Sunday 15 December 2013

Honkers!

So after bribing our way out of Vietnam (they really aren't flexible on the visas - we had the wrong start dates but hadn't been in the country for more than the allowed 30 days - cost us $50 in backhanders each - that was a very smiley immigration guy and a very unsmiling Katie!), we made it to the clean efficient Hong Kong.

The weather was wet and cool - just like home - they even had a M&S!

We did have a bit of a shock on the cost there though. We stayed in a cute little hostel called the Rainbow Lodge, which was a decent sized 3 bed flat in Kowloon converted into dorm rooms with 11 beds each, for $30 a night (compared to Vietnam at $5!).

It was in a decent location - just a short Star Ferry away from Hong Kong island and with plenty to keep us busy in the surrounding area for the few days we were there, including window shopping on the Honkers equivalent of Fifth Avenue, the Avenue of the Stars and the famous Bruce Lee statue, all with a sprinkling of Santas as it was Santa Con that weekend...

Selfie with the Hong Kong skyline

Avenue of the stars with hand prints

Brucey in classic pose

Santas photo bombing Bruce

Wedding pictures near the Star Ferry terminal


Star Ferry - cheaper than chips at 20p!!

View out of the window

We even attempted Victoria Peak - however it was pissing it down and starting to get dark when we got close to climbing the hill... So we stuck to the English Pub in SoHo instead, taking advantage of the happy hour beer prices, before meeting a couple of girls on a weekend away from Shanghai and going on a bar crawl of the happy hours around Lang Kwai Fong...

With added Santas - yes Santa Con had stumbled over the water to the island by this point!


Moody skies on the boat back

The following morning we met Cat's friend at a Dim Sum restaurant to drink lots of tea and eat our way out of our hangovers...

Then we pottered around Kowloon and it's park - where we found some sculptures and the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre.


Arkward giraffe?!

Cat on top of broken pottery in the discovery centre

What a cool way to display broken bits! (Or should that be lazy way?! After all you don't have to stick them back together!)

We then treated ourselves to a nice pizza dinner before watching the light show across the harbour from the Avenue of Stars, and then Cat headed to the airport on the way to Rio :( 

The light show doesn't really come out on camera...

I'll catch up with her again in Uruguay!

I had one more day left before I flew back to London for Christmas - so a free ticket to the HK Heritage Museum was a good start. 

The Bruce Lee exhibit and documentary were interesting insights into his life and influence on the Hong Kong film industry.

The other exhibits including one of pottery and statues, one about Chinese opera and one of Chinese prints were also interesting - worth the MTR ride out there!





The mists that had been shrouding Hong Kong island lifted just as I was headed to the airport - we never got that view from Victoria Peak...

Tuesday 10 December 2013

A stroll in the country: trekking in Sapa

Fresh off the boat from HaLong we grabbed the night train to Sapa to attempt to get some sleep before our trekking started the next day.

When we got to Sapa at 7.30am it was cold! Hanoi had been like an Indian summer - reminding me of being back at school in a still warm September in England and HaLong had been warm enough for sunbathing. You don't get that at altitude! 

We were wearing all our clothing for breakfast at the Auberge hotel and this was sitting inside! According to someone's iPhone it was 13 degrees - makes me wonder how I'm going to cope with 4 degrees back in the UK... Oh well!

Cat with hat - having just removed her gloves! Hmong lady in the foreground - they worn the same costume whatever the weather!

We soon warmed up as we started walking in the sunshine, accompanied by our guide La and an entourage of Hmong ladies 'helping' us.


Our entourage - following us in the hope of selling us something when we stopped for lunch.

The first morning trek was gentle - we headed down the main road to Lao Chai and then cut across some fields to see the beautiful rice terraces - all fallow at this time of year, but still stunning!








We stopped at Lao Chai village for lunch and the deluge of Hmong women and children trying to sell us stuff started. I had to buy a snazzy head scarf off the lady who befriended me, but we held out against the kids trying to sell stuff - it was a Sunday so they weren't in school - but it only encourages them to skip school if they make money...

