Nguyen Binh – Bao Lac

We get up really late, since we don’t have as many kilometers planned today and I really don’t feel like getting up. But if I’d known there was a beautiful blue sky outside, I’d have moved a bit faster, but again we have a window 10 cm from the wall.

We left the heater on all night, so for a change it was too warm. For breakfast we eat the melon we bought yesterday. Before heading out we go check out the market, and Jozef buys proper gloves.

Today there are also women from the Red Dao minority, wearing beautiful traditional costumes.

The market also has a top-tier barbershop section, and they sell basically every animal here in bamboo cages, even kittens.

Then we set off on the same road as yesterday, toward the national park. In the village of Tinh Tu we go straight for lunch. We sit down at a nice-looking restaurant. All we understand from the owner is that there’ll be rice, so we’re curious what we’ll get. We also see tea and a teapot, so we point at it. We get a plate of rice, some green leaves, chicken, duck and beef, tofu and some rolls. It’s quite a big meal.

Over lunch we review the trip and what we like and don’t like, sorting out a few things, hopefully things go better from here. Surprisingly the whole thing costs just 100000 dong (€4). We pass by a tin mine and start climbing into some serious hills.

We planned today’s route ourselves, just tracing a finger over the map. So we turn off the main road onto a less frequented one, which is a bit longer.

We pass through small villages full of kids who wave at us and are completely thrilled when I wave back. There are also a lot of landslides here, every few meters. Some even took out houses, you can tell since there are already 10 new little houses built a bit further along.

The road winds along the mountainside all the way to the village of Man Coc.

We continue on and the road starts getting rapidly worse until we’re on a narrow farm track. We’ve still got about 11 km to the main road. We move slowly, bouncing on the scooter the whole way, and after 6 km it starts making a strange noise. We’ve got a flat tire, we found a nail in the tire. So we continue on foot.

About 500 meters on there’s the first house, with some kids there who just point further down the road. We continue, Jozef walks faster than me.I have lot of layers today, I’ve got leggings, shorts and trousers on, and up top 2 t-shirts, a hoodie and a down jacket, so now I take it all off. Just walking, it’s genuinely pleasant here, like a lovely spring day.

The house density increases and everyone asks what happened. The mechanic who can fix it is by the main road. Luckily it’s downhill from here and we’ve got plenty of time. When we get there I’m drenched in sweat and I take off all layers.

We wait 15 minutes and get a new inner tube, pay 100000 dong and continue toward the town of Bao Lac. It’s more densely inhabited here now, and there’s a school every few kilometers. I feel like a queen from all the waving, but it’s genuinely lovely. We pass through Bao Lac, look around at hotels and go check out a viewpoint outside of town.

We stay at the second hotel, for 180000 a night. We turn on the heater and go shower. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a week now, and they’re starting to smell a bit and are all dusty, but I’ll manage in those two more days. Jozef picked a restaurant on Google Maps, of course based on whether they have beer on tap. It’s on the other side of town, but at least we get to walk, given how much we sit on the scooter. They don’t have beer on tap after all, but they’ve got pre-cooked food, so we just point at what we want. We get some pork, tofu, egg and vegetables. We’re just full and it settles a nicely on the way back. We pass a surprising number of karaoke bars, this place must really come alive in season. We’re rather going to sleep.

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Ban Gioc–Detian Falls – Nguyen Binh

We get up before 7am, pack our things, brush our teeth and set off at 7:15am. Nobody’s around at the whole place, everything’s unlocked. We continue on past the waterfalls. We’re not hungry yet, so we leave breakfast for the next village. We ride along the Vietnam-China border. It’s more deserted here than yesterday. We stop in the village of Bang Ca and look for a breakfast spot.

At one place there are just some strange heads and feet, so we head to the market instead. One lady is making these little rolls with an egg fried on a pan, which she then puts into soup, plus pâté with it.

Probably not many tourists come through here, since everyone’s watching us eat. The soup was great, though we don’t know what it’s called. Then I go buy some cookies at a shop, so I’ve got something for emergencies. We continue and wander through small villages, where you need to watch out not to hit a rooster.

Large sheets of sliced cassava dry along the road for pigs. About an hour on we stop in the town of Thanh Nhat. We go for coffee. We find a place with about 10 men, drinking beer and rice wine at 9am. Some of them are already pretty drunk, so we just quickly finish our coffee and continue. It’s still cloudy, but starting to get a bit warmer. We ride between green hills and fields.

We finish the loop and we’re back in Quang Uyen. We have a baguette each and continue toward Cao Bang. We’ve still got a long way ahead, so we bypass the town. Past it, by the road, we stop for lunch, worried there won’t be much else further on. It’s a buffet-style restaurant, so I take rice, tofu and some vegetables, Jozef adds pork belly. I’m not that hungry, so it takes me a while to finish. We continue on, higher into the mountains.

