Sa Pa Trekking

Went up north into the mountains to Sa Pa, probably the most beautiful place I have ever scene, although the weather still isn't great as it's monsoon season it didn't dampen the spectacular scenery for us, our two day tour booked through Sinh Cafe Tourist, was a bit of a rip off as we were supposed to do two days of trekking and because of 'weather conditions' which wasn't that bad we only ended up doing one but I think it was literally because our guide couldn't be bothered. Day one was amazing we were met by local village women from the Black Hmong tribe and they trekked with us 14km through the mountains down the paddy fields to the village where we were staying. The trek itself was really difficult especially as it had been raining the night before so it was pretty slippery, also someone had thrown away my shoes so I only had flip flops to scale down the mountain in which wasn't very useful. Anyway heres some photos of the amazing views on the way to the village.

This was my guide Sho (on the right) and her friend from the Black Hmong tribe who saved me multiple times from falling down the mountain. 

We stopped for lunch in a village about 5 hours into the trek where we met the two other tribes in the valley, all three tribes have their own language and their own traditional dress, the one annoying thing is people are constantly harassing you to buy bags and bracelets especially the children, who are incredibly talented at making you feel terrible, be warned once you buy something off one person they will all gather around you, but tourism is their main income so fair play. I went to Sa Pa to get some great portraits so I ended up bargaining with some of the children that I would buy a bracelet if I could take their photo, here were the results. 

The kids were so beautiful and such great saleswomen after having lunch and driving some bargains we then trekked onto the homestay whose name I can't actually remember,  It was amazing a cabin in the middle of the jungle with mattresses on the floor and mosquito nets, and out of the makeshift window (hole) you could see the whole mountain view and listen to the crickets and the rain. I could easily live somewhere like that for months it was so peaceful, I would 100% recommend visiting Sa Pa, and doing the trekking, just check the weather beforehand.

Truc Lam Temple Da Lat

On our last day in Da Lat, our group decided to try and kick our hangovers and get some culture, so we took the cable car from just on the outskirts of Da Lat to Truc Lam Temple at the top of the mountain, it was so ridiculously peaceful up there with all the low playing traditional music and the incense burning, we got there just as they were closing down for the day so we didn't get to go inside many of the temple buildings but the architecture itself was incredible. The best thing about the temple is that it was so easy to get to from the town so if your just on a stopover in Dalat and have a few hours to kill you should come here. 

Da Lat Waterfall Canyoning

Finally have semi decent internet again still not great but enough for this post, so Da Lat was our next stop after the sand dunes of Mui Ne, Da Lat is basically a giant forest area north of Mui Ne and its significantly cooler there (17-18 degrees) and lots of rain this time of year. The town itself is pretty basic although one place I would definitely recommend at night is the 100 Roofs Cafe, it was designed by a student from the crazy school of architecture, and is basically a massive skinny building with loads of hidden rooms and narrow tunnels and staircases that you can play hide and seek in, and the drinks are cheap, if you've ever been to Budapest its basically like a mad ruin bar on steroids, people go missing in this bar for several nights at a time. 

one of the rooms of the bar- not my photo

from the outside- not my photo

So in Dalat the main things to do are trekking to see the villages and waterfalls and Canyoning, we chose the latter as we heard it was one of the craziest things you can do in Vietnam. We went with a tour company called Viet Action Tours (£40 equivalent) who I would highly recommend they had all the right safety gear etc and some of the cheaper tours don't. We left our hostel at 8:30 and were driven in a minibus up to the hills where the waterfalls were, here we learnt how to use the guide ropes got given our helmets (and nicknames I was Rambo) and practiced scaling down a few steep hills. Once we got the hang of it we then moved on to the actual sheer cliff faces, starting with a cliff not a waterfall (20m) we scaled one by one down the face, not gonna lie stepping over the edge of a sheer cliff with just a rope is pretty terrifying and it takes quite a lot to scare me. After this was scaling down the 25m Waterfall, the rocks are super slippery and it is pretty difficult to get down and stepping over the edge again you think the guide is joking when he tells you you'll be fine, but hands down one of the best experiences of my life, you then trek through the forest to the last waterfall which is trapped in canyon so you basically hang most of the way down and drop into the waterfall (nicknamed the washing machine you'll find out why). After this was cliff jumping (optional) and a zip line down to the bottom of the lake followed by a lunch in the town (included) and then we were dropped back to our hostel. If your in Da Lat and a bit of an adrenaline junkie you must do Canyoning, 100% recommend. 

