Beautiful Sapa

I am still in Sapa. It's still foggy and cold but I am finding it hard to leave! I have met here the most amazing people of Vietnam, the h'mong tribe people. They are beautiful, they wear the nicest clothes, have the prettiest faces and they are so lovely and kind. Every day they come to Sapa to sell their goods to the tourists, because the rest of the year they stay in their villages and they work in the rice fields. They are very skilled and they sell any kind of handycraft, like blankets, pillow cases, handbags... Their hands are blackened by the dye they use. The black h'mong tribe dress in black and in their clothes there is some cross stitch work, then there is the flower h'mong who wear more colourful dresses with flower patterns, I have also seen the zao women, who come from near China and wear big red hats and have their eye browns shaven. The Vietnamese don't like so much the tribal people and the villagers don't like them much either. The funniest thing is that the villagers speak better English than Vietnamese and I think the Vietnamese are quite jealous! To visit some of the villages you must pay 10.000 dong ticket entrance and the villagers don't see any of that money, the Vietnamese keep it. Also most of the stores, shops and hotels belong to the Vietnamese so if anyone is interested in buying any souvenir is better to buy it from the locals. Yesterday I spent all day walking around with So, Khu and Sa, two lovely ladies and a 6 year-old girl, they took me to have lunch with them and in the evening they took me to the 'love market' where villagers go to meet their partner. Unfortunately it was too cold so not many people were there, only Vietnamese people. I saw some very exotic traditional dancing and music playing, it was a great experience. The only thing that made me very sad was the story of So, the little 6 year old girl. She is sooo clever, a very smart little monkey, like she says. She has an answer for everything and she can speak better English than me. She is such an amazing little person and so cute. Well, aparently she is addicted to opium and so are her parents, and they live in the mountains not in the village. She was a bit dirty and looked cold and hungry but she didn't complain at all. I just can't believe her parents would do such a thing, it's so terrible. I invited her for dinner and for the first time she behaved like a little girl, dancing around and singing and drawing little chiken in my book, but sometimes she said to me she wanted to die because her parents didn't love her and her father hit her. It was broken heartening to listen to her, so tiny and saying such things. She has a younger 3 year old brother and we found him later alone in the street and she carried him, he was also so dirty and today someone told me that he smokes opium again. It is really disgusting, I can't believe nobody can do anything to help these kids and their parents are so irresponsible!

Espero q pogueu entendre el q he escrit, aquest ordinador no va molt be! Ho sento que no hi hagin gaires fotos pero es que es molt dificil trobar ordinadors on l'usb funcioni, caram, que estic al nord del vietnam! no es facil eh! jejeje
dema marxo cap a dien bien phu, aviam si tinc sort i trobo un bus que em porti a la frontera de Laos. Em penso que alla sera mes dificil trobar internet, aixi que si no escric aviat no us preocupeu.
FELIC ANY NOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I MOLTS PETONETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Xmas in Hanoi

Mas exactamente en Halong Bay. Asi pase el dia de Navidad, en un barco navegando por la bahia de Halong, a unas 4 horas de Hanoi. La verdad es que no hizo muy buen tiempo y estaba nublado y en esas condiciones Halong Bay no impresiona tanto, aunque es sitio increible. En el barco conoci a unos japoneses muy simpaticos y comimos juntos: sopa de almejas, pescado frito y arroz, claro.
Hanoi me ha gustado un monton. No he parado de caminar a todas partes. El casco antiguo esta lleno de callejuelas llenas de motos y de mercadillos y vendedores de souvenirs. Cerca hay un lago muy bonito con un templo en el centro y alrededor esta lleno de grandes avenidas con mansiones de estilo frances. El mausoleo de Ho Chi Minh es impresionante, aunque no pude entrar, las dos veces que fui estaba cerrado. La gente es diferente de la del sur del pais. Por la calle ves a los tipicas vendedoras con el sombrero conico y los cestos colgados del hombro, ves a senyores mayores paseandose con la tipica boina francesa, la verdad es que solo les falta llevar una baguette para parecer franceses de verdad. Tambien hay muchos hombres que llevan el salacot de color verde y eso me hizo mucha gracia, sobre todo si iban en bicicleta, parecian sacados de un comic de Tintin. Hanoi es mas caro tambien que el resto del pais y hay que regatear por todo y ademas hace frio. Aun asi, el ambiente es diferente, hay muchas galerias de arte y exposiciones y teatro. Me encontre con dos abuelos (bueno, lo parecian pero luego resulta que solo tenian 65 anyos!) que eran profesores de frances jubilados y que habian vivido en Moscu y en Besancon y tenian muchas ganas de hablar y me ensenyaron muchos libros, uno de ellos una gramatica francesa para vietnamitas que el senor habia escrito cuando vivia en Francia. Me conto que como jubilado cobraba 2 millones de Dong al mes (16.000 Dong = 1 dolar).
Espero que hayais pasado una buena Navidad, ese dia me acorde mucho de vosotros y de la comida tambien! Aunque la comida vietnamita esta rica nada supera l'escudella de la meva mare. Por cierto, que en Hanoi vi por primera vez los restaurantes que venden carne de...perro, arghhhhh
Esta manana he llegado a Sapa (8 horas al norte de Hanoi), que rasca!!! Ademas no se ve nada de nada, hay una niebla perpetua y unas humedades... No se cuantos dias me quedare, me hace ilusion ver el mercado del sabado cuando la gente de los pueblos de alrededos bajan a vender sus mercancias. De momento ya me da la impresion de que estoy dentro de un documental, los trajes tipicos de la gente del lugar son realmente diferentes. Llevan sombreros de muchos colores o simplemente negros con adornos de plata y grandes pendientes de plata y calentadores negros y aunque van muy tapados de cuerpo, muchos van en sandalias o incluso descalzos. Yo, menos mal que me "agencie" la mantita del avion y voy por la calle envuelta en la manta...