Our destination is the mountain village of Nguyen Binh, which isunder construction right now. New paths are being built and a lot of trucks pass through, so there’s dust absolutely everywhere. We want to find accommodation here, so we go from hotel to hotel. We find one for 200000 dong. We drop our things and go look for some fruit at the market. Not much selection, so we buy a melon for 66000 dong. Then we look for a place to have tea, since it’s grown here too, but everywhere we go they only have mixed syrupy stuff, and we couldn’t explain that we just wanted plain green tea. In the end we have coffee, but explaining we wanted it plain, with nothing added, was also a struggle. We’ve still got about two hours of daylight, so we go check out Phja Oac – Phja Den National Park.

The number of landslides along the road increases after Typhoon Yagi, which hit here in September.

Repairs are still ongoing on some stretches. We climb to a pass at 1400 m elevation. The temperature drops noticeably. From there you can ride the scooter all the way up Nui Phja Oac hill, so we figure since we’re here, we’ll just push through the cold somehow. We climb 500 meters over 5 km, it takes us about 20 minutes. Jozef can’t feel his hands at the top. We quickly take some photos and head back.

The way down is a bit worse than going up and it’s slowly starting to get dark. We ride the last 15 minutes in the dark, which isn’t pleasant at all. We covered a total of 200 km today. It was prettier than yesterday, more hills and remote roads, and it seemed a bit warmer too. At the hotel we shower, warm up a bit and go look for something for dinner. We’re probably going too late, since we can’t find any place open. Eventually we find one spot where there’s some kind of celebration going on, and the lady makes us fried rice with egg. There’s a family celebration or dinner going on in the back, from which Nam wanders over to us. He’s fairly drunk and has no sense of personal space, Jozef’s personal space specifically. He asks where we’re from, our names, whether we’re married and if we have kids. Then he takes photos with us and toasts with beer. He wants rice wine too, but I decline that. Soon they leave, and the others laugh at him for being so drunk. He then invites us to a karaoke bar, those are genuinely popular here. Once they leave, we can finally eat in peace while watching Paw Patrol, which a little boy there’s watching.

Along with the rice we get some fermented vegetables, and bananas and sweet potato for dessert. Not many tourists probably come through here, since children peek at us from around the corner and are thrilled when we greet them. We’ve had quite enough for today, so we go to sleep, we’d left the heater on so it’s relatively warm. The bed’s hard as a board, but that’s standard here. I’d wanted to publish the blog too, but I just don’t have the energy, so I sleep for an hour and then post it.

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Cao Bang – Ban Gioc–Detian Falls

At 2am I need to pee, so I go ask if they could stop somewhere. They say we’ll be stopping in 10 minutes. I grab toilet paper, my phone and money. They drop me off by some restaurant. It’s genuinely pretty gross there. I pee fast and go back. We pick up a few more people who’d just finished at a pub. We stand there about another half hour. I put in earphones, since they’re snoring pretty loudly. I doze off again and wake up after 5am at the station in Cao Bang. It’s already fairly lively, probably also serving as a market. Our bus takes us on into the town center. Outside the bus doors about 6 men stand competing to offer us a taxi. I don’t even know where I am, let alone where I’m heading. So we continue on foot and go look for food. At the market everyone’s getting ready to sell, and in some places people are still sitting around. We find an open soup place and have pho ga chicken broth. A family’s getting ready to head out there, giving the kids breakfast, and the mother combs her daughter’s hair. Then she points at me with the comb, that I should comb my hair too, and honestly, fair point. They leave and shortly after a group of teenagers arrives, not sure if they’re finishing up or starting their day. They’re fairly chatty. We finish eating and go for a walk around town and along the riverside promenade. The sun’s starting to rise already.

We buy some sweet iced tea from a shop and go for a look round the market. They’ve got a really big meat section there. Then we go to see where the rental shop is. It’s still closed, but the lady at the side entrance tells us to text the number. So we send a message via WhatsApp saying we’d like to rent a bike, asking when they open, and that we’re off for a coffee. It’s already 7 o’clock and we find a café that’s open. We order black coffee, but as always, there’s something added to it that we can’t identify. The lady from the rent shop replies, and we sort out the details of the rent. She isn’t at home, but her mum helps us out. So we head over there. We rent a semi-automatic motorbike for four days for 600,000 dong (€24). We leave our laptop and a few other things we don’t need there. First, we head to a chemist’s, as sunny weather is forecast and I want to buy some sunscreen. I buy some Vietnamese sunscreen and then we go to fill up with petrol. We don’t have a specific destination in mind, just heading towards the waterfalls. All around us is beautiful countryside and steep green hills.

We pass an overturned truck, it’s a fairly winding road. It’s properly cold on the scooter. I’m wearing three-quarters of my clothes. It’s still early morning and we’ve got plenty of time, so we make a detour to Thang Hen Lake. Entry there costs 30000 dong. We pay and go to the lake. It’s a bit low and the promised turquoise water is more on the green side. Almost nobody’s here, so at least we walk around it.

We go check out one more nearby viewpoint. This one’s great. A view of a mountain with a big hole in the middle of it.

We continue on, and with the cold and my sleep deficit, I start getting seriously drowsy on the scooter. We stop in the town of Quang Uyen and go eat, hoping it perks me up. We can’t find anything suitable, but then we come across a Bun Cha restaurant. Good choice. The portion is just the right amount for me, so Jozef goes off for a baguette at a stall.

