We tried to rent a bike at Mountain View Hotel. They insisted USD $10 for a bike per day. I felt that it’s too expensive. Later a guy approached us on the street, willing to rent us his Honda motorcycle for USD $6 a day, or USD $7 inclusive of petrol. So we made a deal for the bike and petrol.
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Hmong Girls (or Child Exploitation)
We been dropped in front of Mountain View Hotel, right into a group of Hmong girls, which I believed employed by Mountain View Hotel and Royal Hotel, which both of them belonged to a same family. These kids basically persuaded us to stay at either one of these hotels. After they learnt that we’re not going to stay overnight, they started to promote their merchandise, and kept haggling right until we left. It’s a pity that they didn’t go to school, but work as a child labor instead, although this may seemed to be entrepreneurship, but I rather treat them as child exploitation. May be the children just simply need more money, but I had to admit it’s a very good business strategy that can easily win over any tourists.
Bus from Lao Cai to Sapa
The train LC1 departed from Hanoi at 10:10 pm, and scheduled to arrive at Lao Cai at 7:20 am. But it didn’t arrived until 8:00 am. There was no sign that it’s Lao Cai station, except for this label at the building. Announcement didn’t help much as it’s in Vietnamese, so your best bet will be the warden.
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Soft Sleeper Berth
Typical Vietnam Railways cabin consists of 4 soft sleeper berth, 2 upper and 2 lower. A bottle of mineral water and a cake or bun are provided. There are about 10 of such cabin in a train carriage. Besides soft sleeper, there are also hard sleeper, where there are 6 hard sleeper berth in a cabin – upper, middle and lower berth on each side. Basically it’s a soft sleeper without mattress, you’ll sleep on a wooden bed. I also had a glance on a carriage which I believed was hard seat. I initially planned to travel on hard seat class, as it’s so cheap. But I felt lucky I was not, as it’s a wooden chair with separator in the middle which is unable to recline, and 2 person sit on both side of it.
Safety on Train
It’s reasonable safe to travel with Soft Sleeper Class on Vietnam Railways. I read that the main consent was the belongings will get stole. But not in our case. In our carriage, there was a Vietnam Railways warden who slept on the carriage herself. Once the train departed from Ga Hanoi train station, she knocked each cabin, and demanded us to stored our luggage below the lower berth, and kept everything valuable under the pillow.
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Vietnam Railways Train to Lao Cai (Sapa)
We walked to the Hanoi Train Station (Ga Hanoi) from the Wing Cafe and Hotel in Old Quarter. It took us about 30 minutes to get there. It’s not too far, but we spent some time to ask for direction. The Hanoi Vietnamese was very kind that all of them whom we asked helped us in a way or another.
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Bag Keeping in Hanoi
Most hotel in Hanoi will allowed you to keep your bags there, hoping that when you return, you will stay there. When we took our train tickets from Thanh Vinh Tourist Hotel, they also offered us to keep our bags there, plus free usage of bathroom. However, I would like to try out other hotel, and also the fact that I was a bit disappointed with the Halong Bay tour package that they gave us, we rejected their offer instead.
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Sugar Cane Juice
It’s cheap here, and freshly made for just VND 2,000
Mien Luon
We had a Mien Luon for dinner at a shop at Hang Dieu before boarding the train, which costs about VND 7,000. Mien Luon also called eel soup with translucent noodles or eel cassava vermicelli in English. Mien (vermicelli made of cassava) threads are very long and tough, made from a kind of tuber plant called the cassava. The eel is chopped into small chunks and fried beforehand before being put atop, and the soup itself is clear and very lightly flavoured.
Thang Long Water Puppet Theater
Water Puppets, or Mua Roi Nuoc is an ancient art form that unique to northern Vietnam, which traces its origins to rice-farmer folk culture. Hanoi is the best place to watch Water Puppets performance which is origined from Hanoi. We watched it at Thang Long Water Puppet Theater at first-class seats which cost VND 40,000. There are second-class seats that costs VND 20,000. The differences being that first-class seats are in the front of the theater, and are given a CD that recorded musics played in water puppet performance. At the day we visited, there were show at 4 pm, 5.15 pm, 6.30 pm and 8 pm.
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