Open ticket bus through Vietnam

I bought a 16 USD ticket bus to go up north in Saigon. So good! Actually, I think it's the cheapest and easiest way to move around if you don't have much time or if you are afraid like me of driving a motorbike. My ticket allowed me to go from Saigon to Dalat, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue and Hanoi. In all these stops you can stay as long as you want and then book the next bus for the date you want. For example in Dalat I stayed for 4 days but in Nha Trang only for a night. Dalat is a nice town because it is surrounded by mountains and at night it's chilly and there are many walks you can do around the town. The day before I left it was the start of the Flower Festival and the town was full of Vietnamese tourists. A lot of people come from Saigon to spend weekends there. The people are nice and friendly and the town is a bit "tacky", a lot of Vietnamese honeymooners go there and there is many attractions for the them like "the love valley", "Cam Ly" waterfall, which is a nice waterfall, but with Vietnamese men dressed as cowboys, and statues of animals like giant rabbits or crocodiles, a bit like Disneyland but a cheap version. In the middle of the city there is a lake and it's got these boats shaped like swans, well, it is a funny funny town. At night people like to go out and drink hot soy milk from street vendors, it is all so naif but cute, hehe.
Nha Trang is just a beach town, not much else to see apart a pagoda with a huge buddha on top. The market was good too. I love visiting the local markets in every town I go in Asia, so many food I have never seen before: fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, everything so exotic. In Nha Trang I ran into a really crazy lady who wanted me to buy some souvenirs but I didn't want to, and she yelled at me: ladyyyyyyyy, you buyyyy meeeeeeeee, cheaapppppppp, ladyyyyyyyyyyyy and her face was SOOO angry, I was scared! but when I left the market I was in stitches, she was hilarious. In the evening, by the beach there was also the funniest thing I've seen in Vietnam. There was a show, a military show, with militar people dancing and jumping like a tacky ballet, songs about Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam, can you imagine a coronel with all the stars in his green uniform singing karaoke with three sailors in the background pretending there were playing guitar? Seriously, it was sooo bad and soooo good so strange, I didn't know what to think, it was like kids playing in school, except that they were adults! and army people!! so strange!!!!
Hoi An was just stunning. The most beautiful town I've seen in Vietnam, but of course the charm was broken by all the shops, every single house was a shop for the tourists, so when the town was more beautiful was at night when everything was closed down. Little yellow houses with wooden windows by the river with lots of Chinese lamps in different colours, so pretty. I met an old man there who showed me his pottery collection, things that he had found in the river, also I met a young man, a boat man, although I didn't take a boat ride we used to meet in the coffee shop by the river and he was just happy to talk about his wife and kids. Another day I met a "lady boy" who was a taylor and who had better nails than me! brrrrr
Hue was a bit of a disapointment, not because it was ugly but because it was huge! and of course you have to take tours and pay for every monument you want to visit, and I am so fed up with these tours, I try to keep away from them. Sometimes it looks as they just put a show for the tourist and that what you see is not real, I don't know... it's just my impression. I prefer just to walk around and meeting local people...