Pregnant piggy - we saw lots of rotund piglets - yum pork!


And lots of ducks - it wasn't clear what they did with the ducks - La seemed to say that they didn't eat them or the eggs - think it must be that they eat both the ducks and the duck eggs!

Corn hanging to dry at one of our rest stops

Baby snug in a blanket

After Lao Chai we hung out for a bit waiting for the day trippers to get the bus back to Sapa and this is where a Red Dao lady befriended me to sell me her wares!

Me and my 'elder sister' 

Then we had a 30 minute scramble to the first nights homestay at Ta Van village. When we got there another group of 6 where already there and surprise surprise using the hot shower!! Just what we needed to clean and warm up. After 4pm the heat disappears from the valleys and it got cold again. To combat this we ended up perched on small stools around the kitchen fire for most of the evening.


After a delicious dinner - which strangely enough included fries stir fried with garlic (yum but not exactly traditional!) all the women quickly whipped out their embroidery - each woman had to make 2 pieces for each of their family member's for New Years (Tet) and they only had a month to go to finish them!

The other group's guide was constantly stitching!

After a night snuggled up under our blankets & mossie nets we were refeshed for a banana pancake brekkie and for the going to get tougher.

This time the trekking was off road and mostly up hill. We were walking the narrow mud ridges between rice paddies - trying not to fall in... A moments distraction lead to me getting a wet foot!

Stepping stones across the river

View from the paddies

Rock pool paddies!

We stopped in Giang Ta Chai for lunch and for the one nighters to catch the bus back to Sapa. We were immediately mobbed by ladies and children trying to sell us stuff - they seemed to favour James - perhaps they thought he was the man with the money!


It got cold again when we weren't moving, which promted us to wear all our clothing and for me to wear my new Hmong scarf like the locals to keep my head warm!

Cat modelling the 'wearing all your clothing at once' look

Moni and Chi who sorted out my scarf!

We had an hour to kill so I showed Moni and Chi my photos from Vietnam - they've never left Sapa so they were fascinated by the pictures of HaLong bay. They told us about their lives in Sapa and how they hope to visit Hanoi one day - but they need to make lots of money first...

They showed us their embroidery and told us that it can take a year to embroider a full outfit - however some women do it quick so they can sell the pieces to tourists! All the women around here have stained fingers - either blue from the indigo dye they make the hemp cloth out of - or green if they are embroidering with green thread - you don't really see the stain when they use yellow! 

Saying goodbye tour new friends we headed downhill to Ban Ho and our final homestay. We literally went straight down the hill - cutting out the switchbacks if the road - it was really steep and I was so glad that it hadn't rained recently, otherwise we would have been going down on our arses!


That night we ate with the family and shared some rice wine with them - warming even though we were far down in the valley so it wasn't as cold as the previous evening.

Ban Ho - really pretty, but right next to a whopping hydroelectric pipe!

Another nights sleep - probably 12 hours! And the next day we were off for a short walk to the school in Nam Toong village up the hill.

Cat outside th colourfully decorated school

Classroom

Red Dao ladies waiting on us to leave so they could follow and sell us things at lunchtime!

Stitching party!

Piglets on the way back from the school

We headed back to Ban Ho for a quick instant noodle soup and then had to walk back up the steep slope from the previous day. I was covered in sweat by the time we made it up the hill! The shower back at the Auberge hotel was very welcome are getting the bus back to Sapa!

We had a few hours to kill before getting our night bus back to Hanoi so we wandered around the market and got the hard sell from the vendors - the ladies from the lunch stop had warned us that prices in Sapa were higher than buying out in the villages - and that was definitely true - we had to bargain hard! I'd always prefer to buy from the ladies direct and not from a shop.

So back to Hanoi it was on a twisty turny night bus - technically a sleeper bus, but I'm not sure anyone managed to get much sleep until we hit the flat roads!