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| Road Block 1 |
At present we are sitting on the overnight
train headed for Hanoi after three wonderful days in Sapa. Matthew has just closed the door to our cabin,
which I guess is unfortunate for the Vietnamese on the train because it now
means they have nothing to stare at as they pass our cabin. And the little boy who has taken on the
responsibility of pushing all the fold up foot steps back into the up position
will have to bypass our cabin. Hopefully
the kids in this cabin will eventually go to bed - maybe without the
westerner’s show it will be sooner rather then later. (no we are not actually
putting on a show but rather sitting on our beds on computers) The train has
left only 4 minutes late, which according to Vietnamese time is early – we have
a spare bunk in our cabin this time and I can only assume that the passenger
has missed the train because it left early!
This morning we left our Eco lodge and
headed back into Sapa Town. (See different Blog)
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| Still road Block 1 just a little further down the road |
Our plan was
to have a look around the town before we left at 5.30 to head to Lao Cai to
catch this train. We decided on the 9.30
bus to Sapa so we had plenty of time to look around. Unfortunately the lodge is on top of a
mountain with only a rudimentary road.
About 10 minutes from the lodge the road was blocked by a truck and backhoe. There had been a landslide we think and they
had to remove the rocks to open the road.
There were three small Vietnamese men lifting the rocks putting them
into the scoop bit of the back hoe, when that was full they emptied it into the
truck to then begin the process again.
Every once a while the truck and the back hoe would move 5 meters down
the road and continue their rock gathering.
The motorbikes could at times sneak pass but we could do nothing but
watch.
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| Road Block 2 |
After 50 minutes the truck was finally full
so it began its journey down the mountain, the backhoe followed to a point it
could pull over and we could pass. Josh
who had by this time gotten out his laptop and was distracted didn’t even get
to put his laptop away before we hit yet another road block this time a backhoe
was digging into the wall, probably doing his bit for widening the narrow road
– whatever he was doing we were stopped again.
By now there was an overwhelming smell of
what smelt like nail polish remover.
Despite my insistence that I did not have nail polish remover with me
Matthew was doubtful, so I checked my bag to see if there was anything leaking.
But we were not the culprits instead one of the two 20 liter drums in the back
of the van was leaking. We tried to tell
the driver but he kept saying something about Vietnamese fuel smelling, we kept
saying or trying to mime a leaking drum at which point he demonstrated a
lighter action and shock his head – we could only guess that this meant
whatever was leaking was not flammable!!! Hope he is right.
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| Helmets are so not attractive |
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| The Waterfall |
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| Wifi at the waterfall? So important! |
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| Snack |
We eventually made it to Sapa town and as
good Ho Chi Minhers we hired motorbikes to tour around – Matthew and Josh
convinced me that after 30kms of walking over the last two days we did not need
to walk a hilly town. I didn’t need much
convincing I must say and I was keen to try my motorbike skills out in
unfamiliar territory. We found our way
to a lovely waterfall, after quite a few wrong turns – I think Matthew and Josh
were just helping me master u-turns – we then drive around the town stopping
for lunch, for markets, for new earrings to replace the ones that Josh knocked
out of my ears – yes knocked out whilst pretending to sway on the van but it
worked out for the best for I now have two pairs of new earrings.
And now we are on the train headed for
Hanoi and I might try and talk the others into cards.
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