El senyor Bach...

La primera tarde en Saigon fui al encuentro del senyor Bach, sin saber si estaria vivo o criando malvas, pues si que me lo encontre, vivito y coleando, aunque no vive en su casa sino al lado, en casa de su hermana. Tiene 70 anyos pero aparenta mas. Es bajito y muy delgado y con el pelo blanco y la cara afeitada. Vive en un piso de los anyos 50, muy centrico, justo en frente del palacio de justicia. Cuando hable con el y le dije que era la hija de Palmira se quedo pensativo, como tratando de recordar quien era Palmira, asi que yo me quede un poco decepcionada... La verdad es que no expreso ninguna alegria ni sorpresa ni nada. Tuve que insistir para sacarle 4 palabras y para animarle a ir a tomar un cafe (al principio me dijo que no porque estaba ocupado... escribiendo una carta!!!). Luego cuando estabamos tomando el cafe no estaba muy hablador, de vez en cuando decia algo (hablabamos en frances y en ingles, porque aunque escribe muy bien en castellano no lo habla mucho). Le pregunte que por donde salia de paseo y me contesto que iba de su casa... a la oficina de Correos! O sea, que no ha perdido la costumbre. Vaya, que su vida se revuelve alrededor de Correos. Se quedaba pensativo y de repente me preguntaba "Has leido Hamlet de Shakespeare?". La verdad es que me entraron ganas de irme, jeje. Pero luego cuando nos despedimos me invito a cenar al dia siguiente.
Llegue puntual a la cita y la mesa ya estaba servida. Aqui en Vietnam me he dado cuenta de que les da igual si comen frio o caliente. Estabamos en el comedor de la casa de su hermana pero su familia no comio con nosotros, estaban todos en la cocina y el senyor Bach me los presento, pero no salieron de la cocina en todo el rato. Su hermana habia preparado un monton de comida: sopa de esparragos, ensalada de raiz de loto con gambas, rollitos de primavera, pescado al horno, arroz, todo estaba muy rico (aunque frio, jeje). El senyor Bach solo comia rollitos y arroz, anda que no iba rapido comiendo arroz, luego me hablaba y tenia granitos de arroz por la comisura de los labios. No se si fue la comida pero ya se le veia otra cara y no paraba de hablar. Me enseno a decir frases en vietnamita y me las hacia repetir y nos reimos un monton. Yo le regale unos paquetes de galletas y el me regalo un paquete de crackers (esas galletas saladas cuadradas, aqui en Vietnam a la gente les gusta mucho!). Me dio un poco de pena despedirme de el, no paraba de decirme que volviera el anyo que viene y me pidio que le escribiera cuando llegara a Espanya y que le enviara una foto de la mama y el papa para enmarcarla, jeje.

Saigon

Las jornadas que pase en el delta del Mekong fueron increibles, llenas de aventuras y experiencias inolvidables. Visite Rach Gia, Can Tho, Vinh Long, An Binh y Sa Dec y mis sitios preferidos fueron estos dos ultimos pueblos. An Binh es una isla enmedio del Mekong y llena de vegetacion y de huertos de papayas, y de muchos otros frutos exoticos que no se ni como se llaman (mangostan, jack fruit, duran, ...) y Sa Dec me gusto porque tiene todavia muchas antiguas casas coloniales francesas que le dan un aire nostalgico. Ademas en Sa Dec conoci a una familia vietnamita que me invito a cenar y se portaron tan bien conmigo. La gente en estos paises es tan generosa!
En Saigon solo estuve un par de dias. No es que la ciudad no me gustara pero habia demasiado bullicio, madre mia, cruzar la calle era un odisea y no eran calles pequenas no, imaginaos tener que cruzar la diagonal llena de motos y ni semaforos ni nada, asi, sorteando el trafico... Bueno, semaforos haberlos "haylos" pero ni caso vaya.
Lo mas "guay" que visite en esa ciudad fue el Palacio de la Reunificacion, anda que no me rei sola. La decoracion parecia sacada de la pelicula "Austin Powers"

