Views from the drive

We arrived at Lao Cai at 6 and then had a 2 hour van ride to get to sapa village. Beautiful drive! Rice fields and vistas and lots of driving hazards.....so many motor scooters!

Night train to Sapa

We left the peak and got lost and bounced around between ways to get to the airport and finally made it there and smoothly onto the plane. Miracle considering all the things that could go wrong. I told Daren once we were on the plane that I'm glad all the ducks are in a row but that there are just so many ducks!! Hopefully things continue going well.... So we landed in Vietnam and got our visas and booked passage on the night train. Took a taxi that dropped us off in the wrong place. Wandered around the totally crazy streets of Hanoi ( tons and tons of people and scooters everywhere oh and at 9pm it was 33 degrees C - hot!) Found our train, got hustled by some guy demanding more tip for walking us to our train car, settled in with two Vietnamese travelers, killed a kamikaze giant cockroach ( sick Vietnam....) And had a greay nights sleep on the 8 hour ride to Sapa. The last picture is the view I woke up to this morning ( well done Vietnam) hopefully we get lots of stunning views minus the cockroaches :)

The Peak

It rained a ton last night which made for a beautiful day today so we decided to take the cable car up to the peak for another view of the city. We of course got lost first....which is always fun in a new city. Daren got us the perfect spot in line and we headed strait up the mountain to the top of the mountains that the city are tucked into. We were again amazed at how tropical it is here. Outside the city is very dense jungle. The view from the top was really stunning. It is just incredible to think of all those millions of people!

Temple street night market

We left the bay and started walking to the night markets....started raining pretty hard, luckily its warm and tropical here. We ended up getting lost and finally took a taxi to the markets where we they sold all kinds of knock offs and watches, t-shirts etc. Plus tons of food. We could have picked dinner right out of a bucket. I prefer to be a little less personal with my dinner :) we opted for these little waffle pockets for $1....excellent choice! At one point we asked for a bathroom and ended up at a tiny dark room with a squaty potty....this lady was right outside chopping up crabs. Feel like this is more like the real city. Took the subway home....felt like there were infinity mirrors in there...no beginning and no end.

Star ferry

Tonight we rode the star ferry across the bay and enjoyed a beautiful view of the city. We arrived just in time for the festival of lights....where many of the skyscrapers "dance" to music. Nothing like the Mannheim steamroller houses at Christmas or anything but still cool to watch the city. Not sure what the giant rubber duckie is all about...just random piece of art I guess.

Giant Buddha

Next stop was on lantau island to see the giant buddah. It took a 30 minute cable car ( super windy ) ride to get us there. The views were pretty spectacular. Those huge apartment complexes are what blow me away more than anything else here....just the sheer quantity of people! The buddah was really cool to see. Beautifully set in the dense forest. All those there to worship were lighting tons and tons of incense. It smelled wonderful.

Hong Kong Temple

This morning we took a city bus (the one with awesome upholstery) out to kwoloon to the temple. So beautiful! We were able to go in and do some temple work. All the people Daren worked with were called Yip (we're thinking it must be family name first?) And half of mine were named Cheung Shi.....a testament to God's greatness. He must know all His Cheung Shi's well. It was also cool because the temple missionary couple, the Lewis', that helped us out were from Camarillo and know the Beifuss family. Small world!

Arrival

So we made it and were warmly welcomed at the airport by tons of people wearing surgical masks (love when stereotypes hold fast) We hopped a double decker bus to town (still a strong British influence here) and found our hostel. You can see Daren's bunk. That's taken from my top shelf bunk....do have that killer view out my window. Since were now 16 time zones ahead we were pretty beat but decided to wander around for a bit. The amount of light pollution in the city is incredible! To start the trip off right we hit up McDonalds to try their local fare....pretty good I'd say. I am of course wide awake now at 11am ca time and 2am hk time. Looking to be a wonderful adventure!

Vancouver airport!

I usually do not include airports as part of my journey...but can I just say that the layover was not long enough! This is the nicest airport I have ever been in! Aquarium, river and couches you can actually lay down on! And to top it off, a guy even said to us as we came off the plane, " warm, eh?" Haha....well done Canada.

Leaving on a jet plane

Got to lax at 515 am. And the adventure begins. Everything going smoothly so far....not saying much since we've been on the trip for 45 minutes but I'd say it bodes well for a great adventures!