1. ok, i think this is the 2nd last post before we present ourselves to vietnam.
2. last night we have bought 80% of the ration needs. Spent around RM 177. Pending stuffs:
   1. aik cheong coffee
   2. all those brahims’ or yeos canned food. have brought sardines and maggi yesterday.
   3. salted fish
   4. cili api
3. zani has voluntereed to cook sambal ikan bilis.
4. syuk has bought the chicken floss and dodol too.
5. contacted thai binh hotel . Most probably will pick up the tour package from nam hong. The price is USD 167 inclusive of the following:
   1. train hanoi-lao cai-hanoi on livitrans. 4 beds per cabin.
   2. transfer lao cai-sapa-lao cai
   3. fansipan trekking for 2 days 1 night. With 1 guide + 4 porters.
   4. 2 nights sleepover for 4 rooms of twin beds.
   5. tavan village trip on saturday
   6. bac ha market trip on sunday
   7. we can cook at the hotel, gas provided
   8. cooking @ phang xi pang will use dry woods
   9. free wifi @ the hotel
   10. no need booking fees. just the 1st page of passport scan and email.
6. need someone to handle equipments. Most likely will need:
   1. tent? just for emergency. will communicate with nam hong on this.
   2. kettle
   3. cooking ware: stove, pan, etc.
7. im looking forward to buy my own backpack. my own msr ( found one irresistable 2nd hand set from ebay ). and some clothing. i need new cloth…adeh…habis la duit aku.
8. zaid has not make his passport. grrr.
9. waje might be having problem with his wife. we wish him all the best and we believe you can do it waje.
10. seriously reconsidering the personal tour guide from vietnam.

so the itenaries is like this

day 1: 11/2 – arrived in hanoi from kl, wandering around hanoi, take train to lao cai at night
day 2: 12/2 – arrive at lao cai, proceed to sapa, start trekking up to 2900m
day 3: 13/2 – summit fansipan, descent straight to sapa, overnight at sapa
day 4: 14/2 – go to tavan village, one more night in sapa
day 5: 15/2 – go to bacha – return from bacha, return to hanoi via train at night
day 6: 16/2 – arrive in hanoi, sightseing in hanoi, overnight at hanoi
day 7: 17/2 – sightseing hanoi, overnight at hanoi
day 8: 18/2 – going back to kl

after some dicussion, i think we will proceed with thai binh hotel.

6/2/2009

after reading tripadvisor’s advisories, i think, yeah, we proceed with thaibinhhotel. when i was searching for thaibinhhotel travel advise, i found out they had negative feedback. but after futher reading, the one has bad reputation is at hue, not at Sapa. The one at sapa is very good as the owner himself arranges the tour package.

thaibinhhotel is slightly off the main road in sapa. Got internet connection in which i need most later. we’ve got further discount of USD 16. Emm..ok lah. not that bad. but i read somewhere that they dont have the view like in mountain view hotel. emm. emm. this is something interesting to ponder.

actually we can lower down the cost by hopping on cheaper train. But again, livitrans looks good and actually my friend who has been on livitrans had a good experience. But still, whats inside our mind is to get things done cheaper. We want to prove that, climbing fansipan can be done under RM 800. We want to prove that climbing fansipan is cheaper than climbing mount kinabalu. grrrrrrr….everybody is complaining about the steep price hike for kinabalu climbing trip.

syed called yesterday that he can work out on better exchange rate. For every 1 RM, he can get 3.54 USD. that is like 10 sen cheaper. i think i will proceed with syed’s plan.

anyway, about the ms tho, i think i need to work out some extra budget for her. since some may not like the idea of hiring an extra tour guide as it means more money has to be forked out from their pocket. I need at least 4 people who is willing to forkout some money for her. i just feel bad when we are about to brake the promise we had.

ok, thats all for today…cya.