This month's photo: Supernatural

15th of the month, 12pm Paris time, here I am with my photo!

The subject of this month: Supernatural. As soon as it was announced, the rest of the group started worrying, it's not an easy topic. On my side, I think that I got the idea pretty much straight away. It was about a week before going on holiday and we were heading to New Zealand for the rugby world cup. One of the match we had tickets for was France Tonga (ok, we now know that was not THE match to see but not the point here...) and even if Tonga is not as well known as the All blacks, they do have a haka!

So here is my shot at the call to the spirits of the warriors before starting the battle:

Now, I'm personally very keen on discovering what the members of the group made of this theme:

Viviane, Vanilla, Urbamedia, Urbaine, Unjour-Montreal, Ty, Titem, Thib, TheMouse, Terhi, TambourMajor, Stephane08, Sprout©h, Sinuaisons, Sephiraph, Sébastien, Renepaulhenry, PavotdeLune, OùtrouveràMontréal?, Onee-Chan, Noon, Nomade57, Nolwenn, Niwatori, Nathalie, Mérantaise, M'dameJo, Maureen, Marion, Marie, Manola, Mandy, MagetsonMagàlire, magda627, M, LucileetRod, leviacarmina, lesegarten, LeLoutronGlouton, L'azimutée, Laure, Laurabreizh, LaParigina, LaPapote, LaMadame, LaFilledel'Air, Kyn, Krn, Karrijini, jenetdam, JeanWILMOTTE, Isabelle, Inesmeralda, Hugo, hibiscus, Grignette, Glose, Gizeh, Gilsoub, Frédéric, Frankonorsk, François, florianL, Filamots, Fabienne, Emma, E, Dr.CaSo, Dorydee, Doremi, Dicey, Cynthia, Claude, CindyChou, Cherrybee, Champagne, CélineinParis, Céline, Celiano, Cécy, CathyBrocard, Caroline, Caro, Carnetsd'Images, CalamityScrap, Boopalicious, blogoth67, Bao, Babou, Aude, Anne, Alice, Alexanne, Agnès, A&G, 4petitssuissesdansunbolderiz et 100driiine.

The end of the multi entries visa to Vietnam: Hanoi and Sapa

This time we are visiting B in his new home town and are planning to use all his knowledge before he disappears to Hong Kong.
Friday evening arrival, we meet without even using mobile phone (I bet that hasn't happened since the 90's) and we start exploring the city's roof bars. It's full of expats, it feels like being in Singapore apart from the curfew...
Saturday is dedicated to eating and drinking. I had made an attempt at convincing the boys to take a cooking class but no apparently they prefer going directly for the finished product! So after a nice breakfast at our hotel (that R didn't like), we stop for a bit of negotiation on a white roll that B had discovered the day before. It tastes a bit like brioche or sweet Singapore pau, but it's a bit dry so a minute later we stop for a sugar cane juice.
As we are good tourists, we buy a few souvenirs for family which is exhausting so we have another fresh fruit drink and some springrolls as appetisers which give us just enough energy to walk to the Market and have lunch! :-)

The last time we came to Hanoi, we went for lunch with R's family in a tiny street behind the Market, and it is still there! That's a nice change to be back to a place we have already been to. I like that, it's more relaxing, we don't spend all of our time looking at maps and guide book.
We have to abandon B pretty early as we are catching the night train to Sapa but we find some time during the afternoon to discover a well hidden roof bar: we went twice around the block before finding the entrance at the back of a souvenir shop, but it was worth it!

At 7.30pm, we board the night train to Sapa, the next 10h will be shared with au Australo-Canadian couple. It's not the most comfortable train as it's very shaky but we do get a couple of hours sleep before arriving to LaoCai (remember the beer a couple of posts ago?), right at the Chinese boarder. An hour later we are having breakfast in our hotel in Sapa with local girls from the Hmong ethny trying to sell us stuff from the entrance door.
At some point, we need to get out and they are all over us, they follow us everywhere. We finally decide to give in and agree on a deal: we'll first go shopping at the local Market to get supply for lunch, then we'll take a 6 km walk in the mountains to one of the girl's parents house where we will have lunch with the family and finally we'll continue the trek to another village before catching a ride back to Sapa. Here is the trip in photos:

On Monday, we take a different approach, we rent a motorbike and start exploring on our own: waterfall, quiet treck, another village.

 

By 5pm it's time to go back to the train station for another 10h ride to Hanoi which we reach at 4.30am. Here is a nice problem: what do you do at 4.30am in Hanoi?

