The 5000 Project

I walked over the long bridge to china, customs tagged my bag after it got scanned, I opened it to show my fishing reel and had to mime fishing in order to convince the customs guy it isnt something other than what it is, with a positive chuckle he let me pass.

The china-side bordertown of hekou is a thriving trade port with absolutely amazing noodles, best I have tasted so far, peanuts and lots of weird green stuff, also had awesome tasting red stuff. The feeling of not knowing what I’m eating is kind of liberating. I booked a bus ticket to kunming, leaving at 6pm the same day, thankfully had to waste no further days and hopped on the bus after flaneuring the town for a few hours.

Departing hekou I noticed something very interesting, the parkland on the riverside was filled with chinese people doing aerobics, thats right, not tai chi. It seems that while the west is taking up tai chi in a big way, the east is finding benefits in the fast paced music jog-along.

The bus trip was once again a little too cosy, I was bunched up right in the back with not only one chinese guy, but 4. I made a mental note of ensuring that I don’t get the back beds anymore, else try with all effort to get myself a train ticket instead. Thankfully the 12hrs went quickly and there was no excruciating asia-opera-pop playing in the background.

I arrived in kunming at a bus station on the outskirts of the town, when arriving from laos during my last trip the bus station was right in the middle of the city. Not what I was expecting. I knew where to take the local bus, but only from the south train station, I mimed a train to a guy who grabbed my bags and threw them into a van without asking, he understood and before I hopped in I made the rubbing of fingers notion to ask ‘wait a sec buddy, how much are you going to charge me for this?’ he said 6, but it was in a chinese accent, someones when they say six they actually mean 18, or 10, or 27. After a 20min drive to thankfully the correct train station, turns out the 6 he asked for was actually 50, when I gave him 10 and he started to get really angry; I decided that 50yuan ($7) was probably worth the effort of not starting a fight; even though it was a highly inflated price for a seat in a full minivan.

In the city I noticed something quite amusing, on every second street corner there was a large intimidating black robot statue with a red button and police tags all over it, I figure if you need help its best to let the robot know and he will send for the police. Maybe they made it intimidating so that kids don’t keep pressing it…. actually I’m pretty sure the robot look would only entice children to mess with the system.

the black robocop

I recognized the area and remembered the bus and the direction that I needed to travel, even the obscure stop, in order to get to a western hostel known as ‘cloudland’ – which made life a lot easier than last time I was in this city. Unfortunately for me though, chinese school holidays had just begun, all rooms and dorms were full – not only that but they were full for all the western hostels in kunming. It is illegal for foreigners to stay in chinese hostels, I have heard stories of the police arriving to throw foreigners out; the only other choice was to say at an expensive hotel; which I had no intention of doing. After a while of moaning at reception, we struck a deal that I can stay on the couch in the cafe/bar after midnight for only 10yuan ($1.50). I quickly confirmed this most excellent unilateral business transaction and rested well ’till morning.

Seeing the sights of kunming in my prior trip (tai chi lake, etc), the only thing I really wanted to do this visit was to see:

1. The Kingdom of Dwarves (a theme park of dwarves/midgets acting out as people in a medieval community – a lot of people in the hostel didn’t think this was politically correct, I wanted to check it out before judging it) which unfortunately was too expencive to get to, being on the outskirts of the city, when only me and some dutch guy were interested in going there; and..

2. the fake apple stores which had been in the news recently, they come with fake apple products and fake apple hipster employees (who actually think that they were hired by a real apple business) – unfortunately for me, within the one week of it making the news, all of these stores in kunming were closed down or renamed/redesigned, not even worthy of taking photos.

Knowing that both these things could not be achieved, I took a relaxing and scenic 6hr train to dali for the same day, arriving on the very start to the slope towards the himilayas in a very chilled out city.

The sleeper bus to lao cai (border to china and very close to sapa) was different to the other sleeper buses I took in Vietnam, this one involved two level bunks with two very narrow beds right next to each other, so I was practically sharing a double bed with a Vietnamese guy – who, like all people who tend to share beds with me, took most of it. The Vietnamese pop-opera was also once again blasting on the close proximity speakers and TV until the early hours of the morning. Thankfully my bed pal left early in the morning, however it wasn’t long before we arrived at the destination.

