Sapa Vietnam, Sony #Cameras, #NYT Traveling more Fluently Article

Camera Travel Virus
Travel has been on my mind this morning.  The arrival of my new camera is making my feet itchy...it is a Camera travel virus....strange but true.

Now I wish I had owned my beautiful Sony NEX-5N camera when we went to Sapa,Vietnam...(read more) last winter. I think I would have come home with better pictures and more possibilities.  Here is a picture we took on the trail to Cat Cat Village last December.  They have been edited using iphoto and Snapseed.

Could I have done better before I downloaded the photo with the new camera?  Maybe.

Bottom of the trail to Cat Cat Village. Taken with my husbands Nikon, unedited.
I wonder how this would have looked using the black/white with only
the red showing.  Or how about more vibrant colors?  I set the camera to do that before I shoot.

This version was edited on my iphoto program using my
Mac.  

This one was edited using am application called Snapseed.  This
has been changed using a grunge setting, edge blur and frames.

Now I have added the Sony to my bag of tricks. I have discovered that professional photographers may be cheating just a little...it is amazing!

Link:  TripAdvisor reviews
Frommers Packing List (great!)

Free Language Programs
I saw an article in the NYT called Paths to a More Fluent Vacation recommending 10 language programs...five for those of us that like free and five for people with deep pockets.  I didn't see any that taught any of the languages spoken in Vietnam.  I could have used that when we were in the country last December. But if you are going to Europe or Japan there are some that might be very helpful.

I wanted to learn a little of the H'mong language but the truth is the people could speak such good English in Sapa.  The first woman that began talking to me in perfect English surprised me.  I am sure I looked puzzled.

It turns out that in that part of Vietnam that is at the eastern end of the Himalayas there are still schools teaching English to the hill tribes.  I don't know if that is a left over from the Vietnam war. I am told that the American used the H'mong people as spies.

Have a wonderful day.  Let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment.

b

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Frugal Travel....Vietnam might be the place!

I was reading the Frugal Traveler this morning.  Author of the column, Seth Kugel, writes for the New York Times and is the "guru" of cheap travel.  You remember him...he was the one that blasted this blog out of the water last spring.  The article today is about Portugal.  Now that really is a place I would like to visit. But.....

In my world the Far East (excluding China) is by far the best buy for the frugal traveler right now.  We just returned from a trip to China and Vietnam. We visited Sapa, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the island of Phú Quốc in Viet Nam and Shanghai in China. If I were looking for the most frugal of all adventures, Vietnam would be my choice right now...that is what I know so indulge me.

• Flight: $1450 (from Tucson AZ)
• Rooms:  $20+ Sapa Boutique Hotel, $140 Grand Hotel Ho Chi Minh City, $20-$100 Hanoi, $150 Cassia Cottages Phú Quốc (included breakfast).  This is a resort so the price is higher but in this case I think it is probably a very good choice.
• Trekking:  We booked our day hikes in the hotel we staying at.  We booked the guide after we had arrived. There are websites for treks with overnight stays in villages.  2 days 3 nights will cost around $170.  
• Overnight train fare from Hanoi to Lao Cai $25-$78.  Connecting Bus (1 1/2 hr.) $2 one way.
• Note:  A trip to Halong Bay could be another place you should put on your list.  

Sapa Rooms Boutique Hotel Lobby/Restaurant 

Night Train to Sapa from Hanoi

Valley below Sapa on the slope of the Hoang Lien Son range of mountains 
at the eastern extremity of the Himalayas.

Trek to Cat Cat Village

Cassia Cottages, Phú Quốc

I don't know when you last stayed in a $25 hotel room but it had been a very long time for me.  We stayed in a very small hotel in Hanoi called Hanoi Gecko.  The rooms were clean and the hotel was extremely small.  The hotel owner was there to greet us personally and the breakfast we were served in the morning was in a dining room off the lobby.  It was all just fine!  On the other end of the spectrum, we found the resort on Phú Quốco be very luxurious in Vietnam's terms and within a few years the price will probably be beyond our reach.  Our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City was indeed very nice but was not a 5* hotel.   All in all the trade off we made for the cheap rooms allowed us to upgrade in other locations.

Shopping Viet Nam is still very affordable and Hanoi Old City is very much like it has always been I think.  The charm of the way of life that reflects how the Vietnamese really live is still alive here as it is in Sapa.  The farther you go south the costs seem to go up.  

