Cat Ba

Dear Mom and Dad,

We enjoyed relaxing and seeing Cat Ba island. Yesterday we took scooters and toured the island. We stopped at a hospital that was built in a cave for the Vietnam war. It cost 75 cents to enter but we snuck in through the exit. It was kind of creepy being in there.

View from the cave.

Here's a port where fishing boats unload there goods.

Romantic appetizers and happy hour.

What's a date without Andy.

 For dinner we had seafood hotpot. There were clams, shrimp, crab, and fish. The crab and shrimp were still moving when we cooked them. I may or may not of made a scene from screaming and squirming. Thus meal was $9 each. We can afford it because our hostel costs $1.75 a niGht.

The aftermath.

Today we bus back to Hanoi and tomorrow it is to Phong Nha. In order to travel anywhere in the northern area of vietnam, hanoi is the hub and has to be revisited everytime.

Love,

Ariel, Sebastian, and Flounder

Sapa to Cat Ba Island

Dear Mom and Dad,

Our last few days in Sapa were spent relaxing and recovering. The boys rented scooters and visited the rice fields. I was still sore, so I continued reading my kindle. 

Here we are playing jenga. Andy has some mad skilLs. Best jenga player I've seen. We will have to put him to the test at West O Brewery.

 After Sapa, we bused to Hanoi for the night. Then we took a bus to Ha Long Bay City. There we took a boat to Ca Ba Island. There we took another bus to the center of the island. The bus, boat, bus took a total of 12 hours traveling. We had fun playing cards and viewing the sights.

Today we relaxed and tomorrow we are exploring on scooters.

Love,

The crew

Sore Muscles in Sapa

Dear Mom and Dad,

Our stay in Hanoi was pretty quiet. Other than the rat sightings in my room, it was quite enjoyable. The people are very friendly and won't take any money unless there is an exchange of a service or goods. For example, I left my kindle at the dinner table and frantically ran back 15 minutes later. They kindly returned it and were appalled when I tried to offer money as a thank you. Anywhere other country it would have been gone. I still left a little money on the table to show appreciation. 

Here's another crazy pic of the scooter drivers.

We took a five hour bus ride to Sapa, where we have been for four nights. Here we booked a two day trek climbing Fansipan, which is the highest peak in southeast Asia (Indochina). It cost $77 and included four meals a personal tour guide and porter. The porter carries the sleeping bags, food, and water. His bag was at least 50 pounds. This is a picture of our porter. He also did the freezing cold climb in sandals and not enough clothes. 

The boys also carried bags that had extra clothes, water, toilet paper, etc. Andy's pack weighed 10 pounds, and Charlie carried my stuff that included my sleeping bag (very necessary to have two since it was below freezing at night), so his was 15 pounds. I jammed my thumb from slipping, so Charlie also had to do my hair, zip my coat, and tie my shoes. What a great boyfriend and personal porter. Andy won the award for slipping in the mud the most. He didn't have climbing shoes like Charlie and I, so he struggled to stay on his feet. We also had to buy warmer clothes since our island attire wasn't suitable.

Starting off was all smiles.

This is where we ate lunch. Our night camp was spent in a giant uninsulated Morton building. To stay warm at night, we heated up rocks in a fire and put them in our sleeping bags. This was slightly difficult to find the perfect temperature of "warming rocks" and not "scalding weapons."

First day, still smiling. By the second, I was ready to kill somebody.

The views from the first day were decent. The second day it rained and was misty the entire time, so it was difficult to even see in front of you.

A Norwegian company is building a cable car that will take people up to the top. The worker had to carry bags of sand up the trechouros climb on their backs. They were payed 50 cents for every kilo they brought.

Here they are working .

I can't explain how difficult and unsafe this climb was. There were parts that we were literally rock climbing and any wrong move could have lead to a broken limb or worse.

Here's our fun tour guide Za. He finally started to pick up on American sarcasm by the end of our trip. We had a blast with him!

The second day was excruciating, but we all made it.

Barely.

The peak was 11,000 feet.

Happy rock climbers.

The list of people at our hostel that have made the dangerous climb. 

Today, I feel like death. I'm going to lose my big toe nail on my left foot and walking down the stairs is a daunting task. Andy has a muscle contusion on his inner thigh, and Charlie is suffering from tendinitis in his knee. Safe to say we aren't moving anywhere today.

Love,

Sore muscles