Children "snugged up" as they
watch passing tourists

A plane took us to Hanoi but to get to Sapa we had to brave an overnight train to Lao Cai. For those who have no idea where Sapa - all I know is that is is very close China and you may have seen pictures of it in calendars and what not :)

So much for "mind the gap" on Vietnam trains, there are no platforms and people just leap onto trains both while they are stationary and when they start to move!
The race to the trains are REAL!!!! Women ran through the closing doors with their rods and hanging baskets of produce as though they spontaneously leapt from their place by the street mind bent to catching the departing train home - and I thought I did well timing myself to catch the trains at home!

I was the only one who had a rather uneasy sleep, lurching slightly in my bunk as the train made its stopped and dragged itself from station to station. You may enjoy the train trip more than I did but if you are slightly tall like me, your legs were screaming by the end for a good ol' stretch!!

In my random bouts of consciousness I would hear voices right outside our window belonging to locals walking home along the tracks. Who knows how long they had been walking!! We had come prepared with our train snacks bought from Hanoi- grapefruit, cashews mandarins and sweet breads after a filling ourselves with the “Hanoi take” on traditional Pho soup (very different to the Southern style we were accustomed to).  The mist that swirled beyond the window reminded us that the weather of the North was not as welcoming to the shirt and shorts clad tourist.

Despite being geographically within Vietnam, Sapa felt different – the faraway mountains gave it an serene sense of isolation, the people looked ethically different and the streets themselves appeared a blend of European cobble stone dotted with women and children lying in wait of a tourist. The scenery was a nice change from the Vietnam streets making me feel like I had visited another country in bonus to Vietnam. We didn't manage to catch Sapa at its prime of flourishing, green rice fields but the sun still shone nicely when we walked the circuits that lead around the villages and hills.
Children were often nudged towards tourists in a bid to sell crafts. We witnessed a a group of women chattering to themselves before erupting in remarkably good English as they tail a unsuspecting tourist waving their goods. As we walked up and down the landscape, locals heaved passed us with baskets of wood (it was as heavy as it looked) and little furry pups played at the thresholds of their homes. The local children would pluck the long grasses along the way and fashion them into miniature llama shaped to gift to the tourists. One even stole an ice cream right from the grasp of our tour guide (half eaten!!). 

View of the greenery (or yellow-ry) from the village walking tract

 We weren’t very adventurous on the food front. Although the marketplace exhibited jars of insect-infused liquors/wines we opted for some banana fritters cooked by a local lady on the stairs leading from souvenir tables. Even for breakfast they made the best banana crepes with hot chocolate which I couldn’t pass. Lunch and dinner were an array of dishes served with rice just like we had in Saigon and Hanoi. 

So here are a few tips for Sapa:
1. Wake up early to catch the Sapa sunrise
2. Try said crepes and hot chocolate (delicious and available at most eateries)
3. Spend a few hours with a leisurely stroll of the village circuits (may not be as leisurely when constantly tailed by locals forcing their crafts on you)
4. Don’t give money directly to the children and women selling on the streets (apparently it creates a culture where tourists may get pushed into buying the offered goods- eeep)
5. Get a fire built in your lodging (and – if your back can manage it – try heaving the basket on your back so you can feel a little for the locals you see in the village)
5. Have a walk around the marketplace (avoiding the dog meat section...)
6. Buy a traditional dyed scarf straight from the shop of a local seller in the village (your friends back home will love you for it :P)
7. Pack/buy a warm beanie and gloves for walking  and exploring (we didn't catch Sapa when it snowed though)
8. Don’t try and have a hot bath because the cold air cools the water again right away *sigh*
9. See the traditional dancing at the small theatre room near the waterfall
10.Stock up on snacks for the train trip and a good book (for those who don’t have motion sickness J)

Some close animal encounters as we walked the track

Week 1: Saigon - Cafe Culture and Jack Fruits

Each morning began very early with women on the streets, gently sweeping with their brooms made of stiff grasses dried in the sun. It was a rhythmic drag of the grasses on the pavement as the throbbing hum of motorbike engines echoed down the street. I spent most of the month we had waking up in Saigon. The first morning I had woken up at 5am and in the house hung a strange aura. I was the only one awake and it gave me time to reflect about where I was – standing on a totally different space on the earth.  I was certainly not the first to rise in the district. Downstairs a pot of Bun Rieu (a classic Vietnamese Street food dish) was brewing and the children’s rides park right next door began playing its nursery songs to the near empty street. Standing there I absorbed the way the foot paths were endless pavement without a spot of grass and no parked cars, the children in their scout-like uniforms hugging their parents in front as they were driven to school, their feet dangling with sandals and multiple doors opening everywhere like an arcade game for their owners to wheel out their bikes. I was very far from the Sydney streets I called home and it was unreal just thinking of what could possibly be in store for the day. 

The Cafe Culture was something to behold in Vietnam giving Newtown and Balmain in
 Sydney a run for their money. Cafe Sua Da (Iced Coffee) was served everywhere not with fresh milk but condensed milk since it was first introduced into the country by American Soldiers fighting in the War. Here was where you could catch up with family and friends as one ALWAYS had time for coffee. It was enjoyed in various ways from lounging on your motorbike  to knocked knees on a low stool. Most importantly was to enjoy your drink while facing and watching the street. This was what it meant to watch the “day go by”. There was no need for the time-lapse option; the streets were an endless whirlwind of passing motorbikes and taxis, chickens strutting around their shop fronts pecking vigorously at the seeds in crevices and street sellers laying the pavement with their wares awaiting the night to finally pack for home.

