Day 55 - The Perfume Pagoda and Train to Sapa

Left around 8am and arrived 2 hours later in the area where we needed to be paddled across the river by boat. Many of the women who paddle the boats are widows from the Vietnam war. It's insane, these women are ridiculously strong. Each boat holds 4 people and the rower. The women who rowed the boat I was in was a complete superstar. She was the oldest rower and passed all the other boats to get to the pagoda. The journey is supposed 1 hour but it only took about 40 minutes. Really funny lady. She kept saying "Number 1!". The journey down the river was great. However it was obvious that this place had been flooded there were monuments and gravestones that were almost totally immersed and the water was about 2 meters higher than it should be. A lot of the buildings looked like they had been abandoned.

Upon arrival on land I decided that I would forego taking the cable car up to the pagoda and walked up the 2000 steps to the top. It was a lot easier than I expected and only took 30 min. I'm realizing that I'm in the best shape I've been in a long time. Trekking around and carrying a heavy pack is definitely a way to build endurance.

At the top of the steps was a cave filled with Buddhas, it was actually quite disappointing. Probably because the buddhas were all lit up with LEDs. The cave was also quite small. The pagoda was built by 3 monks that were now buried on site.

On the way back our rowboat lady passed 7 other boats with a huge smile on her face. I gave her twice the suggested tip of 40000D. She totally deserved it for paddling so damn hard. I could never do it.

The bus ride back took 2 hours and I got dropped off the train station to get to Sapa. Hanoi train has to be the dirtiest train station I've ever been to. From the squating blocks in the open washroom to the hundreds of dead roaches lining the baseboards with rats running along them. It was absolutely disgusting. I hope the train isn't as gross as the station is. I've got 10 hours until Sapa.