The Amazing Race!

These past few days have been.... well... crazy! Just how I like it! I've been busy.

First my trip to Sapa which I cannot even start to tell you about or I would go on and on therefore I prefer to talk write about it later. To give you an idea how it was, I can say it was heart warming and heart breaking at the same time. Beautiful scenery, awesome travel companion, trekking in rice paddies and minority hilltribe villages, great strong cute children who play a big part in these communities, poverty, it was a wonderful experience. This is one type of emotion that I seek and that enriches me, therefore I must not forget that simple things are sometimes great things too. Just thinking about all this brings tears to my eyes.

Back to my craziness. At the start of our trek, Amy, my travel companion, was talking to me about the t.v. show The Amazing Race because it reminded her of what we were doing and the fact that her card was not working at the ATMs in Sapa, anyhow, so we started our trek laughing about it. The more things went on the more they started to ressemble the show. Amy, if you are reading this, you will learn a bit more of how I bring on some type of "in extremis" situations. So there we are absorbing the scenes, the trekking and learning a bit more about this community of minority in the hills. We also were in a village called Tavan where we experienced homestay with a family. Very different way of life than what I know of. On the trek back to Sapa I had to book my train back to Hanoi for that same night. First shop we enter there all out of tickets. Woah there! I get a bit nervous but decide to go to another place and everything works out fine. They have a train ticket for that night. We might as well take the bus ticket to go to Lao Cai (train station). OK, so everything is good, we just need to meet our guide and pay her but then, oups I forgot I wanted to buy some silk sleeping bags before I leave so there we go making another stop at the last minute. OK, now we're fine... on the bus ready to go to the train station. On the FULL minibus we go down to Lao Cai on swirling roads and I don't feel so good with all that turning and the lack of air on the bus. At the train station we have to get our boarding passes. So go to one office then the next, and decide to buy some fruit which served as our diner. The train ride is not bad but I didn't get much sleep. Amy and I are not on the same train so she will wait for me in Hanoi because we planned some things early morning. I arrive at 4:30 am in Hanoi and when I leave the train, the impressively huge amount of drivers start to ask me if I need a taxi or mototaxi. I try to find Amy without any succes so at 6:00 am decide to go to my hotel and see if I can get some sleep and figure out a way the reach Amy. To my surprise she calls me at 9:00 and we decide to meet for 9:30 at the school to see a children's Tet performance. I take a mototaxi to go and make it 30 minutes late because the school is quite far from my Hotel. At 11:00 we leave the school, me by moto taxi and Amy by taxi for a cooking class and to our surprise they have a place for us. There I am thinking after a long day everything works out just fine. Well guess again, tonight for my check out the machine for Visa payments doesn't work but I have to take my taxi to go to the airport. The girl at the counter tells me I can go to the ATM and what happens? My card doesn't work at that ATM so I hop on a mototaxi again and he brings me to another ATM and as usual the traffic is wacko. I finally make it to the airport thinking Amy and I shouldn't have joked about the Amazing Race because it's starting to look more and more like it. But it's all good, makes the experience all the more funny when you think of it after.

Now I'm in Hoi An and I'll make time to write about my Sapa experience which is hard to describe but I'll certainly try to.

Thanks for all the comments and emails you send me. I enjoy it because I have the impression I'm sharing my experiences even if I'm traveling solo most of the time.