipes, and made it back to Sapa in 1 piece. Poor David had his camera around his neck the whole day and sweated so much he destroyed it :(

The 3 adventurers

Slept like LOGS that night back in Sapa! Felt cold for the first time in months walking around in the evening. I now have an appreciation for what people call "deliciously cold".

The next day we did a quick motorbike trip up the ridge to the other side, fun to be on a bike but the scenery was a bit disappointing after the rice terraces. Back to Hanoi for a few days then off to China...............

It wouldn't be MY blog without pictures of food

Sapa morning market - the Hmong ladies were "off duty" and just enjoying eating breakfast together :) Probably my best memory of them

Up on the ridge

I finally managed to meet up with Lindsey too, who I'd met in the 4000 islands in Laos. Lindsey works as a teacher in Hanoi and has been there for almost 2 years. She was nice enough to let me stay at her place and introduced me to a lot of her expat friends. It was nice to have that feeling of 'knowing people' instead of just meeting new randoms all the time. I met a really interesting girl called Stephanie, a Chinese-blooded American who'd been travelling through India and Nepal for a year, and was now based in Hanoi doing graphic design stuff online for clients all over the world. She has a really interesting travel blog and every now and then writes about the deeper, harder questions that travellers like us face - about all the stuff I class under 'displacement anxiety'. More about that later in my Deep And Meaningful posts.

But for now, the good news was my China visa was ready! Time to brush up on the mandarin and head to big bad Beijing for the beginning of Ewen's photography tour. YAY!!!

A Dog's Day Out

Just because it's cold enough to make popsicles in the back yard doesn't mean we can't go to the beach! Jeffrey, Iselda & I took Popov (the family dog - stinks and slobbers but can be cute at times) to Schorrl beach. Turns out that the beach (I should say coast) is not even half an hour from where we live so I don't feel completely cut off from a water supply! It's funny how you start wanting things you had or were normal in NZ, like being able to go to the beach whenever. This makes me feel a little more at ease.

Anyway, the Dutch beach experience involves wrapping up in 4 layers: singlet, merino jumper, jacket and coat. Add to that knee-length leather boots, thick scarf and we're ready to go. Brrrrr! But the sun was shining and the air was nice & crisp - a perfect beach day in fact. And of course we finished up with a patatje met (hot chips & mayonnaise - NOM!)

There were lots of people walking their dogs. Most of the year, except for high summer, you can let your dog off the leash and let them run amok with the other dogs, which is great fun for a dog that has to stay in doors all day long. You could just see the joy on Popov's face and his goofy way of running around :)

Here are a few snaps that capture the essence of this dog's day out. Enjoy!

Cheese, bikes & coffee - but no public health system

Warning: it's another long one


Hello everyone! It's been a long time since I've been able to post (THANKS A LOT, COMMUNIST CHINESE GOV'T) but here I am. I'm now in Holland, beginning the next chapter of my excursion outside Aotearoa. I've been here for a week, am finding it horrendously cold, but enjoying the comforts of home, family and CHEESE :D I'll write back-dated posts on Vietnam & China shortly, but in a nutshell here's what I did there:

After Halong Bay I went to Sapa with a couple of guys from the Hanoi Backpackers, spent 2 awesome days in the mountains trekking through rice terraces and getting to know some Hmong villagers. My China visa finally came through, after much nail-biting and loss of sleep, 3 days before my flight, so everything came together in the end.

China was AWESOME - spent the first day getting lost on the way to the hotel then walking for miles around Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City before joining Ewen's tour on day 2. I am so glad the tour came at the end, it was soooooooooo nice to stay in 5-star hotels and be driven everywhere for 2 weeks!! Not having to forage for breakfast every day is a huge plus as well. By this stage my traveller's depression had taken firm root in my mind and I was ready to go home, so every little bit of comfort helps. It was a fantastic group plus Ewen and Yi Ran (my adopted Chinese sister from another mother) We climbed the Great Wall, ate at the best Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing, marvelled at the Terracotta Warriors, climbed up (more) rice terraces, enjoyed the touristy kitchness of Yangshuo and got dazzled by the bright lights of Shanghai. Oh, and we learned a ton about photography, and had plenty of laughs along the way. Definitely glad I decided to do the photo tour! Here's a quick plug for Ewen's work and tours:
www.ewenbell.com
www.photographyfortravellers.com
Will write chapters about China complete with photos very soon!