First have a coffee, or a beef soup  as the locals! Then, by 5.30am get to the lake and do your exercise with the rest of the city! I made a few ladies laugh by trying to follow the tai chi lesson!

At 8am you are ready for breakfast, at 10, you are hanging in another of the Vietnam war museum and by 12 it's taxi to the airport with the weird feeling that it's lunch time but you have already had a full day of activities. May be I should get up early more often...
Here we go the multi entry visa has now expired, B is back in France and I'm typing this post on my way to New Zealand, so guess what is coming next?

Good morning Vietnam 2: HCMC, ex Saigon

(first I would like to say that I am not aware of a follow up to the film "Good morning Vietnam", let's leave that to Rambo and Terminator!)

Before you think I'm obsessed by this film, here are a few things about 2 days in Ho Chi Minh City:

It is a little bit strange to have a city named after a person (I don't know if there are other occurrences), it's like if London was called Churchill city or Paris named De Gaulle city! (Thinking about it, there is already the airport...) Anyway, the locals haven't abandonned the old name of Saigon!

1h20 minutes flight from Singapore, absolutely perfect! I think it took longer to B to come from north Vietnam!

Just landed and we start having problems with taxi drivers (that will become the theme of the next 2 days!) We take a metered taxi at the airport, he knows where is the hotel, he explains in a decent English that we have to pay the airport fee, that's all very good. 5 minutes later, he tells us that he has to stop because one of his light is not working and he is going to call us another cab. To be honest, that was already suspicious because seeing how they drive, not having a light should be right at the bottom if their list of concerns! Anyway the other taxi arrives so we decide to get on with the flow and ask the taxi driver how much we own him. He says 560,000 dong, equivalent of 28US$!!! for 5 minutes! Then he gets a ticket out saying that the airport fee was already 300,000. This is unbelievable! I check his meter and I can't see anything but I know that it should read 56,000 and not 560,000. It looks like the coma has been misplaced, so the price has increased by a factor of 10!

A quick call to the hotel confirms that the airport fee should be 10,000 and that the fare to the hotel is about 150,000 and as we have done a third it should be 50,000. This is the confirmation of the factor of 10 suspicion I had. As I'm way too nice, I still give him 50,000 dong and now I really regret not taking his fake receipt away from him! 2nd driver was very good, good meter and normal price!

Before starting the exploration of HCMC, we decide to escape the city. We are on our way to CuChi, 60 km north of Saigon, famous for the 250 km of tunnels the Vietcong dig during the war: A way of attacking the Americans by surprise and disappearing really quickly. It's our first insight in this war, it's barbaric, it's cheap and nasty. There are traps, sticks and other horrible surprises.

Tourists also get to try some of the big guns, including the AK 47! (I'm just pretending here...)

We only go in the tunnels for may be a 100m, and it's a special tunnel for westerners as apparently our shoulders wouldn't have fit in the real tunnel! (Estimation of new tunnel dimension: 1m height, 50 cm wide). Despite this enlargement, it's small, it's hot and I'm glad to get out. People could live in them for up to 3 months! There was food, water, ventilation, it was very well thought through.

And here is a very nice tourist demonstrating that not everyone can fit in the entrance door...

Back in town, we continue on our learning curve about the Vietnam war by going to the war museum. On top of the photos and stories inside, there are all the tanks/planes/helicopters left by the Americans in the garden.

The way back to the hotel is entertaining, we don't have a map, we don't remember the street name, our hotel is called best Saigon hotel (like all the other hotels), all we remember is the name of the bar next door and that seems to help the driver! This one is a fake taxi as well, the meters goes really quickly this time.

At night, we go for a cocktail at the top of a famous hotel from where we can admire  the old french colonial architecture and on the morning we find ourselves in front of the new type of architecture, communist...

Sunday morning, it's time for a little bit of shopping, we join the locals at the market for some springrolls and sugar cane juice and we walk the stalls, admiring the different fruits, flowers, crabs, meat and herbs (the ones for the pho, the Vietnamese soup) arrangements. Note the huge ice bricks behind the herbs!

Once B has found a moto taxi to go back to the airport, we carry on walking around town. We discover the famous post-office with a big painting of Uncle Ho (Chi Minh) and spend some time in a crowded Buddhist temple. We discovered a day later that it was the ghost festival when people burn item to pass them on to the dead. The smoke/smell from the incense is so strong that eyes get really watery.

  

That was a very nice and quick visit to HCMC. One more trip to Vietnam to tell you about, that will be a mix of Hanoi and Sapa.

Tip from this WE:
In Thailand keep on looking for a cab who want to switch the meter on
In Vietnam, the meter is fake anyway, negotiate first!