Then we want coffee, and we find a café, but it doesn’t even have a Vietnamese coffee. So we go look for one where men are sitting around, there will be good coffee. And sure enough, we find one. We explain to the man we want coffee with no additives at all. While the coffee drips, he pours us green tea. He offers Jozef a cigarette, and it didn’t take much convincing.

Then he pulls out a bottle, which Jozef declines since he’s driving, but I have some. It tastes really good, it’s grapefruit rice wine. Our coffee’s ready, so we sip it along with the tea. We really like a café like this. Usually at the newer places they put all kinds of syrups in the coffee and tea and it’s hard to explain what we actually want. I’ve already found accommodation, 40 km away. We’d like to wrap up early today so we can get proper sleep. We wander further through the countryside and the sun starts peeking through the clouds, finally. When we reach the accommodation, the sky’s completely blue and there’s a great view over the river.

It’s open inside, but nobody’s there. We warm up in the sun and wait half an hour. Nobody shows up, so we go check out the nearby waterfalls, which a lot of tourists visit.

They’re right on the border with China. We pay 40000 dong entry and walk around. To our surprise there aren’t many people, and the waterfalls are beautiful.

I’ve still got two pairs of trousers, a down jacket and gloves on, but for some people that’s a suitable swimming temperature.

We stay about an hour and head back. The owner’s there now, so we book a room for 200000 (€7.50). It’s basically a mattress on the floor, board walls and an open structure. But we get a proper duvet and a genuinely heavy blanket too. We shower and then sleep for 1.5 hours. We’d also booked dinner, since we really don’t feel like going back into town. We’re the only guests here and the lady makes us an omelet, pork, rice, fries and salad. We properly overate. In the evening I write and edit a bit more, but we want to get up early tomorrow, so I’d rather go to sleep.

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Cat Ba

I went to bed too late last night and it’s hard to get up. We wanted to leave at 8am, but only reach breakfast at 8:20am. The lady makes us each an omelet with a dry roll and sweet coffee. It’s really cold out today, about 15°C with light drizzle. Before heading to the ferry we go check out the market. Morning’s the best time. Crowds of people and lots of vendors everywhere.

Supermarkets basically don’t exist here, so you get everything at the market. Or an auntie has cuts of meat laid out anywhere on the street. We buy a bunch of bananas for the road. Jozef would never eat a banana back home, but here, one after another. They’ve got a sweet-sour taste. Then we head off toward the ferry. We choose the route through the middle of the island, for a bit of a change and nice green hills around us.

The trees are pretty broken from a typhoon that hit here two months ago. It’s unbelievably cold on the scooter. Wind-chill’s about 10°C and the scooter takes off another 10. We have to stop for a bit so my hands can warm out. Only a short way left to the harbor. We arrive and there’s already quite a line.

We want to buy tickets, but they’re not selling any. I try to find out what’s going on from a Vietnamese man, but I can’t follow his pantomime. Two Spaniards are waiting there too, they’d already found out what’s happening. The wind’s too strong for the ferry to run, and nobody knows how long it’ll last. So we wait. I tell Jozef this situation would be pretty unpleasant if we had, say, a flight to catch. We haven’t booked anything ourselves. After 10 minutes a guy comes up to ask what’s going on, since his flight leaves in 5 hours from Hanoi. Buses full of tourists are already turning around, and I’m getting hungry, and on top of that there’s the unpleasant cold. So I ask one of the Spaniards, Dany, for his contact, to text me if it starts up, since we’re going to eat. We drive a few kilometers back and go into the first restaurant. We order pho bo beef soup, hoping it’ll warm us up a bit. Instead the lady brings us some kind of pork soup, and it’s not good at all, but we don’t have the energy to sort it out, I was just glad to have something warm, even though I could barely keep it down. And then complete hopelessness set in for me. I texted Dany asking if there’s any update, and nothing. So we give up and head back to the hotel. We get a new room on the 7th floor, I hadn’t even realized it was that tall. It smells a bit of mold and it’s pretty damp there, but at least it’s not cold. We dive under the duvet right away, but just can’t warm up. Only after a good two hours am I finally warm and we go to sleep. We wake up around 4pm and go eat at the same restaurant as yesterday. Along the way we exchange more money, the rate is 1 EUR = 25700 dong. For dinner I have shrimp and Jozef oysters.

I try one too and it’s actually pretty good. At the table next to us is a group of about 10 Vietnamese people doing hotpot (they’ve got a stove with a pot of broth on the table, and they cook all kinds of meat and vegetables in it). They’re washing it down with rice wine they brought in a demijohn. We go for a bit more of a walk around town. At one stall I have a Thai pancake, I need it after today. At the hotel the owner tells us the ferry didn’t run at all today, so I’m glad we only waited there about 1.5 hours. And tomorrow morning she’ll text me whether it’s running or not, so we don’t overreact again. Today wasn’t a great day, but you can’t always have good luck. In the evening I catch up on the blog I fell behind on and go to sleep at least before midnight.

