intandemwetravel

Fred and I got an early start and drove out towards Milford Sound. The sound isn’t far from Queenstown as the crow flies, but the road has to loop all the way around a set of mountains so it is 300 kilometers from Queenstown to the sound. There are many photo stops and short hikes along the road so we wanted plenty of time. We had a great view of the mountains as the sun rose.

Milford Sound is a giant glacial valley carved out during the last ice age, and it only gets more impressive as you drive through. There are massive mountains with waterfalls cascading down from their glaciers to the green valley below.

We picked up a hitchhiker along the way, a Canadian who was spending the night in Milford Sound. The three of us continued onwards, stopping at Mirror Lakes which were every bit as reflective as the name suggests.

The Kea is this crazy alpine parrot they have in New Zealand, and the birds love to play with different materials. When you park your car they will start picking at the rubber gaskets, or any shiny portions they can reach. They certainly aren’t afraid of humans at this point and you have to chase them away. These Keas were hanging out on our car as we waited our turn through the one-way tunnel.

We finally made it to the end of the road and discussed taking one of the boat trips, but they were all expensive. Also, Fred had done the boat trip in the past, so I decided to skip. Instead we did a nice hike around the Sound to where you could see the giant waterfall across the water.

After enjoying the views we started the drive back, and stopped at a few more points we had skipped on the way out. Milford Sound was incredibly beautiful, it reminded me of the fjords in Norway with the huge mountains reaching all the way to the sea, covered in waterfalls.

My original plan was to leave Queenstown on this day instead of heading to Milford Sound, so I had to search all around to find an available hostel for the night. Luckily Reavers had a bed available so I was able to move there for the evening.

I got up the next morning and hitchhiked out to the airport to pick up the rent car I was relocating back to Christchurch. It was snowing more so I decided to head back up to the Remarkables to ski for the afternoon. I didn’t want to buy a ticket so I hiked up the old fashioned way, and got a great run down the chutes above Shadow chair. It was a complete white-out up top so I just followed the boot prints hiking and was able to find a good run, and then somehow found my way back to the resort.

After the skiing was finished I got cleaned up in town and grabbed dinner from The Bakery. They make amazing meat pies, and everything goes buy-one-get-one at 5 PM, so I got two pies for under 5 NZD! Fueled up and ready to hit the road I headed to Wanaka, another ski town not too far north of Queenstown.

I stayed at the Flying Kiwi Backpackers in Wanaka which had a fun group of folks, most of who were spending the ski season in town. It was a good night hitting the town with them, the bar had a great band playing and was surprisingly lively for a Tuesday night.

The next morning I headed out of Wanaka to drive towards Mount Cook and eventually Christchurch. It was a nice drive through the center of the south island, with some great views along the way. I did a hike along Lake Tekapo and really enjoyed the crazy blue color of the lake.

I made it to Christchurch around dinner time and met up with Emma and Brendan, the Kiwis I had met in Queenstown. They have a spare bedroom at their place so they let me crash for the weekend until I head up towards Auckland.

I arrived in Queenstown late at night so I didn’t see the city until I woke up the next morning. When I exited my hostel and looked around, I immediately fell in love. Queenstown is set directly on Lake Wakatipu, and is absolutely surrounded by mountains. There are multiple ski hills within a short drive, mountain biking trails directly down to town, and every high-adrenaline sport you could ever want. Also the best night life in New Zealand: every night in Queenstown is a party (if you can keep up).

I was lucky to even find a bed in Queenstown as it turns out. I generally hate booking ahead as I like to keep my plans flexible, so I didn’t look for beds in Queenstown until the day before I arrived. However, I was in shock when HostelWorld returned zero beds available in the city! I started desperately searching different booking websites and looking at individual hostel websites until I finally found availability at the Haka Lodge, the hostel had great reviews so I booked it right away. When I checked in at the hostel I learned the full story: apparently I set the new record for someone to book a cancelled reservation, someone had cancelled that bed two minutes before I pulled up their website and found it! Currently it is the mid-winter holidays in New Zealand and Australia so it is absolutely peak season here, but apparently Queenstown is always this busy.

The trail towards my final goal: Ben Lomond Peak in the back center.

After returning my rent car I headed to the tourism office to ask about good (free) activities for the day. The woman mentioned a beautiful hike up to the saddle of Ben Lomond, or the peak if you were willing to work for it. I gathered my gear and headed up the mountain. The first section you could take the gondola, but I figured 45 minutes of work to save myself $35 of beer money was worth it! The views from the gondola were already lovely, but from there the trail turned to snow and ice so it was time for the microspikes and trekking poles.

I shared the trail up with some short and chubby mountain goats

Looking back at Queenstown from the top of Ben Lomond

I was pretty exhausted by the peak, but it was a perfect day and a fabulous view. I was only able to snap a few photos because my iPhone kept shutting off due to the cold temperatures up top.

I finished the hike down before dark, got cleaned up, and then treated myself to a Furgburger, the famous hamburger joint in Queenstown. The burger and onion rings were excellent after the hard day, and refueled it was time to check the bars. There is a great place that was recommended to me called Cowboys. It has a mechanical bull, 10 NZD liters, and a life-sized bust of Donald Trump in the urinal trough. I met an American woman at the bar who made them shut the bathroom down so she could take a turn at Donald.

Who hasn’t wanted to piss on Donald Trump?

I had the good luck to meet Emma and Brendan at Cowboys, two Kiwis from Christchurch visiting some friends in Queenstown for the weekend. I had a great evening out with them and made plans to meet up when I got back to Christchurch.

After the late night out there was no sleep in the morning, because there was 20 cm of fresh snow at the Remarkables, and more falling throughout the day. After hauling a pile of ski equipment around the south island, it was time to finally put it to use. The bus to the mountain costs 20 NZD, but it only took a few minutes on the side of the road to hitch a ride up to the resort.

