I was nervous about this trip - Mai Chau to Son La. We were moving out of the standard tourist route (in spite of the "suggested" itinerary in Lonely Planet), I was worried. Our hotel owner took some time to figure it out and the directions were sketchy. In spite of all this, he did his best. There was a bus running from Mai Chau to Son La and he talked to the drive and got us a reserved seat. He also recommended a hotel in Son La and promised the bus would drop us off. In addition, he drove us to the bus stop (several kilometers out of town) and waited until the bus came. I knew immediately we were in a bit of trouble when I peeked in the bus and it was full from back to front including the aisles. They cleared two seats for us as promised in separate rows. I sat next to the "pusher/shower" and Barbara got to sit in an aisle with no one in the middle but with a 25-lb bag of rice at her feet that she was not allowed to put her feet on!
The fog came in immediately and we drove through the mountains with me compulsively playing solitaire (with arms hugged in, surrounded by two men who were somehow leaning into me). My fingers were one inch apart when playing! I couldn't see the scenery anyway between the fog and the hoards of people in the bus. Oh yeah, and some pretty unpleasant smells.
We did well, I played solitaire, Barbara watched as children and adults puked from motion sickness. The guidebook blithely described the "scenery." My scenery was a bus packed to the gills and 25% of my iPad. We were eventually dropped off at the Hanoi Hotel (lonely planet again, not my first choice, but owner in Mai Chau would not let us book anywhere else). Everything according to plan. We lug our bags up the steep steps of the Hanoi Hotel (where are the porters) to the desk where yes, they do have a reservation for us, but the clerk speaks no English.
The hotel was creepy, with very bad chi, especially compared to the small and lovely (yet inexpensive) places we have been staying. The lobby was selling jars of corn or rice wine (hootch) with snakes and scorpions inside -- okay so that's common here in the North.
We barely found a restaurant -- Singapore Hotpot -- where we went twice.
We were nervous about taking such a bus for the next day-s 8-hour trip to Sa Pa. Barbara went down to the desk and was told that the only bus was a night sleeper, and a car and driver was $111. Yes, Mama! We later saw the Son La to Lo Cai bus ...there was a morning bus...but it was just like the one we rode in on from Son La.
Barbara awoke in a state of paranoia caused by the creepy hotel we were staying in and insisted we take photos of the taxi (car and driver!) transporting us to Sa Pa. Below is the photo with the license plate cleverly captured...sent on to Barbara's sister in the event our driver decided to throw us off a cliff (many opportunities) and steal our belongings).
It turns out our driver (on the left) was a sweetheart and a very safe white-knuckle driver. Never did we have to show him the flash card in Vietnamese "slow down!"
Proof we stayed at Hanoi Hotel, all setting up the series of photos below to reveal the license plate of our cab driver (in the unlikely event of abduction or murder).
Paranoid photo of me, driver, and porter -- note clever display of license plate
One of several dam projects flooding formal rice paddies and forcing hill tribes further up the hills.
Drive by photo of scenery
Same view as above -- no zoom
Our last 20 miles as we approached Sa Pa were foggy with 10 feet of visibility. Our driver was a champ who took required precautions and got us to our hotel safely. Hurrah Hurrah!
Thank goodness for car and driver and methinks in the future, if you haven't talked to anyone who's been to a city in a strange land, don't go there. Most likely the hotel will be Chinese mafia and there will be only one restaurant in town. In addition, you will only be able to eat sticky rice at the buffet breakfast because you are frightened of the strangeness. This is the first time on the trip I've been "off my feed" outside of a stomach virus.
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