Sunday, 15.12.2024

Cat Ba – Hai Phong – Cao Bang

In the morning at 7am I text the owner about whether the ferry’s running. It is! So we pack fast and go down for breakfast. We have an omelet like yesterday, just I have coffee with milk and Jozef tea instead. When we head outside, it’s noticeably warmer than yesterday, and I’m wearing more layers too. We don’t stop anywhere and head along the coast straight to the harbor. We arrive right on time and board the ferry within 5 minutes.

We eat the bananas we bought last night. Then we head to Hai Phong on the highway, an hour away. We look for a bank before returning the scooter and withdraw 6000000 dong. We don’t know how frequent ATMs will be where we’re heading. We return the scooter, pay an extra 150000 for the extra day, and go for a coffee. Then to the railway station to find out when the train leaves. According to the board, at 3pm and 4:30pm. We ask the lady at the window too, and it’s confirmed. We also try to find out from her which station our train to Cao Bang leaves from, but no luck. I’d looked something up online, so we go to Cao Rau station. Along the way we look for something to eat. In a hidden little alley we find a man cooking fried rice with pork belly, egg and vegetables. Fed, we decide to continue on foot. We watch all sorts of bizarre things, people sleeping on their scooters, a wedding.

We reach where the station should be, but there’s nothing there, so we ask a guy, who directs us to another station 3 km further. We’ve got time, so we continue on foot. We pass more weddings and then reach a residential area. We walk past houses under construction. There are 3 men and 2 women working on one site. I’ve seen a woman near the mixer here several times now. This type of house is genuinely interesting. They’re about 4 m wide and have at least two floors.

The ground floor has glass doors, and they either run a business there or use it as a living room. It was funny watching in the evening how one family was having dinner on the floor and watching TV. We reach the station and ask about the bus to Cao Bang. It leaves at 7pm and a ticket costs 400000 dong per person. We’ve got about 6 hours. So we go look around the area some more. Nearby we find a pub that pours beer, so we go there. Jozef spreads out his work and I write the blog. At the next table there’s already a fairly tipsy group of Vietnamese people, and we share a shot of rice wine with them. Then they head home, on scooters. We stick around for a couple of hours and then go look for a restaurant for food. We can’t find anything suitable, so we go to the station restaurant instead. Then we brush our teeth and board the sleeper bus.

You take your shoes off inside, they give you a bag for them and a blanket. It’s fairly stylish in here, the lights are like something out of a massage parlor. The seats are permanently in a lying position. It’s fine for me, Jozef just has to fold himself in somehow. He decided it was a good idea to tell me how, every time he’s on a bus like this, he thinks about how it would break his legs in a crash. Even so I fall asleep right at the start of the trip, just for an hour though. Then I write the blog. I post it only after midnight and go to sleep a bit more.

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Cat Ba – Ha Long bay

We get up after 7am and head into town at 7:45am for breakfast. We pick a lady right by the road making baguettes. I have one, Jozef has two with egg, pâté and coriander. Meanwhile I remember I left my memory card at the accommodation, so Jozef goes back for it. When it’s time to pay, the lady thinks it over for a while and finally tells us 70000, we really can’t figure out how she got to that number for 3 baguettes. We reach the harbor a bit after 8am. We’ve still got time, so we go for a coffee next door and have one more chicken baguette packed for the road. We wait about 15 minutes for our group, there are only 18 of us total. Then we go through a turnstile onto the pier and wait for our boat. About 5 are docked here, and quite a few people are streaming in, given it’s cloudy and off-season.

Jozef marvels again at how much it’s changed here since he was last here, 8 years ago. Our boat arrives within 15 minutes. I love the interior, it looks so luxurious. First we get some instructions from our guide, and then we all head up to the deck. Our guide, Salu, tells us about the island, the people, Vietnam. First we pass through fishing villages.

People live there normally year-round and go out on boats daily to catch fish. Vietnam welcomes tourists a lot, since it’s an important part of the economy, and without them, they’d have no one to sell fish to. We head toward Ha Long Bay, a popular tourist destination. It’s mostly accessed from the town of Ha Long, from where huge tourist ships also run multi-day cruises, which is a whole different price bracket. The whole area’s listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s made up of limestone rocks and small islets rising above the water.

It’s a huge area, and it doesn’t even seem like this many boats could be moving through it. After about two hours we stop so we can go for a swim. The temperature’s about 17°C. We’re among the first to work up the nerve, and others follow after us. The water’s fairly pleasant compared to the surrounding air. We swim for about 10 minutes, some people jump off the top of the boat. A boat docks next to us and starts blasting loud party music. We’re a more conservative crowd, so we’d rather leave.

Next up is kayaking. We each get a vest and dock at a floating harbor with a pile of kayaks. We pair up and set off as a group. We take the route everyone here takes, through three caves. It’s beautiful here though. The first cave is just a short passage, the second has some really nice formations, and the third was fairly shallow, so every other kayak got stuck and traffic jams formed there. Behind it was just a turquoise bay, and then we headed back.

