Hello, or xin chào as the Vietnamese say...
We recapture our last days in China and the traveling to hot and moist Hanoi.
Dali in China, where we ended our Chinese skating leg, was a pretty laid back, beautiful old town with small brick buildings and narrow cobblestone streets. Not sure if all of it really is that old or if some parts are re-pollished, but that was hard to tell and somehow didn't matter. People had a good mood, and there were lots of street musicians, including our hosts, which we joined for a session with the djembe. Two days were enough though, also because the dog of our host was an asshole and bit me. We did clean our skateboard though, holy moly was there much dirt on them, it was so much, it would probably have been interesting for archaeologists to work through the layers of mud...
After an uncomfortable (and fortunately the last) Chinese train ride, we arrived in Kunming, the city of everlasting spring and Zurichs partner city. The grape wine had it that there was a Swiss garden, the equivalent to the Chinese garden in Zurich. We didn't find it though. But we did find the Vietnamese embassy, even if we had to look for it for ages, and applied for a visa.
We were couch surfing with two cool guys and ones girlfriend, all three working in the same IT company. The office was their second home, so they took us there even on Sunday evening for a beamer-cinema night, including noodles from around the corner and lots of sunflowers seeds.
Unfortunately I caught some cold in the train which really knocked me out for good. Just hung out on the couch for a day, to get well fast. Next day we had a look at the bird and flower market, where actually very few flowers were sold, but many more animals than just birds. They had dogs, cats, pigs, hedgehogs, snakes, lizards, artificially coloured frogs in bright green, red, blue and yellow, all sorts of fish, turtles, hermit crabs, hamsters, chinchillas, rabbits, huge bugs, tarantulas, carrier pigeons, and all kinds of birds I had never seen before. It was kind of like walking through a Zoo, but with the possibility to buy what you see.
After we got our Vietnamese visa back, we escaped from cold Kunming with it's enormous traffic. We took a surprisingly comfortable sleeper bus to get close to the Vietnamese border, skated across to Vietnam, entered without trouble and almost got ripped of for the first time in Vietnam still inside the customs building. The money change guy wanted to give us less that half of what our money was worth. Nope. After a lazy day in Lao Cai, just hanging round the train station and loading up all the photos, we took another sleeper train to Hanoi. Funny those sleeper trains. The AC is blasting full throttle the whole night, so that one is freezing with a fleece and under a blanket, and as soon as you get out, the heat and moisture hits you straight in the face. Even the Vietnamese people wore down jackets in the train, and on the outside it was around 28°C. But there we were, arriving in sweaty Hanoi at 5am, just waking up with the city. And this city is crazy. Sooooo much motorcycle traffic. And soooo much going on on the streets. It just feels amazing, and skating among the scooters in rush hour is actually kind of fun....!
We were quite productive though, and came up with a plan for the Vietnamese leg. We will follow the Ho Chi Minh trail, which is now a highway, from Hanoi southwards, maybe until we reach Hue in middle Vietnam, and after that skip to Laos. We won't stick to the coast to much, as the typhoon season is approaching now, and we don't want to be drenched by tropical thunderstorms.
See ya!
We recapture our last days in China and the traveling to hot and moist Hanoi.
Dali in China, where we ended our Chinese skating leg, was a pretty laid back, beautiful old town with small brick buildings and narrow cobblestone streets. Not sure if all of it really is that old or if some parts are re-pollished, but that was hard to tell and somehow didn't matter. People had a good mood, and there were lots of street musicians, including our hosts, which we joined for a session with the djembe. Two days were enough though, also because the dog of our host was an asshole and bit me. We did clean our skateboard though, holy moly was there much dirt on them, it was so much, it would probably have been interesting for archaeologists to work through the layers of mud...
After an uncomfortable (and fortunately the last) Chinese train ride, we arrived in Kunming, the city of everlasting spring and Zurichs partner city. The grape wine had it that there was a Swiss garden, the equivalent to the Chinese garden in Zurich. We didn't find it though. But we did find the Vietnamese embassy, even if we had to look for it for ages, and applied for a visa.
We were couch surfing with two cool guys and ones girlfriend, all three working in the same IT company. The office was their second home, so they took us there even on Sunday evening for a beamer-cinema night, including noodles from around the corner and lots of sunflowers seeds.
Unfortunately I caught some cold in the train which really knocked me out for good. Just hung out on the couch for a day, to get well fast. Next day we had a look at the bird and flower market, where actually very few flowers were sold, but many more animals than just birds. They had dogs, cats, pigs, hedgehogs, snakes, lizards, artificially coloured frogs in bright green, red, blue and yellow, all sorts of fish, turtles, hermit crabs, hamsters, chinchillas, rabbits, huge bugs, tarantulas, carrier pigeons, and all kinds of birds I had never seen before. It was kind of like walking through a Zoo, but with the possibility to buy what you see.
After we got our Vietnamese visa back, we escaped from cold Kunming with it's enormous traffic. We took a surprisingly comfortable sleeper bus to get close to the Vietnamese border, skated across to Vietnam, entered without trouble and almost got ripped of for the first time in Vietnam still inside the customs building. The money change guy wanted to give us less that half of what our money was worth. Nope. After a lazy day in Lao Cai, just hanging round the train station and loading up all the photos, we took another sleeper train to Hanoi. Funny those sleeper trains. The AC is blasting full throttle the whole night, so that one is freezing with a fleece and under a blanket, and as soon as you get out, the heat and moisture hits you straight in the face. Even the Vietnamese people wore down jackets in the train, and on the outside it was around 28°C. But there we were, arriving in sweaty Hanoi at 5am, just waking up with the city. And this city is crazy. Sooooo much motorcycle traffic. And soooo much going on on the streets. It just feels amazing, and skating among the scooters in rush hour is actually kind of fun....!
We were quite productive though, and came up with a plan for the Vietnamese leg. We will follow the Ho Chi Minh trail, which is now a highway, from Hanoi southwards, maybe until we reach Hue in middle Vietnam, and after that skip to Laos. We won't stick to the coast to much, as the typhoon season is approaching now, and we don't want to be drenched by tropical thunderstorms.
See ya!
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