Back to Thailand

So after leaving Vietnam I was back to Thailand to explore more of the North with my friend Jen from China. We started in Chiang Mai with a rough idea of what we wanted to do and luckily thanks to the ease of tourism and travel in Thailand we managed to fit everything in!

First stop was a day trip to Chiang Rai, a city a little further north than Chiang Mai. We took a private tour which included a cute little tour bus and a slightly racist English speaking tour guide (with his words of wisdom such as 'Chinese people are always late').
Despite our controversial guide, Chiang Rai was beautiful! Our first stop off was a 'hot springs'.. which was incredibly unimpressive, more like a service station with one or two hot springs there as an after thought. We managed to get a nice cup of tea for the journey here though.

 Next stop was the 'White Temple'. I've said it before.... seen one temple, seen them all. BUT this one was actually different, and really beautiful, although I was dressed a little inappropriately in my denim shorts, so was kindly given a white apron to cover up my legs... fashionable!

We then headed to the Golden Triange, the point where Thailand, Laos and Burma meet. There is actually a small island in the middle of the water that joins these three countries that doesn't belong to any of them, essentially you can go there and commit all sorts of illegal crimes and there's nothing anyone can do about it, so they all meet here to trade opium. We also got the chance to pop over to Laos, I still want to visit there properly but  it gave us a quick flavour for the country.

We also got to visit the most Northern point in Thailand on the land border to Burma, where everyone pops across to refresh their Thai tourist visa once their free 30 days is up. This would be a nice photo if the stupid Chinese lady on our tour hadn't got in the way...

 And finally we took a quick visit to a cute little tribe in Northern thailand... all the women in the village wear these funny hats, apparently the more decoration on the hat, the more beautiful the woman is meant to be... (I want one)

It's fair to say after packing all of this into one day we were exhausted, but no time to rest as the next day we booked in to spend a day with some elephants! Easily one of the highlights of my whole trip... We spent the whole day feeding, washing, riding and playing with the elephants. They were so cute and well behaved, I'd read some horror stories about the elephants in camps like this being abused and generally treated really badly for the tourists but after some umming and ahhing we decided to book onto a day that seemed to have good reviews. I'm glad we weren't put off, with the right company you can tell the elephants are genuinely loved and cared for and seem to love the attention they get from the tourists! I didn't want to leave them!

Later that day... Well deserved drinks and a visit to the International Lantern Festival, Chiang Mai

So the day after (after a well deserved lie in) we headed to 'Tiger Kingdom' where we got to sit right next to some real life MASSIVE tigers! They claim not to drug their tigers which I was sceptical about at first.... but while some of the tigers were really chilled out, others were slightly more scary including one who kicked me and one who growled so much that one of the guides had to tell us to leave... so I honestly don't believe they were drugged up, maybe that's my naivety though.

 

After doing everything we wanted in Chiang Mai and getting pretty up close and personal with the local wildlife, We headed to another Northern town, Pai for a few days of exploring and relaxing. We heard alot about this place from people we met on the way and it definitely lived up to expectations. It's a really quiet place, so most tourists rent out motorbikes and ride them round exploring by themselves, so we decided to follow the trend! We went to the canyon and to see some of the beautiful waterfalls, but mostly it was nice just to roam around on our little bike (even though it did rain and we had to wear some particularly attractive ponchos to keep dry).

Overall the last two weeks in Thailand have been busy but amazing! Now after a few last days in Bangkok me and Jen sit in our hotel room before our early flight to Dehli tomorrow morning.... And after researching like mad and talking to so many travellers we are both equally nervous and excited but ready to take on whatever India has to throw at us. I'm not expecting it to be as easy as Thailand (this country is basically built for tourists) but in a way I'm looking forward to one final challenge before I head home on the 17th. China always threw up different surprises, which although sometimes made you want to pull your hair out, are at the end of the day the experiences that you learn the most from. At the same time, I will really miss the ease and chilled out nature of Thailand! Goodbye for now Thailand, I'm sure I'll be back one day!

A few final thoughts on Vietnam

Going a bit blog mad at the moment.... making up for lost time I guess! Anyway I've seriously fallen in love with Hanoi now after a few final chilled out days here, met some really interesting people and seen some great things.... but now it's time to move on to go back to Thailand to explore the North... Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Pai! Thanks Vietnam, it's been fun and I am determined to come back and see more one day! But for now, a few things I've noticed along the way...

