My journey started with a 9:00 PM departure from Dallas to LA on a Wednesday evening. The next leg was the fifteen hour flight to Hong Kong, which began with a glass of Taittinger Champagne and caviar service. I spent time lounging in my spacious suite in the air, including a meal of fabulous grilled steak paired with fine wines and also a couple of movies on the private screen. I just enjoyed the decadence of it all. My only complaint was nagging pain from a recently torn rotator cuff. Surgery is scheduled upon my return home.
As we approached touchdown in Hong Kong I almost didn’t order the traditional “English Breakfast” cooked in onboard galley of the Cathay Pacific flight. My plan was to meet Beth in the first class lounge at the airport for our seven hour layover. Thank God I did eat breakfast onboard because my well-planned trip was about to take an unplanned turn. Instead of meeting Beth at the lounge, I ended up going through customs at the main Hong Kong airport. Perhaps you remember the place where all the protestors were awhile back. Beth and I ended up spending seven hours waiting in the main terminal until the Vietnam Airlines ticket counter opened to get our boarding passes.
Here we are after so many hours of waiting on benches in the main terminal. Our quote of the day was: “Boredom is a state of mind…. not reality.” After nearly 30 hours of travel I was struggling with the “reality” part.
We caught our flight to Hanoi and were happy in a delirious sort of way. Our home for the night was the Sheraton Hanoi Hotel, a welcome bit of quiet comfort. The following day we headed by private car to the high mountain town of Sapa in northern Vietnam, near the Chinese border. This small French colonial town was a point of retreat for the French during their two hundred year rule of Vietnam. In a high mountain setting, it is cool year round and might have reminded the French of their own Alps. We arrived to a low hanging fog and rain.
We tried to imagine what was out there in the clouds. The first day we went for a long walk up the valley where we found a wonderful hotel, the Silk Path Grand Resort & Spa. We couldn’t really walk the roads much further due to the thickening fog, and we’re glad we did the long walk that morning because it poured rain the rest of the day. I now refer to this town as “Sapa Soaking Wet.” But we finally got a break in the weather and found a beautiful town once the clouds moved out. There are huge rainbow trout in the cold mountain waters and they are served fresh in the local restaurants. Beth got to witness two fish being clubbed to death on the sidewalk, then whisked away by a woman to be served immediately to waiting diners. Not something you typically see at your local fresh fish restaurant. This is why we travel. And, yes, to buy funny hats…
The next day we toured a valley and found the sun. We had a guide take us from one small village to another. The local tribespeople grow hemp (that is what I am holding in the photo below) which they weave into all kinds of apparel. We learned how local people live and work the land harmoniously with plants, animals, and people.
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