Sapa Again! Festival, Cafe, Sapa O'Chau. Sapa.

Well I'll skip the bits about how or why, but im now back in Sapa. Spending time with Sông and doing some volunteer work for a group called Sapa O’Chau (O’chau means Thank you in Hmong). You may have seen the link at the top of my blog. Ill tell you a bit more about them later in this post.

I arrived back in Sapa just towards the end of Tet and there were loads of festivals and parties on in the small villages.

All dressed in traditional cloths ;)

The festivals all had lots of activities and things to and everyone was dressed in there traditional cloths. It was a lot of fun and there was almost no other foreigners. I went along with Sông and her friends to 2 main festivals.

The Festivals start out with Tug of war, groups of 10 men on each side of a road in a rice field trying to pull the others over the line. Well it had been raining so you can imaging the mud.

There is also a climbing pole with candy at the top, the pole is a large bamboo pole and its easy at first but get harder as you climb up. The entire day only 1 man made it to the top. The kids got close but as you can see on this boys face it was hard yaka.

There’s also “love tag” normally played with a duck but this time they only had a goat, 2 people (normally a man and a women) are blind folded in a ring with a duck and have to catch the duck (his case a goat). The thing is people are screwing out where the duck is and more often then not the 2 players run into each other. Much to the crowds amusement…

To end the festival a paper circle is placed some 15m high on a bamboo pole, the people then throw small bags of compressed sand with a string attached up in the air at high speed to pierce the paper. Doing so officially ends the Tet week for the village.

Smart kids walking on
stilts to see above the crowd.

It was amazing to see 2000+ H’mong and Zao people at the festival and I had a great time.

But back in sapa,

The center was started by a lady called “Shu Tan”, she’s a local Black Hmong who grew up without a typical education and selling trinkets to tourists in the streets of Sapa. 

Shu and Victoria
(a volunteer who helped start the Cafe)

With the help of some foreigners she opened a boarding school for the local tribes in sapa. A place where they can come and live during the week and learn English and math’s. Then trek back to there villages on the weekend (some up to 12km away even more).

The center is not government funded and relies on charity dontations from tourists (up until 2 weeks ago), recently they opened a café.

Volunteers and Staff at the new cafe

The café is now not only a place to met and learn about the project but also a training center for those children who don’t want to become trekking guides but work in hotels and restaurants. It also introduces them to business structure, contracts and computer as well as running a budget and customer interaction. All these things to try and give the kids a better future and all volunteer.

You can read more on there website: sapaochau.org, or see the link at the top of my Blog. Any help is always welcomed, or if you come to visit vietnam, come visit here.

They recently got into the new lonely planet guide as well (minus the café which is new).


I’ve been volunteering to help on there website to help them get one up and running and also helping as a training assistant for the owner and staff to self manage there IT services.

We had a party for the leaving of one of the vollenteers, most of the towns expats and freinds were around, and we had a good old BBQ. It was amazing I had not had potatoes in soooooo long. It was a great night. 50L of beer for $20 very cheap night ;)

Other than that I took a brief trip to Ninh Binh 1 hour south of Hanoi. It was nice but only a day trip while I waited on my visa extension. We did a bike ride in the most muddy, wet roads and once my NEW shoes were dirt I didn’t care and I was covered in mud from head to toe. The car driver was not impressed… hehehe.

We also went to a lazy boat ride on the local river.

It was nice but only a 1 day get away from Hanoi deal. So nothing overly interesting and the weather was dreadful… oh well the food was nice!.

Back in Sapa though,

I’ve also spent loads of time with my beautiful girlfriend, we met in Hanoi when I was in Vietnam last time and caught back up when I returned. 

When the weather is good around sapa it’s a perfect time to rent a motorbike and go for a day walk some place, when the weather is bad nothing but sit and watch movies. This place is amazing when its sunny, the views the atmosphere. Its intoxicating.

I’ve also made a bunch on new friends here in sapa and learnt a lot of Vietnamese. I could stay here for a while I think there loads to keep my interested. ;)

So for now that’s all, Ive spent the last 3 weeks working as a web designer and as a teacher (computer studies) at the Sapa O'Chau cafe/centre. I've mainly been helping Shu setup her business and get things in order. All voluntary of course, as the school is struggling to keep up with the students as it is at the moment. Its nice to know you can help to something greater.


I will be here in sapa for 2 more weeks then im jet setting off to another location, but you have to wait to read about that ;) 

Till next time! HAVE FUN!.

Steffen.  

The trails of war, and the road into North Vietnam. Dong Ha to Hanoi.

 It was the day after the start of Tet and everything is closed. The 1 or 2 shops that were open were so overly priced it was silly.

