From Huế to Hội An

We stayed two nights in Huế where we had the best food so far in Vietnam. I’ll post a photo of the place asap. It’s a little shop in the middle of nowhere. They boast that they do the best fruit shakes in all of Vietnam and we certainly weren’t disappointed. They also have the best Vietnamese spring rolls to date. The other foods were so so.

A five hour bus ride on the 4th brought us to Hội An, where I am currently writing this post. It’s a little town with not much to do. Last night we walked around a bit, found a place to eat and got durian ice cream. Nom.

A couple of us are thinking of ditching Vietnam earlier than expected and moving onto Laos ASAP.

Recovering

Ugggh, drank too much last night. A lot of greasy food was also consumed. Not feeling the best right now. Looks like the others are going through the same thing. In recovery mode in an overpriced cafe. They do coconuts, fresh coconuts. Om nom nom nom. One more night in Hanoi and onto Hue on Monday night on an overnight train.

Got our train tickets to Hue in the evening. They tried to rip us off by miscounting but we defeated them. Stopped by at a local food place and then ice cream.

Back in Hanoi

The sleep on the train was pleasant. We arrived in Hanoi at approx 5:30am.

Caught a taxi back to the hostel. The driver asked us for VnD 50,000. We knew it was a short ride so we insisted that we use the meter. I assume this has been done by other tourists before so he took us on the wayward ride which ended costing us exactly VnD 50,000.

The lesson here is to negotiate the price beforehand.

The last Sapa

Our last day in Sapa.

We decided that it should be a pretty cruisy day before the train ride back to Hanoi where we will be greeted by bustling traffic and pollution.

Ate breakfast at the hotel (Sapa Rooms), played some cards as usual and had lunch at a place beside Sapa Smile, a restaurant we visited on the first day in Sapa. Unfortunately the name of the restaurant has escaped my mind. For lunch it was deep fried pork with rice and the “Sapa Special” deep friend spring rolls which were quite good. They were triangular as opposed to the usual cylindrical spring rolls. Perhaps this is why they were called “Special”. Who knows.

Bought some rambutans for the train ride back to Hanoi.

A shuttle bus took us from the hotel to train station at Lao Cai. We had dinner at a small place across the road where we finally found cheap food after a week in Vietnam. Dinner was ~Au$3.00 for stir-fried noodles with vegies and beef. A glass of ice tea was also included.

On the train we watched Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay and ate rambutans, which weren’t as good as the ones the other day.

Catcat and Hotpot

Walked down to the Village of Catcat which was a half hour walk from the hotel. The walk down was pleasant, dirt road halfway down, overlooking into the valley below from the edge of the road. The second half, which included a ticket checkpoint was a steep downwards set of paved steps. At the end of the journey, at Catcat Village was a small waterfall. Nice but nothing spectacular.

The climb back up to Sapa was a bit more demanding, the hill steeper than expected. A lack of fitness became apparent and a motorbike ride was required.

Hot-pot at the hotel was on the dinner menu that night. It wasn’t as good as I had hoped. There was just too much lemongrass which seems pretty apparent in Vietnamese dishes.

Watched Pineapple Express in Jim and Liz’s room after dinner. All of us were tired, falling asleep halfway through the movie. I left their room for my own after a 15 minute nap. The door to their room is a bit stuck, requiring me to slam it shut. In the morning Viren told me he thought it was a gunshot.