Back from Sa Pa

Trekking in Sa Pa was another experience- completely different from trekking in Himalaya. Here everything was muddy and we were sliding all the time. Well, it was fun. We couldn't see our shoes as they were fully covered with mud. It looked like we stepped into a huge chocolate cake :) We almost lost them as they were so heavy and stuck in the deep mud. 

We were trekking in a group of some other tourists. Amongst them there was a family from Belgium that gave us hope that once you have children you can still travel. The couple has been traveling for 8 months with 4 kids and the smallest one is 4 years old.  Amazing!

We finished the trekking thanks to ladies from local villages that were all the way with us. At the end we had to buy something from them instead so we ended up with lots of handicraft staff- that cleared our wallet completely :) 

Fortunately the fog wasn't so dense so we managed to get some shots.

Home stay appeared not to be proper home stay fortunately for us. It was so cold that I cannot imagine how we could sleep in one of the local wooden houses with no bed but ground instead.

We did enjoy though, we had a nice dinner with local family and delicious desert. It was black sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and inside the rice there was a roasted coconut and some nuts- heaven in the mouth. After that we went to sleep in a cold big room. Fortunately, there were no other tourists so we could have more blankets for ourselves.

Now we are back from Sa Pa with some cold :( Salvatore is down with flu lying in bed at the moment. We had to postpone our next trip to Ha Long Bay. Hopefully he recovers very quickly as soon we have to fly to Singapore.

Foggy Sa Pa :(

Today we arrived to Sa Pa. Beautiful place famous for its minority villages and green rice fields.

The pictures we saw on internet were amazing so we were very eager to see the place. Unfortunately it is very foggy an we cannot see a thing! We are hoping it will improve as we are staying two more days. Tomorrow we do a homestay in local village and we cannot wait for that. It is freezing here with no heating so we hope we will survive that.

Some more rocks and delicious Vietnamese Pho soup

Dunes and waterfalls!!!

In recent days we have been hunting at first for dunes in Mui Ne and waterfalls in Da Lat.

Firstly we arrived to Mui Ne to get some last rays of the Sun before heading to North Vietnam that is much colder. It was to our disappointment another resort and it was quite expensive from where we had to run away quickly. So we rented a bike and made a tour to see mini grand canion with mini Colorado river :) We were walking down the red stream of water that was coming out of red hills of sand and therefore we spotted the similarity to the famous American spot. Close to the place we were sliding on the red dunes. The amazing thing about the place was that close to the red dunes there were white dunes as well. It was incredible for us how quickly the nature is changing its colours. Well, at the moment you have to trust our words that the place was amazing as due to  lack of software we are unable to upload some pictures.

After Mui Ne we were trying to get to Da Lat. Well, there was some confusion with booking tickets so the bus wanted to go away with our luggage but without us! At the end, Salvatore was sitting on a kitchen chair on the bus for 4 hours and we could hardly see the driver who was covered with tonnes of luggage.

Fortunately, safely we arrived to Da Lat, city surrounded by waterfalls. The biggest waterfall we saw was Elephant Waterfall. It was quite difficult to get to as the rocky path was wet and very slippery. The view was amazing but to get some good shots it was impossible as the wind was carrying drips of water towards the camera and the pictures weren't clear. So, stubborn photographer saw some other place from which you could get the shot. Unfortunately, it was a coffee plantation we had to get to. We headed to the local village, where we could not find anybody speaking English. Thanks god there is internet and hospital local people. We found one guy that was willing to help. Salvatore and the Vietnamese were talking using google translator :) which was fun as the translation was sometimes very funny. At the end we were taken to coffee plantation where there were few unwelcoming dogs, but we manged to make some shots.

Linh Phuoc Pagoda (Da Lat)

 On the  way to Tiger Waterfall

 Tiger Waterfall

 Datanla Waterfall

 On the way to Tiger Waterfall

History Lesson in Saigon

Day in Fishing Village (Mui Ne)

SAIGON mixed photos

Happy New Year from crazy SAIGON!!!!!

We decided to wait for 2011 at the riverside and watch some fireworks. The only problem was in getting to the place. There were millions of bikes heading towards the same direction as us!!! I know, it doesn't sound so difficult but I haven't mentioned yet that as there was not enough space on 5-line road they were taking pavement as well so we had to ... fly. At the end we managed to arrive to the river and we had quite a good view just because there was a massive standstill that even M25 hasn't seen it and lots of people was stuck on their bikes.

We welcomed New Year with fireworks and ice green tea as couldn't find beer there, not mentioning champaign. Happy New Year!!!!