 - Vietnamese food is seriously underrated - 'pho' noodle soup, spring rolls, crusty french bread (very rare to find a decent bit of bread in asia).... forget about Chinese, Vietnamese is my new food choice!

- In Hanoi at least... very easy to get ripped off if you don't have a good head on. Everything must be haggled for, even just a bottle of water, because the locals will automatically at least double the price for foreigners. Boring. Also they will try to short change you pretty much every where. Boring again.

- It's true what they say, there are motorbikes EVERYWHERE. China prepared me a little for the mayhem, but its still a terrifying ordeal crossing the road... you have to step out into oncoming traffic and hope they swerve to avoid you, otherwise you will literally be waiting all day!

- Sweatiest place I've been. And that's a bold statement seeing as I lived in the humid regions of Southern China for 6 months.

- One of my favourite places in the world - Hoan Kiem Lake. I spent a few afternoons sat here in the sun reading my book, strangely peaceful despite the crazy motorbike traffic going on in the background. Also if you sit here for a while you are likely to have Vietnamese English students approach you and ask politely if they can sit and practice their English for a while. I've let them a few times, and had many cute little conversations with them (my particular favourite is the boy who would not stop talking about roast dinners and yorkshire puddings when I told him I was from England).

- You can get a pretty decent draught beer 'beer hoi' for about 20p on the streets. Can't argue with that.

- In Hanoi, the police drive round at 11ish each night closing down all the clubs and bars. We found bars that did a lock in (aka. paid off the police), but still a very strange experience to have your night inturrupted by some Vietnamese police with truncheons who take away all the speakers.

- Despite the ripping off tourists and constantly nearly running you over with their motorbikes, the people are some of the friendliest I've met in Asia!

Crazy week in Vietnam part 2...

This blog will probably be the hardest to write, definitely one of the most surreal few days of my life and completely unforgettable!

After talking to many, many travellers in Hanoi and Halong Bay, it seemed like with the time I had left in Vietnam and with my funds, the natural thing for me to do (rather than sit around Hanoi for a week - as much as I love the city I think I would be bored stiff) would be to take a bus up to the rural town of Sapa to explore a little more of Northern Vietnam. A lot of tourists do this route by organized tours which allow you to stay with a local family there, however after talking to a lottt of people I learnt that the money you pay to do these homestays rarely ends up in the pockets of the poor families that you stay with. So, to put my hard earned cash to better use I decided to go it alone, as I was told many times that the locals will approach you when you arrive with offers of places to stay and they will then get to keep every penny you offer them.

So... getting off my 12 hour overnight bus to Sapa, I was a little nervous not knowing where I would be staying and being completely alone (and I know my mother will be panicking just reading this).... but luckily what I had been told was true I had nothing to worry about as I got off the bus, about 20 different ladies approached me, telling me about their homes and families in perfect English and offering me cheaper prices of places to stay. I ended up talking with a lovely lady called Tu who lived in the next village over as she had offered to walk me round the local villages and take me trekking round the beautiful scenery of Sapa. So off I trotted with all my belongings on my back to my home for the next few days.

My amazing guide and host Tu

We walked for about 2 hours in the scorching sun before getting to Tu's village, 'Lao Chai', so I was dying for a shower and a little lie down before we went out exploring in the afternoon. I'm not saying I was expecting the Hilton, but I have to admit I was a little bit shocked when I got to Tu's home. She lead me up a dirt hill and over a muddy field before getting to her "front garden" which was a patch of dirt filled with pigs and chickens. Inside was pitch black as there was no electricity for light, and the ground was dirt just like outside. She had a few plastic chairs, a fire and a few wooden beds for her massive family all to share. Despite there clearly not being enough beds however, she quickly made one up for me in the corner of the one room, with a thick blanket and a mosquito net. As I lay on my bed listening to the pigs outside my mind quickly wondered to the image of the nice hotels we passed on the walk to the village....

 Up the garden path...

 The "front garden"/bathroom

 My room/the  kitchen

 The rest of the room

After my "shower" with a hosepipe next to the animals, Tu told me to have a rest while she prepared a meal for me. When I woke up to "Rachelss! Breakfastt!" (every single meal she called breakfast) I saw that the table was filled with so many different bowls filled with delicious looking food. I sat and waited for everyone else to join the table until Tu told me to start and I realized I was eating alone and all this food was for me! I ate quite a bit, and every time I stopped Tu would tell me to eat more, or ask me if I didn't like it, so I would eat more so as not to offend her. She literally would not let me stop eating until I had to beg her that I was full. I asked her several times when her family would eat but she just smiled and laughed at me. After I was finished I rolled to my bed to rest my full belly, and was shocked when she called her 7 children in to eat my leftovers as their lunch! I felt terrible, if I'd have known they would eat the same food I would have eaten a lot less, but she wouldn't let me eat any less than I did! I decided then and there that however bad the experience was by my standards, I would stay with Tu both nights as I had agreed because of the kindness that her and her family were clearly prepared to show me. This is a decision I would later hate myself for, but a decision I'm glad I made anyway.