It takes about an hour and a half, and then lunch awaits. We anchor at a lovely spot and settle in at three tables. Lunch is a real treat. Spring rolls, chicken, tofu, fish, squid, salad, and rice are all brought to the table, and everyone dishes into a small bowl what they want. Melon for dessert. At our table we eat almost everything. Two Israelis sit with us, and we chat about traveling. They tell Jozef he looks like the actor Christian Bale. They ask if we’re related or what, so they’re a bit surprised when I say we’re married. After lunch the French group goes to play some game, the Israelis go for cards, and we go up on deck to the loungers, where we chat with an American. We’re getting pretty sleepy, so we take a short nap.

If I had a blanket, I could sleep for two hours, but my butt was cold. Meanwhile we sail up to Monkey Island. We anchor a bit away and can go swim to the island, but nobody has the energy for the cold water anymore. From a distance we see some monkeys running around the beach. We stay there about half an hour and wrap up the cruise earlier than planned. We’re at the harbor by 4pm, and from there we go for a ride around the area. We find some genuinely nice beaches and trails with views.

We go drop our things at the hotel and I convince Jozef to go for a run. I plan a 5.5 km route, it’s already dark, so we bring a headlamp too. We meet a lot of exercising/running Vietnamese people. The run was great, we shower and are pretty hungry, so we go eat. We’d spotted some restaurants while running, so we head that way. We settle at one that pours beer, where the lady lets us choose between sitting normally inside or outside on small plastic stools. Of course we pick outside.

We have fried rice with seafood. It’s a lot for me, so Jozef finishes off mine. Then we stop at the market to buy pomelo, since we’ve seen tons of them everywhere. We head to the hotel. I edit videos and eat pomelo, which Jozef laboriously peeled. He goes to sleep and I stay up until midnight.

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Hanoi – Hai Phong – Cat Ba

Hanoi is definitely not a quiet city. Good thing I brought earplugs. Early in the morning we’re woken by the aunties already preparing food for the whole day. We get up at 8am, pack everything fast and head toward the market. Along the way we stop for coffee at some man’s stand. We ask for no sugar, no milk, but it’s sweetened anyway. We sit on mini stools for a bit and continue. At the market we buy a little container and a knife. Jozef towers three heads above everyone else. Near the market we find a spot for breakfast. We have a pho bo soup.

We try to find an Agribank ATM, which has the lowest fees, but can’t find it anywhere. Once we give up and go withdraw at a random ATM, we spot it right next door. We withdraw 3 million dong, almost €120. Today we want to move on to Cat Ba island. We found out the bus to Hai Phong leaves from Gia Lam station, still about 3 km away. We cross the 1.7 km long railway bridge over the Red River. And it’s not exactly pleasant. In the middle there’s the railway, on either side motorbike lanes, and along the railing a very narrow walkway made of reinforced concrete blocks that don’t look very trustworthy.

But the chance it’d actually collapse is pretty small. We walk through Hanoi’s non-touristy alleys now. There are top-tier barbershops right on the street here, but it’s still early. We reach the station and ask the lady at the window when the bus to Hai Phong leaves. She points us to a stall right by the entrance. We buy tickets for 120000 dongs per person, and it leaves in 10 minutes. The bus has nice leather seats, but it’s built for Vietnamese height. Buses here also work as couriers. You just wave down a bus and it’ll deliver a package to a pickup point, where the other side can collect it. One man was sending a meter-tall lime tree, so they put it on the seats instead of the storage compartment.

It’s interesting watching the landscape out the window, but I’m tired too, so I sleep for an hour. The bus drops us off on the edge of town, earlier than we’d expected. There’s no scooter rental nearby, so we walk 4 km across the whole city. A lot of people wear masks here, so the air quality’s probably not great. I’m getting pretty hungry, but we sort the scooter out first. We happen to find a rental place a bit sooner than the one we’d marked on the map. We wake up the man, who’d just dozed off in a chair, and he calls over someone who speaks a bit of English. We agree on 2 days for 300000 dong. We try on pretty much every helmet, and Jozef finally picks one with little bears on it. We set off.

I have to navigate, so I’ve got my phone in one hand. He tells me that when I spot a good place to eat, I should tap him on the shoulder and we’ll stop, but by the time I notice one, we’re already 100 meters past it, and then we join a fast highway. So no eating for a while. It takes us about 45 minutes to reach the ferry. My leg’s gone completely numb from the scooter, so I hop over to buy tickets, 2 people and a scooter, 48000 dong. We wait about 15 minutes.

We board and go up to the second deck for the view. I’m pretty cold, since it’s all open. Jozef told me back home that it’d be warm in Vietnam, he wore shorts all last time he was here, and he’s still got them on now. Half an hour later we’re on the island and quickly speed off toward the town of Cat Ba, specifically to the harbor. We want to book a boat trip for tomorrow. The moment we stop, a woman catches us offering a trip for one million two hundred thousand, which seems like a lot. So we go look further. We’d thought there’d be a lot of people offering boat trips, but there’s nobody anywhere. Eventually a man approaches us, who has a tour agency there, and we book a trip for 590000 dong per person. That includes a full-day cruise, lunch, kayaking, some swimming and Monkey Island.