Mekong Delta

I will write something when I find a faster and better connection!
Mama, he encontrado al senyor Bach!!! Estoy en Ho Chi Minh y manyana voy a cenar con el y su familia! ya te contare, que senyor mas tranquilo, no habla nada, jeje
Bueno, fins un altre
The MEkong Delta adventures will be followed...
Ok, today it's the 15th of December and I am in Da Lat. I have found a good internet cafe so I will try to tell you a bit about my trip in South Vietnam. In any case it won't be everything, every single day in this country has been a full on adventure!
So, I was in Rach Gia and I wanted to go to Phu Quoc Island, but I couldn't go... because nobody could understand me! a moto driver took me to the ticket office and the lady said to me the boat was full. I tried to ask if there was only one boat a day, or if there were other companies going there but she didn't speak any English and neither did the moto driver. I got a bit frustated so I said ok, just take me to the bus station. I'll go with Plan B. So I took a bus to Can Tho. Can Tho is a huge (well, compared to Cambodian standards) harbour city. My first surprise was in the restaurant of the hotel I was staying: fish tanks filled with snakes, and they were not for decoration! ooooops. Can Tho is such a busy city, lots of motorbikes and cars, and lots of places to have coffee ("ca phe") on the riverside. The day after I arrived I took a boat at 5 am that went along the Mekong river and its many canals. I saw a couple of floating markets, where the locals sell the groceries from boat to boat. Along the river there were many houses, well, not so many proper houses but more like huts and I felt so sorry for the people living there because it was so damp and humid. The boat kept getting stuck because of plastics and plants getting caught in the motor, so the trip lasted for 8 hours and I had enough of sightseeing! It was very hot!
Then I decided to leave Can Tho for a quieter place, the island of An Binh. I took a moto driver (he was going so fast I was a bit scared!), and guess what, for the second time he dumped me again before we arrived to the destination. He left me in Vinh Long (a very beautiful town). From there I was on my own, I took a ferry to An Binh island and I started walking. The vegetation was very lush with many orchards: pineapple trees, banana trees, papaya trees, I was following a little road and every so often I had to cross little bridges. It was so pretty, but after walking for an hour I still didn't know where I was heading to and it would be dark soon. So when I saw a western looking guy driving a motorbike I stopped him. He was very kind and he took me to his guesthouse. It was very exotic, a Vietnamese family house that rented rooms and they cooked a spectacular dinner and also breakfast, they were so kind. At night I slept in the room with a mosquito net and I could hear all the animals for the walls of the rooms didn't get to the ceiling, it felt like being in the middle of the jungle!
The day after I took again the ferry and another moto driver to Sa Dec, another Mekong Delta town. Well, I think Sa Dec was definetely my favorite place in the Mekong Delta. I don't know why but I instantly felt so happy to be there. There were no tourists around either and I ended up in a hotel from the 50's that hadn't had any refurbishment done since the 50's! Sooooo run down but soooo cool! In Sa Dec there are many many ancient French colonial houses and it was the town where Marguerite Duras grew up and you still can see her old school. It was a very charming town with a nice market, obviously the main product sold there was rice! So many different kinds of rice, and vegetables and fish... I met a Vietnamese lady who was an English teacher and she took me to her house and introduced me to the neighbours and family and had dinner with them and also breakfast because she came to pick me up to the hotel to take me to the bus station. Vietnamese people are really generous. She told me she was quite poor and many of her students couldn't pay for their lessons but she insisted all the time on paying: for dinner, for coffee,... so very kind.
But my visa for Vietnam is only for a month so I had to leave Sa Dec. My next trip would be to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).

Goodbye Cambodia, hello Vietnam

I spent the last 2 days of my Camdodian holiday in the small town of Kep, actually just wanting to cross the border as my visa only started from the 7th December. Kep is nice but there is nothing much to do, so I walked and walked and walked, and I saw many many rice paddies, and farmers, and palm trees, and cows, chicken, a few snakes, lots, thousands of dragon flies and of course, the famous crabs of Kep (those ones I saw them on my plate, yum!). If you watch the sunset in Kep you can see Phu Quok Island in the horizon, there is where I am heading. That island is just in front of Cambodia but it belongs to Vietnam. So this morning I had to take a dirty dusty and very bumpy road to the border, about 1 and a half hours, then change bikes at the border, cross the border (very easily) and then continue to Ha Tien, where I was dropped by the motodriver (it is a very long story but I was literally dropped off and walking on the road with my backpack until a bus stopped by and I was able to continue my trip seated). Anyway, now I am in Rach Gia, the only place on earth where nobody speaks any English, or French, I can't blame them though, but it makes things so much more difficult, like can I have a room? how much? can I see the room first? this my friends, believe me or not, was fucking impossible in some hotels! and nobody complained before about my sign language skills!! So far Vietnamese people have been ok, not so smiley like the Cambodians (and nobody greeting me on the streets, damm now that I got used to it...) but a couple of times they have been very helpful not even speaking English, one guy took me with his motorbike to the bank, and it was a long way away and he didn't want any money and another man in the bus kept on talking to me all the way, explaining to me things about Hanoi,etc. in Vietnamese! Everytime an old man talks to me it reminds me of my grandfather, it didn't matter you couldn't understand English, he would keep on talking to you, perhaps a bit louder..
Well, I will be here until tomorrow morning so finally I will be able to go to Phu Quok Island.
Ah, forgot to say that so far the roads in Vietnam are SO MUCH BETTER than in Cambodia...
Ah, also I forgot to say that I LOVE MY MUM a lot and miss you a lot!!