Market Place, HCMC

HCMC from the air.

A young frugal traveler that is willing to stay in less than *****hotels will find this to be a winner.  At least that is what we found.  Save up all your credit card points, keep a look out for cheap airline tickets or special...this could be the trekker adventurer's trip of a life time.

b

Related articles

• Travel Viet Nam...Getting to Sapa (retireinstyleblog.com)
• 10 Things about travel in Vietnam..2011 (retireinstyleblog.com)
• 10 Days in Vietnam...planes, trains and automobiles! (retireinstyleblog.com)
• Traveling with Grandchildren in the Far East! (retireinstyleblog.com)
• Vietnam...Selling to the Tourist from Hanoi to Sapa (retireinstyleblog.com)
• A day on an Island...Phu Quoc, Vietnam (retireinstyleblog.com)

10 Days in Vietnam...planes, trains and automobiles!

Wonders of Sapa...Hmong Woman and me

I am not the sort of person that orders a hamburger when I travel.  Honestly, I have never liked them anyway so why not experience the food that local people are eating?  But this morning I am questioning that decision.

Day before yesterday we decided to take a boat excursion so the family could snorkel and everyone could fish for their lunch.  The wind blew but it didn't seem to dampen anyones spirits as we baited hooks to fish then donned snorkel masks to leap off the boat and paddle around rock to see Angle Fish in Vietnam waters south to Phu Quoc Island.

The fish was cooked in the kitchen of the boat by a woman that cleaned up after we had eaten  (Note:  I was sick last night!)  But it was worth the experience and everyone seems to be just fine.....

I also am all about the details...a prison on Phu Quoc Island held captured Viet Cong for the French and then the Americans.  We drove by the prison walls and the memorial site when the Vietnamese prisoners were held.  Many died during those years.  In fact the prison yard is visible from the road.  It made me feel very sad.

Did you know that in Vietnam they have a  floor 13.  I didn't notice if any numbers were missing because their "bad luck #" is different from ours.  Hotels here have casinos and the Grand Hotel where we are staying has a beautiful elevator to take gamblers to the tables.

People live on the fish farms that keep a price catch ready for the right boat to come and purchase them.  We cannot even imagine the living conditions where children are raised and adults spend all of there lives.  The people are cheerful and laugh with each smile.  Americans are treated with respect and here in Ho Chi Min City we are not assaulted on the streets by vendors.  We drove by the American Embassy that stands as a monument to the "American War" with the helipads preserved so that tourist can see.

This journey from Shanghai to Hanoi,  Hanoi north to Sapa, Sapa south to Hanoi, Hanoi to Ho Chi Min City (Saigon), HCMC to Phu Quoc, Phu Quoc to HCMC, and finally back to Shanghai has been one of the most amazing of my lifetime.  It has brought new meaning to "planes, trains and automobiles" because we have traveled in them all.  I honestly can say I am writing From Vietnam with Love.

Hanoi Street Scene

Phu Quoc Harbor 

Sapa Tour Guide (Su, was featured on Luke Nguyen Vietman Cooking Show) 

Amelia goes Snorkeling 

Beach hopping on Phu Quoc

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Vietnam...Selling to the Tourist from Hanoi to Sapa

Well, campers, out here where the rubber meets the road things are always happening. You can read the travel books about Vietnam till the cows come home but until you have actually have the shoe shine man take your shoes away from you you don't know a thing.

Hanoi

I have aways found that no meant no in most languages. However, in the far east, the shoe shine guys are polishing your shoes as you walk down the street...even in China. No has no meaning for them.  I have pulled my foot away many a time and have even walked around with shoe polish all over my shoe because I didn't escaped totally. 

In Hanoe I did not get away. My shoes were polished and even re-soled as I looked on helplessly. My feet were slipped into slippers and I leaned against a building waiting for the guy to finish. When the calculator came out and the price was quoted I gasped. Doesn’t 50,000 Dong sound like a lot to you? I told my family they would need to bury me in those shoes because they were so valuable! Then I realized I had spent a whole $2.50 more or less. The Dong is 21,000 to each $1. WOW!

We took a night train to Sapa (north of Hanoi very near the China border) and stayed there for 3 nights.

The Hmong people live in Sapa. They are a separate culture from the Vietnamese and treated as less valuable citizens in the country. 

During the Vietnam War the Hmong people worked as spies and many of them still speak perfect English.