************* *************************** ***************

So now I'm in the land of bikes, windmills, tulips and (insert Dutch stereotype here). I was picked up at Schiphol airport last Tue night by my uncle and aunty who promptly bought me a cheese sandwich from an airport supermarket - awesome moment #1 :) (of which there are many, too many to name)

After 6 months of eating udon, ramen, donburi, pad thai, banh hoy, pho bo and mee (in other words, LOTS of noodles and rice), I was well and truly ready for some bread, cheese and peanut butter. I've been making my way through the Dutch stereotype foods that we all love so much:

• Broodje kaas (cheese sandwich)
• Hema worst (sausage from Hema supermarket)
• Calve Pindakaas (peanut butter)
• Senseo coffee ('instant' espresso coffee that comes from a special coffee maker that every single Dutch household has - more about this later)
• Kroketten (Dutch croquettes)
• Fristi/Yogi/Taksi (kids fruit & yoghurt drinks)
  
• Speculaas (cinnamon spiced biscuits)
• Appel gebak (traditional Dutch apple pie)
• and of course patat (fries/chips/hot chips) with MAYONNAISE - none of this tomato ketchup or vinegar nonsense!
  

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!

Broodje kroket

Once all the mandatory eating and drinking was out of the way, first order of business was "inschrijfen" - officially registering myself as living here in Netherlands, specifically the district of Langedijk. Easy with a passport, right? Wrong. Because I was born in NZ, I had to fill out a moving form (i.e. moving from NZ to NL), but also had to show a copy of my birth certificate with the round seal of Births, Deaths and Marriages NZ and an official stamp from the Apostille in Wellington to verify the copy. Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuum! (this wouldn't be the first time I called mum for help)

So without being officially registered I couldn't get a BSN number (IRD number). Without a BSN number you can't get a bank account, or health insurance, which is mandatory by the way.

aside - HOLLAND HAS NO PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM - WTF?!?!

Anyway, on top of those things you also can't apply for any jobs without a BSN number, so it's sit tight for now, eat some cheese, be a tourist, enjoy the cold weather (ha!) and go visit Dad's family in the East. 24 Euros, 2 train changes and 3 hours later (that's 24 Euros one way - daylight robbery!) I'm in Hengelo on Sunday afternoon. Tante Annie, my Dad's oldest sister, had organised a family get-together at a local restaurant that has outside seating so we can enjoy the brisk autumn air. Twente is a beautiful part of Holland, lots of historic farms and farmhouses, open fields, forests and wildlife. It's a part of Holland that tourists don't really see - Denekamp isn't even in the Lonely Planet!

During the next few days we went for a good 40km bike ride through Hengelo & surrounds, visited IKEA which was a truly mind-blowingly awesome experience for me, went to Enschede & local Twense Welle museum, and went to Tante Agnes' birthday drinks. It's autumn here in NL and the Dutch are very enthusiastic about their herfstkleuren (autumn colours); it's quite justified, there are a lot of beautiful forests full of golden leaves and lots of piles of fallen leaves for kids to play in. Anyone who's been to the South Island around Easter can appreciate this.

herfstkleuren

IKEA! You can get free coffee if you have a loyalty card (applied last night!) and appeltaart is only 95c!

Lunch with Tante Annie in the museum cafe, a modern. funky restored old industrial area (we're not sitting in a warehouse)

We even got to set foot on that hallowed ground, stadium FC Twente! We were biking past and saw that the gate was open so we just rocked up and walked out onto the turf. Nobody told us off so we ran around for a bit, did a mock throw-in, took some photos and went on our merry way.

Trots da'w veur Twente bint!

I even ticked one more very important Dutch stereotype off my list on my visit to the East - I got myself a bike!! It's a pretty nice one, inherited from an aunt who didn't need it any more (and hardly used it by the looks of it). For 6 Euros you can schlep it with you in the train - quite an adventure in itself - so I loaded it up with my luggage and headed back West.

Taking my new Gazelle in the train

Polishing her up, good as new!

So - coffee. I've been harping on for years about how much I love the coffee from those Philips Senseo coffee machines that every Dutch person seems to have in the kitchen. It's a mini automatic espresso machine that takes special coffee pads (1 pad per cup), a bit like a tea bag, that fit into the top, and at the push of a button 1 or 2 cups of perfectly measured, deliciously strong and frothy coffee come out the bottom. The prescribed coffee pads were originally made by Douwe Egberts, the official partner of Philips Senseo, but nowadays you can get them everywhere including IKEA and Hema, for as little as 1 Euro per bag of 20-odd coffee pads (I really need to find the SHIFT + key for the Euro symbol) and in as many flavours as your imagination can dream up. I don't even know if you can get regular instant here.
Laura & Stacy had left me a surprise house-warming/welcome to Holland present: my very own Senseo coffee machine! :D Thanks so much guys, I will have endless hours of enjoyment with it :)

Making coffee with my very own Senseo

(Just quietly, well done Philips for getting your product in every household, for making the required coffee pads universal across all models of Senseo and for making sure every Dutch person in the country is dependent on your consumables!)

Well folks, that's quite enough for tonight. It's 1:49am, just spoken to Laura in Canada (extremely inconvenient time differences) and it's well and truly bedtime. I'll write about China & Vietnam in the coming days, stay tuned!

Love
ML