Crossing the road abides by a few rules.
1. Besides looking for gaps in traffic you must walk with confidence like the locals next to you.
2. Women are more likely to show signs of slowing than men.
3. No designated pedestrian crossings in the outer districts so good luck finding one.
Even in the street, traffic pedestrians crossings still beg lone motorbikes to make the final break.
4. Traffic never stops just for you.
This is the thing - traffic immediately changes the second you step onto the road, a thousand internal calculations erupt around you as engines hum a little less and wheels slightly veer to the sides.
As amateurs we waited for locals to cross alongside other locals – a life skill I had yet to master on my own.

Every morning my dad would walk to the markets only to stop short at a little glass stand by the road where a woman would be selling the juiciest jackfruits a Vietnamese Australian like ourselves would ever taste and see. By the time we left the country (we said our good byes), she had known us to be her regular customers. Dad would come home with the produce and mum and I would begin the tedious and sticky deseeding process and eating the “less pretty ones”.  You couldn’t help getting strange looks on the street when you wore shorts, a t-shirt, your sneakers and tried desperately to cross the heavy traffic like a local. Not even the traditional straw hat could conceal the fact that you were a tourist returning to your roots and my did I reek of it.

Your average homemade dinner of wholesome food

"Embodying" a local next to the Jack fruit stand

Why we travel

Today I found myself reminiscing about my first experience travelling overseas. It was only earlier this year in January and I remember bracing myself for what I called “The Renascence”, from the French and Latin re- and nasci. That feeling of being overseas in a completely new landscape that you felt born again, wishing you had a thousand eyes to witness everything bustling round you, that immediate sense and readiness of open-mindedness. No one here knows you so you can be the person you are – just not another tourist unless you want to keep up the accent.

Your body senses the change – it coils at the endless food that lines the street in fear and awe.
Your senses immediately sharpen to the small things – the distinct smells, and mesh of a thousand sounds and way the sunlight falls differently on your back.
It is an experience that no documentary, video or travel guide could truly prepare you for. Yes not even the precious Lonely Planet travel guide because
1. It is merely a guide and
2. One must wander off track time and time again to be able to say they have truly been to a country.

I wanted to write about my travels because memory can only serve you so much and although photos tell a thousand words I want to immortalise the personal thoughts that I link to certain places, ones I wouldn’t want to forget. So here begins the next four entries, one for each week I spent in Vietnam, of the main happenings, the inspirations and the people.

Visiting Emperor Palaces in Central Vietnam

Introductions

To whomever it may concern,
Today is the 30^th of September, no 1^st of October, no the 2^nd of October. What I mean to say is that I have been thinking a lot lately about finally starting a blog. Even to myself, the motives behind this seem unclear and maybe that has instilled in me that indecisiveness and hesitation. A drop of the idea has had a silencing rippling effect but more closely looms the knowledge that my life would soon become a cycle of endless work and responsibilities. That is, before I like most before me, condemn myself to what I call the serious adult world.

I’m hoping to discover more about myself even and hopefully immortalize a younger, happier self who enjoys the sun on her back, the flowers through her fingers, the grass through her toes- one who can spend a whole day outdoors without guilt of responsibilities, who won’t feel hunger because she  spends hours reading books and poems on the little wooden stool on the veranda and to never feel absolute boredom because she is always enjoying the company of friends and families without wondering if things could be the same as before or constantly checking the time.

Well this first entry was more depressing than I anticipated. But that is not what I meant at all. I want to collect all the nifty things on this blog, daily inspirations, things that make me happy like baking and trying new recipes (because the best things are homemade) and new experiences and hopefully others can relate. Perhaps this is out of boredom but I should like to think that there are people who are the same as you or possess facets of your own self- parts of people that you often can’t meet through conversation (because don’t we all rush nowadays).

Another reason is to feel good that you have inspired others, that there are people like you who are crazy enough to want to read (and at that appreciate?!) what you have to say without me even knowing you.

So I think this is what they call a lifestyle blog – for the one’s that can’t decide what they want to do. I did a quick Google and one result was that lifestyle blogs let you write “whatever *bleep* you please”. I don’t mean to bore you with the happenings of my life because I can guarantee you not much happens as I should like.

Unfortunately I can’t even sell myself as one who is exotic, worldly or a "Londoner” as appealing as that may sound. But rather I think way too much about things, like to cook a little too much and will never be able to ride a skateboard.

There are so many parts of me that want to be a fashion blogger/designer, YouTube sensation (don’t we all), Heston Blumenthal (except with more hair), British bake off’s next champion (not even British but I love the British version of the show), an author (homage to all the great teen fiction writers who have made an adventure of my nearly ending teenage years), poet, make-up artist, interior designer, movie/food/book critic and Karlie Kloss (even Heston is more realistic ). 

So I guess the plan is to infuse all these unlikely aspirations in different ways into my blog as a way of “living” these dreams and lead a little more than an “ordinary” life (extraordinary is stretching it).