Just a light lunch then...

After eating, Tu took me on a walk around her village and we had a chance to talk a bit more. She spoke with near enough perfect English, all learned from tourists as she didn't go to school, and sometimes she would point at things and ask me what they were called. She talked to me about her friends that she has all around the world who come back to stay with her again and again, and about life in the village. As we walked we walked past endless amounts of people that she knew and they would all stop to talk to me and ask me about myself, my family, my life. The people in the village were truely some of the most friendly I have come across anywhere and the village itself was so pretty and peaceful.

 

The next day we did more exploring of the local villages and took a trek up one of the mountains. Tu invited one of her friends to join us (I forgot her name), who was just as sweet as Tu. They took me for a delicious lunch of noodle soup and we even had a beer over lunch, just my kinda girls!

After visiting her friends house to meet her family and her..um... buffalo.. me and Tu decided to head back to her village for some dinner. Only problem was we had been walking in the opposite direction all day so were now reeeally far away... and my legs were starting to seize up (I'm not exactly a hiker) so the prospect of doing the trek again was very unappealing. However! Like a knight in shining armour, Tu's husband appeared with his motorbike to give us a ride back to the village in style, riding through Sapa on the back of his bike is definitely one of the highlights of my trip so far!

That evening was pretty relaxed, I spent time with Tu's family (none of whom speak English but the children were adorable) and she made me home made spring rolls. The children spend their time sewing things to be sold on the streets to tourists, so when I sat helping her daughters for a while I was so happy when Tu gave me a bracelet and a bag to say thank you.

The next day I was due to catch my bus back to Hanoi in the evening, so Tu offered to show me Sapa town and stay with me until my bus at 5pm. We spent the whole day wondering round the tiny town, looking at the handicrafts in the markets and walking up the tallest point in Sapa.

By the time 5pm rolled around, and as Tu was putting me on my bus with a bag of drinks and bananas for my journey, I was so sad to leave. Despite it definitely being the worst place I've stayed (showering with a hose and waking up to the sound of pigs running around isn't exactly ideal), it was ironically the most expensive as I ended up giving Tu double what we had agreed on price wise (1 million dong, which is around £30 - nothing to me but a lot here and will hopefully make a difference to her and her family). She was so kind to me and showed me so much of the way people in villages like that live that I will never forget my trip to Sapa!

If anyone reading this ever gets the opportunity to go, do a home stay not an organized tour to make sure your money goes straight to the family who look after you! The experience is so worth it, if you can handle it!

A crazy week in Vietnam! Part 1

So as it turns out, venturing to Vietnam on my own without a plan could be the best decision I have ever made! I've had such a mad week it will be hard to sum up, but as I sit in bed recovering from my overnight bus back from Sapa to Hanoi I will attempt to at least get close to summing up the amazing things I have seen!

So after a few rainy days in Hanoi (luckily shared with some great company of some amazing people I met in my hostel), I decided to take the plunge and hand over a wad of money to go visit Halong Bay, "one of the 7 natural wonders of the world". It was a risky move as I spoke to a lot of people who made the 4 hour journey to Halong only to have their trip cancelled due to the rain and typhoons that have been hitting Vietnam over the past week. Luckily, I was blessed with glorious sunshine and clear skies for the whole of my weekend away! Thanks to the lovely lady at my hostel who has taken a liking to me I also got an amazing deal on a great boat and even my own private room... anyway I've never been on a cruise before but I imagine my experience was pretty close, cruising through the beautiful bay and being fed incredible seafood at every opportunity was definitely the best weekend I've had in ages.

Kayaking round Halong Bay

 "Cooking class" making Vietnamese spring rolls

Overall an amazing couple of days of cruising, swimming, kayaking and exploring the beautiful Halong Bay! Didn't want to leave but seeing as the typhoon hit the day after we left I guess it was good we left when we did... also I had more exciting things to be getting on with, after talking to people who had been there and done it my heart was now set on heading to Sapa in Northern Vietnam!