I decided to take this time to hope on a small tour group to see the Vietnamese DMZ, at Dong Ha. I had considered hiring my motorbike friend from yesterday but it was over 100km north of Hue, and I didn’t fancy sitting that close to the guy for that long…

We got picked up from our hotel at 5:30 am! I know who in there right mind would want to get up that early for a tour, but this was the cheapest and most packed one in a minibus so I couldn’t really complain.

We arrived at Dong Ha and were told a bit about the area history before moving along the road towards Laos.

The first stop was a place called the “Rock Pile” it was a small mound of rocks which the Americans use to have a observation post on,  the only way to get to it was via helicopter and it was the command post for the area as well. Today a Vietnamese flag is flown high up where the American flag use to fly.

The next place to stop was the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail (Phase 2) the same road I had driven a few days earlier, here was the hardest river crossing for the Vietcong today there is a bridge in the place but the difficulty of the trail could be seen. The trail was next moved into Laos when the Americans stopped this section.

We then headed to a old American command post called “Khe Sanh Combat Base”. Today its turned into a war museum with a memorial building in the middle, but the airstrip, bunkers and tanks are still all here from when America occupied the base.  We took some time to walk about the main memorial building, it showed a history of wars against Vietnam finishing with the “Vietnam war” (Known as the American war here in Vietnam).

The Guide explained that the history of the DMZ and how it was only ever meant to be a temporary installment till elections for the whole of Vietnam could be held, but that never happened because of foreign influence. The majority of Vietnamese didn’t care if they were communist or democratic as long as there family was ok… but its amazing what happened.  The guide was from a village within the grounds of the DMZ and he remembers as a child when the Americans came into his village and setup a command post.

After this we took the time to walk around visiting sandbag bunkers and tanks.

Its hard to imagine that on this day (the day after Tet) in 1967 the base was the stage of some of the most intense fighting and was under siege from the north Vietnamese army.

We left the base and headed back to Dong Ha for some lunch. After Lunch we would head north through the old DMZ over the river that was once a border to the Vinh Moc Tunnels.

The Vinh Moc tunnels were very impressive indeed. Tunnels on a beach head running in every direction 3 different layers, all interlinked. Wells, Nursery, Stables for cows and Pigs, living quarters and a theater. Enough for people to live underground for many years without the need to surface.

The tunnels were mainly civil defense not military, but above ground there was also trench’s and bunkers where the local defense could keep watch and protect the tunnels.

We wondered about in the small tunnels which were perfect height for our guide but us European descendants had a bit of a hard time with the low ceiling.

Following the tunnels it was back to Hue, the next morning I headed out of Hue. It was cold and raining and I had seem everything I wanted to in the historic town. It was time to head back north.

On the way I stopped off at the DMZ again, the tour missed the river which was once the boarder and it had a large monument there now on both sides of the river. It was worth a brief stop, and I decided to spend the night in the town as well… my feet were frozen solid it was so cold.

The next 3 days ride were really not worth breaking down sadly. It was cold, wet and the roads were very industrialized.

By the time I hit Hanoi I had clocked over 7200km since I left. I visited my friend which I bought the bike off 3 months earlier and after a bit of haggling sold it back to him for $400 US, and I got to keep my gloves and jacket which I had grown attached to.

It was sad to say goodbye to my bike the machine I had spent everyday on the last 3 months riding around. The adventures it showed me and the fun I had is something I will never forget and I will talk about whenever I’m asked “What’s the best thing you did in your gap year?”…

Now I need a break,

Till Next Time! HAVE FUN!

Steffen.

My head in the cloud again…? Kon Tum and the hill road to Hue

(Sorry for the delay in posts, I've been a bit busy with some volunteer work, tell you all about it later)

I think you missed a spot,
you could have fitted more!

I headed towards Kon Tum, it didn’t take long before the weather cleared and I found a “short cut” to Kon tum, a road that looked almost new, well it was.. about 10km in the road turned to road base then dirt.

Ducks and Chickens...
Is there even room for the rider?

But… it took me through the hill tribes and past several villages that would only just have had a big road come through them, the people didn’t know what hit them when I pulled up and asked for some noodle soup. It was great.

The houses were all in the traditional fashion as well. I made Kon Tum that night and the town was full of people from the surrounding villages. Only 5 more days and it would Tet (Chinese new year) and people needed to buy food and gifts for there family as during this time everything would be closed.

The local còm (Rice with some meat) shop had live music, granted it was the next door people singing very very bad karaoke but the town didn’t seem to care, they were all singing along and dancing in the street. It was one big party and everyone was invited. After about 20 min though the music was to loud and off key for me so I moved on.

The next day I went for a walk around the town, there wasn’t much to Kon Tum, but I needed a day to dry out my cloths as it was all still wet from the previous few days on the road. In town there was a massive old church and several small minority groups around the edge of the town. Otherwise the main thing to do was sit on a deck chair and look out over the mountains and the river that ran past Kon Tum. It was a very lazy day in deed.