A few hrs wait, the people with sapa tickets got on another bus and suddenly the scenery changed, we drove though mountains quickly gaining altitude, the scenery was shockingly beautiful, rice terraces and tall hills with thick vegetation. The bus stopped in the town of sapa, 1600mtrs above sea level.

The town itself is a tourist hub, although to my surprise I managed to find a dorm bed for $4/night, the room only had three beds so it was only just on the verge of being defined as a dorm, quite a nice find. The day after arriving I decided to trek solo to the village of lao chai, 10min into the journey a local old lady and young girl followed me, guiding me down shortcut pathes and lending me their umbrellas, when arriving in the village they requested that I purchase some of their handcrafted fabrics; this is what most of the local people do everyday from sapa town, a large profit for their simple lives. I gave them $5 but didn’t purchase anything, they gave me two coloured fabric bracelets for my generosity, I am still wearing them today.

The coloured garb of the locals at first seemed like it was simply to attract tourists, although during the bus trip into the mountains, I noticed the same vibrantly coloured clothing on local farmers on the roadside. During the second day trek I noticed more of the same, after we (two spainiards, a german, a french; and I) got lost attempting to trek back to sapa after taking a car to a huge waterfall at the end of the valley. We missed the official path and ended up walking most of the 12km trek through fields of corn, rice and native vegetables; at some stage we seemed to be walking through an irrigation stream. We noticed primitive, non-touristy villages scattered throughout the valley.

The H’mong people actually inhabit the long strip of highlands that runs through the top of thailand, laos and vietnam; I recognized the same clothing when scootering through the hills north of pai during a thailand trip a couple of years ago. The H’mong people of sapa speak their own traditional language as their first language, english as their second language (to communicate with tourists) and vietnamese as their third; oddly enough they should be able to communicate easier with a non-vietnamese tourist moreso than a vietnamese tourist. Each year the quantity of tourist visitors to sapa doubles, there is much construction and soon enough the small villages will begin to change.

I returned to lao cai, spent a night in a dodgy hotel for $6 (after trying 8 hotels ranging from $7-$10) and walked over the border to china the next day.

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Extremely delayed with the blog posts, I have been traveling with fellow backpackers and haven’t had time to catch up, plus the net in china is pretty crappy. I’m currently half-way up china :| will post more soon.

so I landed in hanoi, stepped out of the plane, experienced a wave of 35c heat; quite a shock compared to the 15c back in perth. I was determined to not be ripped off by the dodgy motorbike and car taxis for the 30min trip to the city, after asking around I found that there is a local bus on the other side of the highway, 10min walk from the airport in an obscure underpass. The bus cost 25c, quite a difference compared to the $5 for minivan or $20 for taxi. Unfortunately, not knowing where I needed to be dropped off (lacking the GPS on the recently stolen phone), I decided to wait until the last stop and get off in the assumption that it would be in the city centre. Taxi drivers pushed, shoved, grabbed and even punched to get me to ride with them; I resisted firmly and walked over the road to a dodgy cafe that had very flakey wifi. I google maps’d the address on the cafe door, although after speaking with the waitress (by speaking I mean having a 10min english and vietnamese confusion barrage) I got the drift that she was trying to get me to google the cafe name, I did so… in my shock I found that I was miles away from where I assumed the bus had dropped me off, yet I still attempted to walk to the destination. After a good hour of walking, I admitted defeat and hailed a motorbike taxi, giving the address of the residence of a girl I met just before I left hanoi before. I approached the premises to find that it was actually a cafe with a secure lift, thankfully the cafe had wifi (like every second shop in vietnam) and I skype called my soon-to-be host, she came down and accompanied me to her humble abode.

Due to study commitments with her and her boyfriend, I spent the rest of the day relaxing from a sleep deprived two connecting flights, I slept well that night. I woke at 11am the next morning to find that half the appartment was in water after extremely heavy rains during the early morning, flooding the balcony which seeped under the glass sliding door. In my panic state I decided to have a shower before attempting to clean up the moisture with towels and whatever additional liquid obsorbing materials I could find, the rain had stopped and the water wasnt flowing further into the appartment. To my surprise, I finished a quick shower to find the caretaker and a cleaning lady cleaning the mess, no real damage to furniture or valuables, thankfully.