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293922-d7987929-Reviews-Viet_Action_Tours_Day_Tours-Da_Lat_Lam_Dong_Province.html

VIETNAM INTERNET FAILURE

So i've been offline for a while and wont be able to post properly for another two weeks! basically the whole of Vietnams internet system is down due to some underwater pipe burst thing, heres the article if your travelling Vietnam soon as a heads up, http://tuoitrenews.vn/society/36372/internet-users-in-vietnam-should-expect-two-weeks-of-slow-connection on the plus side when its back up again I will have some great things to post about as we've done some pretty crazy things the last few days. Including scaling down 25m waterfalls in Da Lat but ill go into more detail about that later. Currently we are stranded in Nha Trang for 7 hours as our hostel decided to screw us over with the wrong bus times, but at least theres a beach here.

I'll be back posting soon so keep an eye out. 

White and Red Sand Dune tour Mui Ne

So today we went on a tour of the famous red and white Mui Ne sand dunes (£4.50) through our hostel ( which is amazing you should stay here) Mui Ne backpacker village. We were picked up in a jeep at 1:30pm and taken first of all to the fairy springs which is basically a super shallow river path you follow through walking bare foot through pretty amazing scenery, lots of sand and limestone cliff heads and tropical trees, after this we got back in the jeep and stopped off at the fishing village in Mui Ne, while everyone stayed at the top I decided to be really nosy and take my camera down to the actual village, the village itself was empty except for this adorable little boy who ran out of his house to give me a shell, its amazing that it doesn't matter if theres a language barrier with children, he led me to his house to show me his toy truck and was completely adorable. after this I said goodbye to my new friend and we went to the white sand dunes which were absolutely incredible (see pictures below), we rented quadbikes during the sandstorm and decided to impersonate mad max through the desert (£15 for half hour) once we spent an hour here we then moved to the other side of Mui Ne which was the red sand dunes, where you could surf down the hills on mats which we didn't do but it looked fun. Here we explored for another hour and watched the sun set over the desert before heading back to the hostel for 2 for 1 Whiskeys, day well spent. 100% recommend.

me and my new best friend - fishing village Mui Ne

Fairy Springs - Mui Ne

Local little boy who showed me his house in the fishing village - Mui Ne

White sand dunes - Mui Ne

Red Sand Dunes - Mui Ne

Red Sand Dunes - Mui Ne

Quad biking in the white desert - Mui Ne

Fairy Spring - Mui Ne 

Red Sand Dunes- Mui Ne

White sand dunes - Mui Ne  

White Sand Dunes - Mui Ne

Mui Ne

5 hour sleeper bus to Mui Ne from Ho Chi Mi City which was pretty dire with this weird reclining top bunk seats literally cm's from the ceiling but it was only £5, we're now staying at Mui Ne Backpacker Village a beautiful hostel minutes away from the beach with a pool for (wait for it) £4.50 and we have air con and the bar do spaghetti (although i am trying new food mum i promise)

The monsoon hit again around mid day and like sensible people we decided to go swim in the sea because it seemed it would be fun, to be fair it was but to the locals we probably looked like complete nutcases. Tomorrow we're doing a tour of the Sand Dunes before we head to Dalat in the evening!

pretty much a drowned rat

Mekong Delta continued - ft pictures of me a sweaty mess

Next up we drove the boat to a nearby restaurant and had lunch (included in tour) a simple meal, local cuisine (fish, rice, salad etc) after this we were then taken out in a one of the long canoe boats and rowed through a quite jungle river it was very idyllic and we got to wear the traditional sun hats. This marked the end of our first day and we then journeyed back in the boat to the meeting spot in the town, this is where my friend and I were meeting our homestay hosts who preceded to turn up on motorbikes and signalled for us to hop on to get to our final destination. If you've never been on a motorbike in SE Asia be assured its absolute chaos and you spend the whole ride fearing for your life (its also really fun). The homestay itself (Hung's Homestay) was a group of stick and leaf shacks right on the river in the middle of the local village, it was so ridiculously simple and beautiful literally being right in the middle of nature, pictures do not do it justice.

our jungle shack - Hungs homestay

After a meal cooked by our hosts (with us helping) we went to bed in our mosquito netted cabin (bring a ridiculous amount of mosquito spray you'll need it) . The next day was visiting the floating markets where traders and farmers brought all their produce to sell and exchange, it was pretty cool to look at but we weren't able to get too close to the boats unless we were buying. After this we stopped at the garden nearby (basically a jungle) and went for a wander around and played with puppies and that concluded our trip. I'd hands down recommend it (roughly $45 which is 1 million and 50 VND)