Then we finally head to our hotel in town. It’s really cheap, but with good reviews. A friendly Vietnamese woman greets us. The room has two windows, but with maybe 10 cm to the next building, and a walk-in shower. We drop our things and go eat. The town center’s fairly touristy. Jozef’s shocked at how much it’s changed here. Construction everywhere. Where there used to be a beach there are now about 30 machines building some megalomaniac project. We head back the way we came, since there were restaurants there we liked the look of. But suddenly we can’t find them, and when we do stop somewhere, they’re offering odd dishes. And Jozef had told me we wouldn’t have to hunt for restaurants here. I’m getting properly hungry now, and nervous, but finally we sit down at one that also pours beer. We order beef noodles and the lady prepares it right in front of us, outside. Within a few minutes we’ve got food on the table, so I’m happier now. On the way back we look for some kind of baguette, but find nothing, so we go buy fruit at the market instead. We buy mango, bananas and dragon fruit.

Once we’re back at the hotel, we eat some fruit and then I completely black out for about an hour. I wake up feeling pretty fresh, take a shower and edit videos. It takes me a good while and I go to sleep after midnight.

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Budapest – Guangzhou – Cam Ranh – Hanoi

Vietnam is a country I’ve heard about from Jozef about a million times. If he could move there, he already would have. So when he kept talking about it so much, I said he could take me there. We bought flights for 5 weeks, since they were cheap and life in Vietnam works out cheaper for us than in Slovakia anyway. It’s a tight fit, since we decided at the last minute to also go to Paraguay, so we were home for about 10 days total. When I floated the idea of not going to Vietnam, Jozef nearly had a heart attack. He’s really looking forward to it. We’ve barely planned anything. We just have a few points marked on the map, which I started looking at a week before we left, just so I’d know what cities are where.

Before we leave I feel pretty neutral, I pack the day before, it takes about an hour, and I don’t have any expectations.

The last few days we’ve been visiting people, having beers, saying goodbyes. We fly out of Budapest on Tuesday at 11:55am. In theory we could make it by train, but if anything went wrong, we’d miss the flight. Luckily, brother-in-law Milan doesn’t start work until the afternoon, so he drives us. We leave Partizánske at 5:30am and put on a podcast about minimalism in travel. The drive goes fairly fast. In Hungary I have to navigate so we avoid the toll highway. We slip onto it once, but only for a short stretch, hopefully there’s no camera there yet. We’re at the airport at 9:15am. We check in at the counter. We ask for seats next to each other, and we get them for both flights. Then security, which we clear fast, and passport control too. Jozef buys a Pilsner and does a bit of work while he has time. It all goes by quickly and we’re already boarding the China Southern Airlines flight. I’m pretty tired, so I fall asleep right away for about an hour and a half, and then they bring us food, chicken with rice and vegetables, some salad, fruit and a little cake. We have a beer with it and I put on The Help, one of my favorite films. Then, surprisingly, I watch films I hadn’t seen before, Hidden Figures and Little Miss Sunshine, and I’m happy with the picks, would recommend. They bring us food again, but no more beer. I have chicken again, though it’s not very good this time, Jozef has fish, which is better. Our seatmate even gives Jozef his salad, he probably looked like he’d eat more. I’m getting pretty sleepy, so I try to get comfortable. I put on Harry Potter in Spanish as background noise. I doze off a bit, but then we start descending. We land in Guangzhou at 5am local time (a 7-hour time difference). It’s a huge airport, just moving between planes takes 15 minutes, and then another 10 minutes on a bus, which smells terrible. We go for transit and go through passport control and security again. They’re fairly pedantic and people who don’t have their things ready get their whole bags rummaged through. We don’t have much time, so we just find our gate and finish off all our bread rolls from home. Then we take a brutally air-conditioned bus to the plane. I fall asleep right away and only wake up for food. I’m not even that hungry, but I have the chicken noodles anyway. To get to the airport we need to go through immigration, we’d done our visas online. We exchange some money at one of five exchange offices lined up next to each other. It’s funny how each one calls out to us, even though they all offer the same rate. It’s pleasantly warm in Cam Ranh, but pouring rain, so we scrap our plan to walk on the beach. Instead we lay out on padded benches and go to sleep. We sleep for two hours and then go look around the nearby shops. Jozef has a baguette, banh mi, and I have iced coffee. One more security check and we’ve got our last two-hour flight ahead with the budget airline Bamboo Airways. I sleep through this one entirely too. In Hanoi, taxi drivers stop us at the airport, but we know we’re taking the bus. We seem to have just missed one, since we wait over half an hour. It finally comes, we pay 45000 dong per person, and get off in the center half an hour later. Our accommodation’s fairly close, so we go drop off our things right away. Reviews were mixed, so we’re not sure what to expect. It’s called Hidden Gem, and it really is hidden, but we find it by the hause number. It’s actually a room at a woman’s home, so I show her the booking and pay. We just set our things down and head into the city. Jozef’s got a restaurant picked out for bun cha. It’s fairly full, so we sit upstairs. We share a bun cha combo and spring rolls, and get a heaped plate of salad with it. It’s pretty good, we’d just expected a bit more spice. Then we go for a walk around evening Hanoi. Locals exercise or dance in groups. Jozef wants to go for a beer somewhere, so he finds a local place, where they pour us 2 liters of beer into a jug. We settle right by a baguette stall, on tiny stools. Jozef’s very happy. We split one more baguette in half, and Cherry, a restaurant guide, approaches us saying to message her if we need anything. A proper slump hits us, but we still want to check out “beer street.” Jozef sat there having a beer with locals 8 years ago, on small plastic stools. Now it’s bar after bar, each blasting different loud music. You can’t even move through it. It’s pretty rough here, exactly the kind of place we try to avoid. Ugh, we push through to the end and go get some sleep instead.

