Christmas in Sapa

Over the Christmas weekend I did not have any classes, since my teacher was busy with the final exams of her university students. So I took the chance to make short three days trip to Sapa in North-West mountains of Vietnam.
It was very beautiful and I had great weather on 2 out of 3 days. I did a few nice hikes, mainly with Eva and Volker, a German couple that I met at the hotel. On our first day while walking through a Hmongh Village we got invited by a local family and I had a long, interesting (but also a bit upsetting) conversation with one of the women named Pay (pronounced as Pie), who spoke good English without having ever seen a school from the inside and without knowing how to read or write. Many of the women from the ethnic minorities their taught themselves English just by talking to the tourists and by practicing with one another. The men usually just know two or three words. But the women do all the work anyhow and the men are mainly busy with bossing them around (reminded me a bit of the Balkans ;-)
Our host Pay got married at age 14 and being 26 now she had three children with the oldest one being nine. She really didn't like her husband and was dreaming of going to school to learn how to read and write ...
Yep, lucky us! But they were anyhow very friendly and smiling genuine smiles.
So, here the pictures now:

 

On my way to Sapa in a hard sleeper cabin with 5 funky Vietnamese retirees. They were nice but the people were smoking heavily in the hallway, so on my way back to Hanoi it was sooo soft sleeper, baby.

View from my hotel balkony

Hotel balkony

 Sapa (at least the Vietnamese part)

Bambus

Hiking

 Chilling with Volker at the house of Pay's mother

 Pay

 Volker and Eva

 Ducks and rice terraces

 More rice terraces

 One with the buffalows

Bye bye, Sapa

Hanoi, second glance

Returning from the Ha Long bay my first week of Vietnamese lessons took off. My teacher's name is Ngoc and we get along very nicely. Pictures of my her and my school will follow. The lessons are definitely showing some effect, as the people that I try to talk to on different daily occasions now usually get what I am trying to tell them and if I asked them to restrain their talking speed a bit I am also capable of following a simple conversation.
I used this week also to explore Ha Noi a bit further, without making that many pictures yet, but here are some of my second impressions.

Nam from my Hotel

 Entrance to the botanical garden

Botanical garden with wedding couple taking photos. As there are only very few parks in Hanoi, you will find wedding couples taking photos in them every day at every time of day. That noon there I counted 7 couples in the (rather small) botanical garden only.

 Traffic in the finer shopping street

 

The city is a badminton court :o)

(And not only badminton, you find people using streets and parks for all kinds of sports activities. From Tai Chi to fitness to aerobic to dancing classes. It's really cool.)

Our little Christmas party in the hotel lobby

Ha Long bay

As I had to wait till Monday for my Vietnamese lessons to start, I decided to do a quick two days all-inclusive touristic boat trip to Ha Long Bay. The bay is indeed amazing. I am happy that I have been to the Pang Nga bay in Thailand first, 'cause this really dwarfs it, and thus I couldn't have enjoyed the scenery as much down there, if I had been to Ha Long already. But checkout the pictures for yourself.

 The boat

 My roomies Frank and Dominik

 The amazing cave (That's really it's official name :)

Hanoi first impressions

Here some impressions from my first two days in Hanoi. Beautiful city, I really like it so. Absolutely not comparable to Bangkok, more to southern France maybe. But still with a very unique style.
Well, I will have plenty of time to explore it further, as I will be taking a two-weeks Vietnamese language class, starting tomorrow. Let's see how far I can get :o)

The entrance to the old citadel

 The temple at the biggest lake of the many lakes of Hanoi

View over another lake

 It's christmas :o)

 The old (1000 years) university of Hanoi

 A wise emperor

 traffic in Hanoi ... it's a bit exhausting, especially the continuous honk noise
The streets (mostly without name signs) are a bit confusing, too. So far, it takes me about 20 minutes from my hotel to my language school (by scooter) and about 45 minutes to get back (the to the school is pretty straight forward, but it's a one way and the way back is far more confusing)

 shopping street in the old town

 a small temple in the old town with tree being part of the building (very neat, they do that quit often here)

 One of Hanois many (seriously many) galleries

 Oh yes it's christmas ...

 Hoan Kiem lake at dusk

 Well, I let this one speak for itself ;-)

Short trip to Ayuthaya

As I changed my decision to go to Hanoi by train and not overland, I had two days to kill in Bangkok. As I have seen quiet a bit of the city in the first week that I stayed here, I decided to explore the surrounding sites a bit. So I went for two days to Ayuthaya, the old regal capital (destroyed  by the Burmese in the 1760ies)
See for yourself ...

Buddha in the Bhodi tree :o)

The three kings (or their respective ashes)