When I reached the hill the conditions were near-whiteout, and the avalanche danger considerable, so my plans to ski the backcountry were quickly abandoned and I bought a lift pass. It was great to see snow again and the conditions were quite good. In the afternoon the chutes a 15 minute hike above the Shadow chair opened up and I had two great laps up there. On my second lap I ran into a group of instructors getting some laps after their lessons, and they were nice enough to show me a few good runs at the end of the day. After doing another hike with them I was thoroughly exhausted, and as it was closing time I hitched a ride back to town with a nice Australian family; my payment for the ride was showing them how to put chains on the car.

That night I was making dinner at the hostel and met Fred in the kitchen, an Australian here on a holiday. He was planning to head to Milford Sound the next day in his rent car. After a quick discussion about plans and confirming the forecast, we made plans to meet up early the next morning.

We left Cuc Phuong in the morning and started the beautiful drive towards Pu Luong Nature Reserve. The Pu Luong area is well-known for minority village homestays, primarily in the village of Mai Chau. However, Mai Chau is now far too popular and on the bus tour route, and apparently has turned from a quaint village in the mountains to a place where tourists are treated like a walking ATM. The Vietnam Coracle talks about another village inside the nature reserve, so we decided to try and stay in Bản Hiêu. 

Sunset over the rice terraces.

The Coracle’s website mentions two Homestay options, but one has since turned into a fancy eco-lodge that is out of our price range, so our plan was to try and find Mr. Ba’s Homestay, or somewhere else to spend the night. As we reached the nature reserve we turned off the highway onto a dirt road leading up into the mountains. All we had to follow was a google maps point from the Coracle, but it pointed us in the right direction. We reached the general village and were riding through the stilt houses when Hoai chased us down on his motorbike. He asked if we needed a place to stay, and proceeded to take us to his family’s house.

Hoai’s stilt house, the wooden stilts are over 100 years old as high quality trees are hard to find now days.

Hoai lives in a traditional stilt house: These houses are built up high to allow storage space underneath and to protect against flooding. The house is one large room inside with bamboo flooring and and a palm leaf roof, there is an outhouse and a separate kitchen outside. Hoai’s house only got electricity a few years ago as is costs $100 to buy the wire to connect your house to the grid, but now they have a small refrigerator, TV, and a single light bulb. Apparently the electric bill is only $5/month. They have no running water in the village, but Hoai was lucky to have a good well they dug in 2007 so they had clean water available. They kept a can of water filled from the well next to the squat toilet and you pour a bucket of water in the toilet when you’re done to flush.

Bamboo pipes bring water to the rice fields.

Bản Hiêu is a beautiful village in a river valley between mountains. We spent the afternoon hiking around the village with Hoai as our guide and seeing their traditional way of life. There are rice patties everywhere, and the patties without a stream to feed them water use an ingenious bamboo waterwheel to lift water from the river into bamboo irrigation pipes.

When rice fields don’t have a natural stream to supply them with water, the villagers build bamboo water wheels to lift water out of the river and irrigate the fields.

The locals haul bamboo down the mountainside by dragging it behind their motorbikes.

As we hiked up the mountainside, we saw villagers dragging bamboo behind their scooters, it turns out growing and selling bamboo is one of the major industries in the village as bamboo is greatly valued for construction. We saw one woman carrying huge pieces of bamboo out of the forest and Amanda tried to pick one up, I think the villager found us weak westerners quite amusing!

Amanda tried to lift the huge bamboo pieces that the villager had been carrying out of the forest.

This snake we saw crossing the path is apparently pretty toxic. Our host wouldn’t let us anywhere near it.

Hoai’s family was excited as their cow was pregnant, and if they can raise the calf to a healthy adult they can sell it for a significant amount of money. A grown bull is worth around $700, enough to buy a new motorbike! Bản Hiêu is a Thai minority village, so the locals are ethnically Thai despite living in Vietnam. They speak Thai among themselves, but they also learn Vietnamese in school.

It was time to get cleaned up for dinner after joking around the village, and since they don’t have a shower that means a nice swim in the river. Some of the local children were practicing their English with us while we bathed in the river: most children know a few basic phrases like “What is your name?” And “How old are you?”.

Dinner was a feast of spring rolls, pork, vegetables, and sticky rice.

The dinner was a feast of pork, vegetables, spring rolls, and sticky rice. It was going to be hard to finish all the food, and then they brought us another plate! Hoai’s father joined us to share his homemade rice wine, which packs quite a punch.

It was hot inside.

After dinner Hoai played some guitar, and we watched a Chinese drama that the family enjoyson the TV. Finally it was time for bed, so the rock-hard mattress was laid on the floor and the mosquito net hung up. We got to have the house to ourselves while Hoai and his parents slept in the kitchen and underneath the house, respectively.

Saying goodbye to Hoai after spending a night with his family.

The next morning we had another delicious but way too large breakfast, along with several more shots of rice wine (apparently they drink with breakfast and we had to finish the bottle). After saying our goodbyes, we set off on the road to Hanoi.

As we climbed higher into the nature reserve jagged rocks started to poke through the rice fields.

Hoai had told us the best route to take, and it was a lovely drive through mountains with village after village. However, it was also the steepest mountain pass we climbed during our entire trip. Amanda had to walk good portions of the climb while I drove the bike as the motorbike could barely climb the hill with both of us and our luggage. At the end of the day, we braved the insane Hanoi traffic and made it to Vietnam’s capital after a month on the road.

One of the joys of driving across Vietnam is witnessing what a motorbike can really carry. The bonsai tree delivery moto is one of our favorites, we’ve seen tons of the these traveling the highways.