I headed out early the next day, my goal was to drive along a road that’s now been called the Ho Chi Minh Hwy, it follows much of the old Ho Chi Minh trail through the maintains and along the ridges. 


I would then aim to get to Hoi An, and spend some time there. The road was not bad, but it was extremely heavily bombed during the American war (aka Vietnam War) that all the trees and jungle that use to be there was just barren, and due to many bombs still imbedded in the hills they could not be used for farming.

The trees had barely recovered and it was a very sad sight. Never the less the road did have its beauty aspects and it was really windy, up and down and around many corners. It was a lot of fun to ride.

I reached the edge of the mountain range and back on the AH1 around dusk and it was dark when I reached Hoi An, it was only a few days now till Tet and things had already started to climb in price and fill up with tourists.

There wasn’t much that I was interested in, in Hoi An. I was more interested in the ruins and the forts and things and for that I would have to go to Hue… I flipped a coin, I could either stay in Hoi An and risk arriving in Hue 2 days from now and everything being full and closed, or… I could leave today and have 1 day before Tet to get a hotel and bunker down for the start of the holiday. It landed on head to Hue so that’s what I did. The next day, I checked out of the hotel and I was off to Hue.

The Road to Hue was again cold and wet, I was definitely in the north of Vietnam now. I doubted highly that it would clear up any better the further north I went but I had no choice really.  

After a few Km the road climbed on a ridge and I stopped at a spot that was full of tourist busses. There was several old American bunkers scattered over the hill top. It was so foggy that you could not 5 meters in front of you, so when out of no where this bunker appeared it was quite surreal.

Oil Drum and some pipes
equals Rice wine!

I stopped for some lunch down in the valley, the shops on the Hwy were all brewing there own rice wine on the side of the road. It was a simple setup with a old oil drum and some pipe.

Further down the road I stopped at a lookout, that was the same place that the guys from top gear stopped and took in a sunset over a small coastal village. Amazing views and it was nice and peaceful.

I finally entered Hue that evening, it was only 120 km from Hoi an, but it took me all day to reach because of the road and weather...

The traffic in Hue was amazing it was busy and packed with motorbikes, it didn’t take me long to find a hotel that was open and had some rooms and I parked the bike.

The next day I hired a local moto-taxi to take me around to see some sights in Hue.

The first sight was a tomb of a old emperor of Vietnam, it was a small temple like building which had inside a lavish display of jewels and treasures. The wall was covered in ceramic pieces of plates and jewels. It sparkled and shined in the light.

Outside, concrete warriors stood guard. Much like the terracotta warriors were in china. The temple was tiered to have stages to it and it overlooked a nice valley.

The next place on the list was another tomb but this one was much, much larger, it was set on a large ground with stages from the gate to the tomb of which you had to walk through, each one had its own meaning and it also had living areas for the care takers and libraries for monks. A lot of the tomb and buildings was sadly destroyed during the recent war. But you could still get an idea of its beauty.

The we then had a short ride to visit the next tomb which was more of a small fortress, with a high wall and mote surrounding it. Inside was a lake and a island that apparently use to host exotic birds. Again it was a very Chinese building and partly of it was destroyed.

The 2^nd last place for the day was the imperial city of Vietnam. It was a large fortress that in its prime would have served the same as the imperial city of Beijing china. But now a lot has been destroyed and is under reconstruction. There was only 5 or 6 buildings that could be entered and some didn’t allow photos. It was still a nice walk. The preparations for Tet celebrations that night were also in full swing with the military preparing fireworks on the roofs.

The buildings again were very very chinese looking, the grounds were se-rounded by a great mote and at the front was a giant flag pole with the Vietnamese flag on prime position up top. This could be seed from all over Hue.

The last place before it got dark was a temple with a 7 story pagoda, this seemed to be a very touristy temple, a few busses had parked out front and the monks working didn’t seem to happy (not that I could blame them) I had a small chat with a younger monk who was working and he showed me there bonsai garden. Then I headed back.

That night it started to pore down with rain, a shame as tonight was the start of Chinese new year. The celebrations would all be taking place at the imperial palace where I visited earlier.

I headed there at 11pm and there was a great concert on with dancers and songs. I found a place behind the crowd. 


In reality I could have stood anywhere I was the tallest person in the crowd and have no problems seeing the stage. A young lady walked up to me with her school mates and had a nice long chat about where I was from, what I was doing, and what I did in Oz. 
1 hour flew past as she practiced her English and I practiced my limited Vietnamese and learned a few more words. Then 12 o’clock struck and the sky was lit up with a bang. Chúc Mừng Năm Mới !! (Happy new year in Vietnamese)

Tomorrow the old DMZ then onwards to Hanoi!

Till next time,

HAVE FUN!

Steffen.