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Malá Fatra, Veľká Fatra Kremnické Vrchy a Žiar

3 nights in a tent, 4 nights in a shelter, 1 night in a hut

Well, this hike really went well for us! We started off unsure whether we’d even finish it, but the further we went, the better it got. It runs through my favorite mountain ranges in Slovakia, and yet it still manages to show new, unfamiliar stretches.

We got beautiful Indian-summer weather and only had thick fog on the hills for one day. The timing was perfect, since the clocks changed on the day we got back. I loved these autumn days, in the morning I only needed to get up at 6:30am to catch sunrise, and in the evening I didn’t have to wait long for the stars to come out for photos. On top of that I got a good night’s sleep every night and recovered well. On the other hand, these shorter days meant we had to fit our daily kilometers into a set time window, with fewer breaks and sometimes even running downhill. It was tougher than I’d expected, especially the second half of Veľká Fatra, which isn’t as popular and had a lot of fallen trees.

This isn’t a hike I’d recommend to a beginner. But if you’ve already got some experience and want to try something harder, or train for an alpine crossing, it’s the right choice. At a normal pace you can manage it in 10 days, faster in a week, slower in two weeks.

There are plenty of shelters and places to restock along the way. Whenever we passed through a village or a hut, we’d eat there, and cooked the rest ourselves on the gas stove. We used up one 230g canister and a bit of another, and that’s with fairly cold conditions where we made a lot of tea and coffee too. For our next autumn crossing we’ll probably bring an alcohol stove, so we don’t have to worry about low temperatures. Our down sleeping bags have a 4°C comfort rating and we managed fine even at -3°C, wearing an extra down layer and, of course, sleeping pads with high thermal resistance. As for clothing, we had the same gear as in summer, just layered as needed.

Costs

“Food” means ready meals bought at a hut or restaurant, and “groceries” were bought at a shop. “Drinks” includes beer, coffee, and soft drinks. Total: €377.30.

Closing thoughts

Thank you for being with us again, and I hope our hikes inspire you to get out into nature too. It’s amazing out there! And no, we really didn’t run into a bear.

I’d love it if you left a comment here or sent me a message, it would make my day. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. You can message me on Instagram or email info@stupky.com.

Take care, happy trails, and see you next time.

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Saturday, 26.10.2024

→ 19,7 km ↑ 749 m ↓ 629 m – total 236,1 km

We get up at 6:30am again. It’s fairly warm in the shelter. I catch up on the blog while eating on rolls with ham, Jozef has with bacon. To drink we have black tea and coffee too. There’s a fancy outhouse here too, a modern one. I notice a Radegast 12 beer on the shelf below. I laugh at Jozef, since he’d genuinely have a beer last night given the chance. I go check out the second spring, which isn’t marked on the map. It flows just as slowly as yesterday’s, but at least I wash my face in it. Then I go pack everything and carry it downstairs. There’s good signal here, so I catch up on the blog. Jozef’s getting impatient and wants to go. He’d already changed into shorts, assuming we were leaving, so now he’s cold.

We set off at 9:30am, with the last 20 km of the route ahead of us. Today’s already typical autumn weather. Heavy grey clouds in the sky, with the sun occasionally peeking through, a strong cold wind, and colored leaves flying around us everywhere.

We cross the Sklenianske lúky and watch sunbeams filtering through the clouds onto the surrounding hills.

Then we climb Bralová skala above Remata. We’re a stone’s throw from home now. Beautifully colored hills stretch out below us.

We keep a brisk pace, ready to have this behind us. Now it’s just walking through forest, we finish off the last of our sweets, cross the highest hill of today’s stretch, Vysoká, and descend into Kunešov.

We get lost about three times, even though I have the route loaded on my watch. Eventually we reach an open meadow, where navigation gets simple.

In Kunešov a bus tempts us as it’s just about to leave, but it would bother us not to walk those last few kilometers. At the edge of the village we take a break, eat korbáčiky cheese and Asian jerky. We’ve only got 7 km left on asphalt to the end. Cows along the way make the road more pleasant.

The kilometers tick down and there’s just the last climb ahead, to Stred Európy (Center of Europe). We’ve both been there before, so we don’t stop. The end is close, just the last two kilometers.