The government educates them to a lesser degree. The women are sent in to town once a week to sell to tourist. They sell silver pieces and linen.

When speaking to them one on one, I realized they do not think of themselves as "Vietnamese" at all.  

They are a very cheerful people leading a difficult life. they are managing to survive even though tourists are not an easy. They have learned to sell their wears using the "dripping water torture".  It seems that they are very successful at wearing tourists down so they will buy what they do not know they want.

We were staying in a boutique hotel called Sapa Rooms. It was an old French villa converted. It was not elegant in any was but we could lounge inside a heated restaurant area with windows looking out in every direction. No other restaurant in the area was heated so it was very luxurious. One felt a bit like a caged animal as the Hmong women stood in groups and watched our every move. I could only smile as they descended on everyone that stepped out the door. We discovered right away that timing was everything in this dance with the Hmong women. Escaping was not easy!

It was a shock to us for the first few hours. Of course, as with most of the places we visit, it takes us a day or two to get the hang of things. In this case we only stayed for three nights and one of the days we took that long walk I talked about in a previous post.

I did manage to get some beautiful blue textiles and a piece of the native garb they women wear from our guide's mother and another vendor in the same section of the market place.

The people harvest, prepare the hemp thread, weave the fabric and dye it a beautiful indigo blue.  Women's hand's are permanently colored from the dye. On our hike we saw dye vats and the fabric hung to dry outside the huts. Was I awed by the beauty and uniqueness of this world? You bet I was. When you walk the trail and hear the gentle hopeful voice almost begging you to share your wealth, you just have to be humbled and amazed.

We are now on the island of Phu Qoc in the Sea of Thailand just south of Cambodia.  I will post more tomorrow. We are well, the food is wonderful and we are loving this vacation.

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Travel Viet Nam...Getting to Sapa

We are here in Sapa, Vietnam with our family and their friends. It has been foggy and cool since we arrive at 5 am Sunday morning. We came from Hanoi on the train and traveled overnight in a sleeper car. It was a very basic train ride with 4 berths per room and extremely hard beds. We slept in our clothes and partied in the halls until we could no longer stand. We are traveling in a group of ten people. Just normal stuff, you know how it is!

This is not easy...train travel is what it has always been.  But, in this case it was the only way to get from there to here.  In our group, I was the only one that had never actually had a sleeping berth on the train.  I have learned that traveling at night on the train is hard.  But, in the end we managed a few hours of rest.  

After we were rousted from a deep sleep at around 4:45 am and struggled to let our legs to move, a porter yelled through the car door "GET OFF THE TRAIN NOW".  So we did.  Our group loaded onto a van and then traveled through the dark for an hour from the station to our Hotel in Sapa.  The day was very cold and wet and our rooms were not available until 11:00 am.  I kept thinking we were in a time/space continuum and time traveled at a snails pace here at the base of the Hoang Lien Son Mountains.  The children hung out in an upstairs lounge and we slept on pillowed chairs covered with pillows and blankets.  

Sapa lies northwest of Hanoi in the eastern extremities of the Himalayas.  

The Hoang Lien Son range of mountains dominates the district, which is at the eastern extremity of the Himalayas. This range includes Vietnam’s highest peak, Fansipan, at a high of 3142m above sea level and a vast area covered by thick forest, rich in wildlife. The town of Sapa lies at the attitude of about 1,600m. The climate is moderate, cool in summer, foggy and cold in winter with occasional snowfall.

View into the valley.

Yesterday we trekked out to a region called Cat Cat into the gorge past rice paddies, terraces landscapes, as black Vietnamese pigs foraged and water buffalo wandered about. It was all very picturesque. 

Here is where the reality of travel when you are 70 and not a physically fit as you think you are gives you a wake up call.  This trek took us 2 kilometers down, on steps, rocks and mud every step of the way.  Straight down, down, down.  My grandchildren and our friends children range in age from 4 to 10. They did not have a problem but I did!  I will question my ability to do this sort of thing from now on.  I know that my decisions have an affect on those around me and there will be a lot of occasion when the question will "If I do this will the people with me want to push me over a cliff before we get home?" In This particular case, I think the answer may have been "well maybe!".

So here is what I have learned...I don't need much sleep, I do not suffer from jet lag, I can eat just about anything but don't ask me to climb up or down mountains!  I should not do that!

More later!  

b

Many Steps Down

Village Dwelling

Have a wonderful day.