Monday, December 8th, 2003 – Day 293
It was a cold night. There is no heat in the room and everything was damp and wet. Even the bath towels. Sapa is a nice town with great scenery. We passed some great rice terraces yesterday during the trip. I was up and about for 10 am. I checked out the market and it was busy. It was full of people from different tribes like the Zao and Dao. Everything was on sale here including some good food. It was a pity about the weather. Because of the fog it was dark all day and very cold and wet. I don’t like taking pictures of people without permission and everytime I took a picture the flash went off as it was so dark. I did little today and I was lazy. I enjoyed walking around the town. With the fog and lack of tourists it can be quite atmospheric. I paid 25,000 Dong to the tourist office to take me back to Lao Cai tomorrow at 7.30am. More information on Sapa can be found at the Sapa Tourism Website.
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Sapa (08-12-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Sapa (08-12-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Sapa (08-12-2003)
Tuesday, December 9th, 2003 – Day 294
I was at the tourist office at 7.30am but they simply paid a mini bus driver to take me. Whatever. It took only 45 minutes as its all down hill. I got dropped off at the train station and walked 20 minutes to the border. I am always afraid of border officials. Now I have to deal with both the Vietnamese and Chinese officials. There was lots of fruit been carried over to Vietnam from China.
I have heard that the border guards try to charge you 40000 dong to cross the bridge as a ‘fee’. They did not hassle me. I also heard they open all bags. They didn’t touch mine. The Vietnamese affair was a bit ramshaddle while the Chinese have a massive new emigration entry and exit building.
The Hekou bus station is 100 meters from the immigration exit on the left hand side of the road. There’s a bank of China about 1 km down the road & turn right. I decided to stay the night and get the 9 hour Kunming express bus tomorrow morning at 8.45am.
The trouble here is touts and language. Two touts approached me offering help and advice in exchange for an English lesson. Its and old trick and it took me some time to get rid of them. The trouble with hotels is that they font name them HOTEL. They are in Chinese text and so I may have passed a dozen but not known. After a while I walked into a building that looked like a hotel and paid 50 Yuan for a nice room.
Another problem is food. It looks great and what are they called. In all other counties, I could use Roman text to pronouce the words. Here with 6 tones and Chinese text its hard. I found a good buffet place with rice and vegetables for 5 Yuan.
Its very different here tan Vietnam. People were well dressed with wide clean streets and fine modern buildings. There was a nice market with swords that a Kilingon would be proud of. They were massive. I was showed all types of flick knives, pepper strays, bows and sabers. Scary but tourist stuff.
There is a Bank of China here so I was able to use my credit card. I met a London guy later on and we went for a few drinks. Well I did, as he was a born again Christian I was in a good mood so I gave him my Vietnam guide.
Bus to Boarder, Night in Hekou is your first taste of travel far from the beaten path. The Lonely Planet and other guide books contain no information on the area, which can be unsettling in a not-too-friendly border town like Hekou.
You stroll down “Vietnam Street,” a stone’s throw from the country itself. People along the street examine you without smiling. Many locals live in bamboo shanties, waiting for an economic opportunity. With luck, the completion of the Kunming-Haiphong railroad will fulfill their wish. The railroad line was started at the turn of the century by French colonialists. Only 2 km of track remain to complete the line and to link western China to Vietnamese ports.
China isn’t a country – it’s a different world. From shop-till-you-drop metropolises to the epic grasslands of Inner Mongolia – with deserts, sacred peaks, astounding caves, and imperial ruins – it’s a land of cultural and geographic schisms. It’s not that China has completely done away with its Maoist past – it’s more that the yin of revolutionary zeal is being balanced by the yang of economic pragmatism, and the oldguard communists are giving way to the new wave entrepreneurs.
It’s a land of towering mountains and epic landscapes – background scenery to the fall of dynasties, the rise of emperors and the turning of the revolutionary wheel. Unless you have a couple of years and unlimited patience, it’s best to follow a loose itinerary here, such as Beijing to Tibet via Xi’an’s terracotta warriors, following the Silk Road route, sailing down the Yangzi River, or exploring the Dr Seuss landscape of Guangxi Province.
Full country name: People’s Republic of China
Area: 9,596,960 sq km (mainland)
Population: 1.25 billion (mainland) Yikes!
Capital city: Beijing (pop 13.8 million)
People: Han Chinese (93%), plus 55 ethnic minorities
Languages: Putonghua (Beijing Mandarin dialect), Cantonese
Religion: Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism (no stats available); Muslim (14 million), Christian (7 million)
Government: Communist republic
Head of State: Hu Jintao
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Hekou (09-12-2003)