We’re a bit anxious about what state we’ll find our car in. It’s there, in one piece, no wheel clamp, so that’s a relief. We change into somewhat cleaner shirts and swap into other shoes. It’s just starting to drizzle a bit, so we made it just in time. We sit down in the car with relief. After 9 days of walking, it feels like we’re driving unbelievably fast in that car, pretty funny. We stop at a farm shop and buy some head cheese and pork cracklings. We’re both starving, so Jozef munches on cracklings along the way, I’m not a big fan myself. We put on the Lajf podcast with Andrej Orogváni, a runner we met on the trail and whom Dávid identified based on the fact that he’d run the whole Koruna Turca and had a dark beard. Interesting guy, I recommend the podcast. We head toward Prievidza, to the Vietnamese bistro Phos. We order Pho, Bun nam bo and Bun cha. The woman there, who barely speaks Slovak, double-checks whether we really want three dishes, since the portions are huge.

We have no trouble finishing it all. We’d hoped for an open ice cream shop in Nováky, but sadly it was already closed for the season. I could’ve fit in some kind of dessert. Since we’ve got nothing at home, we put off the shower with a stop at Lidl. We shop, unpack everything at home, and it looks like a bomb went off in there. I go shower, washing my hair is a totally different experience at this point. I catch up on yesterday’s blog and Jozef’s already back at work. Our bedtime hasn’t budged, and properly exhausted, we go to sleep.

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Útulňa Javorina pod Kľakom – Útulňa SNP Sklené

→ 40,5 km ↑ 1420 m ↓ 1761 m – total 216,4 km

We get up at 6:30am. Slept nicely, warm in our sleeping bags. I lie there and finish writing the blog. Jozef gets breakfast ready. First he hands me bread with Pali pâté, but I don’t like it, so he makes me chocolate oat porridge instead, with tea and coffee.

Before we leave we visit the top-notch outhouse and tidy up the shelter a bit.

Today we’ve got the most kilometers of the whole route ahead, and we’re already setting off fairly late. It’s 5 km downhill to Vrícko.

First through forest, already covered in a pile of leaves, so we need to watch for rocks, then along a cycling route through the valley. The start of this road’s pretty marked up by logging, and even though we try to go around it, we end up looking like little piglets. We’re moving slower than expected.

In Vrícko we go shopping at the Jednota store. To our surprise they’ve got a fairly decent selection. We buy stuff for the last day: pasta, soup, tuna, mortadella, garlic, ham, a smoked cheese spread and good rolls. As a snack now we have a chocolate roll, a walnut pastry and a beer. We sit outside the shop for quite a while and then continue along the paved road about 4 km to Vríčske sedlo. I’d originally wanted to take the forest road, but it had more elevation, and given we’re in bear country, we figured this would be the smarter choice. At least it goes by fast on the road.

At the pass we join the SNP trail, which we’ll follow all the way to the end of our crossing. At the same time we also enter the Žiar mountains, which we should cross entirely today. We start with a fairly steep climb to Závozy through some unattractive forest. Then it continues more gently, with the occasional view.

Autumn’s really in the air now. Beautifully colored trees everywhere and leaves fluttering around us. But every time I try to film it, they stop. Jozef’s starting to think I have some kind of obsession with them. Here and there I remember bits of my own SNP Trail hike, like where I took a nap, and that in the forest before Vyšehrad pass there’s a little box with stones engraved with “Cesta hrdinov SNP.” If anyone feels their pack’s too light, they can add a bit of weight there.

Just before the pass, in a fence with cows, we have lunch, those amazing rolls. I catch up on the blog, though it takes a long time and probably means we won’t make it before sunset. It’s already past 2pm and we’ve still got 19 km to the end. Ahead of us is the last bigger hill, Vyšehrad. We move really fast and are up within 25 minutes.

We take some photos on the rock and jog downhill. From here the route should be gently rolling and mostly on some kind of forest road, which we can cover fast.

We push it to top speed and even run downhill. We barely stop, only for water, and in the second half I have a Mila bar to keep my strength up. There’s a lot of dense thicket here, so we whistle and tap our poles, but don’t spot any sign of bears.

5 km before the end we pass by Jožkovňa shelter, where I’d originally planned to sleep, but I want to check out the new shelter instead.

The kilometers tick by, and 500 m before the shelter we top up every bottle we’ve got. It only flows in a thin trickle, so it takes about 10 minutes. We cover the last stretch through the forest in near-dark. At 6pm we arrive at the shelter, genuinely happy with that timing. We go straight upstairs to lay out our things. There are nice mattresses, so we don’t even bother inflating the sleeping pads, just lay tyvek on them. There’s even a solar panel, so I charge my watch and we’ve got a light on. Jozef goes straight to cooking and I get started sorting through photos. First we have chicken soup with leftover Slovak rice, then pasta with garlic, tuna and mortadella, and finally herbal tea. I’m glad we’re finishing tomorrow, we really pushed it today and we’ve had quite enough. Our clothes could use a wash too, and I’d love to wash my hair. Jozef of course goes to sleep earlier, and I write the blog until 10pm. I don’t manage to finish it, but tomorrow’s a short day, so I’ll do it in the morning.

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