Sihanouk Ville, Kampot, Kep

L'ultima setmana a Cambodja l'estic passant al sud. Primer vaig anar des de la capital en bus fins a Sihanouk Ville que es un poble molt popular per anar a la platja. Les carreteres principals del pais estan molt be asfaltades (excepte la que va de Poipet a Siem Reap) i els autobusos son puntuals, l'unica pega es que les 5 hores de trajecte has de "patir" el Karaoke que posa el conductor a la tele... Sihanouk Ville no te res d'especial perque es una ciutat bastant moderna, de finals dels anys 50, que va sorgir per la necessitat de construir un port, ja que el delta del Mekong havia passat a mans dels vietnamites. La platja es maca, amb la sorra blanca i l'aigua calentona aixi que m'hi vaig estar un parell de dies, fins que ja em vaig comencar a avorrir de no fer res mes que nedar i prendre el sol...
Vaig anar cap a Kampot, una ciutat molt tranquil.la a la vora d'un riu i envoltada de turons, la veritat es que te el seu encant, com totes les ciutats de Camdodja plena d'antigues cases colonials franceses, pero el mes maco es a fora de la ciutat, palmeres, arrossals, casetes de fusta, d'un color verd que brilla i que no queda mai be a les fotos, es precios.
Els ultims dos dies els passare a Kep, que era la ciutat de moda als anys 60 per anar a estiuejar pero ara es un poblet mig dessertic, una carretera que voreja el mar i que esta plena de cases abandonades, xalets dels anys 60.

Phnom Penh

Solamente estuve en Phnom Penh un par de dias, las ciudades grandes me agobian. La diferencia de PP con las otras capitales que he visitado es que no hay grandes edificios ni rascacielos, paseando por la orilla del Mekong la ciudad retiene todavia un aire colonial. Cuando entras en el FCC (Foreign Correspondants Cafe) parece que hayas retrocedido en el tiempo y te imaginas a los corresponsales escribiendo sus cronicas fumando y tomandose un whisky. A parte de eso, lo que mas me impresiono fue la visita al museo del genocidio Toul Sleng. El edificio es una antigua escuela y por fuera nunca dirias lo que paso hace 30 anos, cuando fue usado por los jemeres rojos como el infame centro de detencion S-21. De los 20.000 presos que entraron solo salieron con vida apenas una docena...

Battambang, Cambodia

The stay in Siem Reap was really good but there was even a better thing to come. I visited the ruins of Angkor for 3 days and on the 4th day I decided it was time to continue my trip down the south. I took a boat to Battambang, the trip was meant to last 4 hours but in the end we got there 7 hours later, but it was memorable. Every single second was worth, it did feel like the National Geographic channel, we passed through a wide river first, then through a lake and then a really narrow river. Sometimes the scenery looked quite desolated, only a few trees, then suddently we passed through floating villages, the only economy of whom is fishing, all the kids in those villages, who lived in small huts, or in bigger huts on stilts or on little boats would yell "hellooooo"and waved their arms, it was moving.
Battambang is the second biggest city in Cambodia but you'd never guessed. It is kind of busy but not so much during the day and at 10pm there is nobody on the streets. The few foreigners around are all working in NGO's (there are hundreds of NGO's in Cambodia). The town has a decaying feeling, very old French colonial mansions crumbling apart, mostly by the river.
In Battamband I didn't do much except for walking around and visiting each afternoon a pagoda. The monks were very friendly and they seem like the only people in town who could speak good English and who knew about the country politics and were not afraid to express theirs opinions.
The last day I visited Sampeau killing cave, on top of Sampeau hill outside Battambang. I went there by motorbike and I am still surprised that all my bones are still together, that road was killing! The khmer rouge used to throw the people they killed inside the cave and there are a few remains, the others have been taken to Phnom Penh. It was chilling.