The next night I went out drinking with my host at a beer hoi stall (extremely cheap homebrew beer, as mentioned in previous posts) I met with some Europeans when my host left, when the hour of crime arrived, I decided it might be best if i hang out with my newly found colleagues considering they lived close to my accomodation. by the end of the night I made it back to the appartment with no incidents and all my possesions, only to find that the front door was locked, the key that the host had given me did not work for this main lock, only the elevator. After making a bit of a noise, the night guard, who was covered in tattoos, stopped watching TV inside the cafe and walked to the door, regardless of me holding up a key and pointing upwards, he signaled a phone with his hands and went back to watching shitty american reality tv shows with vietnam subtitles. There I was, alone in the dark and sinister streets of hanoi in the early hours of the morning. I took his advice, I walked once again at dangerous’o’clock through the streets of hanoi in search for a net connection for skype. I found a late night WoW and Warcraft3 internet dungeon and attempted a skype call to my host, her phone was turned off. I decided to stay in the netcafe until morning, armed with a few highly potent asia redbulls, At around 11pm most drinking establishments and all shops are closed due to a curfew, considering the area I was staying in, away from tourists, the thought of trying to find anywhere else to bide the time was quite daunting.

after a hefty sleep when the guard unlocked the door at 7am, I booked my ticket to sapa for the same night; sapa is a town in the beautiful highlands and rice terraces on the china border, last time I traveled down from china I ended up taking a train directly to hanoi from the border, only to find that I accidently skipped the most scenic location in vietnam. I was sure not to make the same mistake this time around.

*** Fun facts gathered from hanoi:
apparently motorbike riders take off their mirrors because its the cool thing to do, adding a nice level of danger to their already dangerous lives

Females dont smoke cigarettes as it is seem as a masculine thing to do, due to this, smoking companies are now targeting women specifically to unlock a 50% market potential

Sapa keeps doubling the tourists each year, it started off as a very unknown area not long ago with no tourist facilities

A lot to cover when first glancing at that post subject, although most of these places I rushed through to get to hanoi quickly in order to get home to my parents, so I’ll just sum up each location:

Nha Trang:
The party town of vietnam, mainly full of english party-going backpackers, also plenty of aussies. Drinks, drugs, sex and exploitation.

Hoi an:
A really quiet town with old buildings and a beach full of happy locals as far as the eye can see. Visited old hindu ruins at a site called ‘My son’, turns out the same people who built the temples were the folks back in indonesia who built ‘prambanan’ (the dudes who left jogjakarta for bali after scary earthquakes, which gave birth to the hindunization of the unique island). During the vietnam war, the US bombed the shit out of the ‘my son’ site as they assumed the viet cong were hiding there, when they were actually hiding out in the surrounding jungles.

Hue:
Nice old royal temple, was there for half a day.

Hanoi:
well, the old town is really awesome, old buildings and old markets at every corner; cheap beer hoi. Just don’t do what I did and get rather drunk on the night before flying home and accept a free motorbike taxi ride to my hotel by a couple of very attractive local ladies. The second lady jumped on the back of the bike, behind me, and managed to distractingly feel my pants for my phone and sneak it out very so subtly while the riderlady accelerated in any direction fast enough for me not to want to risk jumping off. My hands were firmly on my pockets knowing her motives, although when I got off the bike, I assumed everything was in their rightful pockets and accounted for, except when I had a proper check. Running after the speeding bike was quite futile. The same night, my english travel buddy who was sharing the hotel room got a knife to his throat and was robbed of whatever notes he had in his wallet at the time. Not the best place to walk the streets drunk and alone.

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Next post will resume the project, after a month of quality time with my parents during the difficulties that my dad has endured, I am confident now that he is heading towards a significant recovery.

I just arrived back in hanoi, this time I’m staying with expats that I met at a pub when I was here before, in a hope to get a more positive outlook of this city. Still eager to get a bus ticket to sapa rather quickly, however.