Valley View Sapa - Phuong Nam Hotel

... travelling during the night. Had a free vietnamesse lesson in the evening at the tourist office which was quite fun, and will probs come in very usefull as we have heard the standards of english dettirorate the further you head south.<br><br>Day 2 organised a trip to fansipan (nicknamed the roof of vietnam) the highest peak in vietnam 3143m above sea level. What we didn't know was that we had to climb most of the moutain range before we ...

... to find her some coffee. And we finally were able to tame her. ahah. We than went to Hanoi International Fellowship and heard a great message, though Mel asked in her Australian accent "Do all pastors from America and stuff sound so boring?" I had to laugh at that, because the truth is there are some pretty mono-tone pastors in the states for sure. ahaha.<br> After church we got some amazing Western style lunch at this place ...

... there.<br> Suffice to say &#8211; not a lot of structure, but tons of fun! <br><br><br><br><br>Then we walked<br>through a couple of villages. The Black H'mong are called this<br>because of their black clothing &#8211; the Red Dao &#8211; because yep you<br>guessed it &#8211; their red clothing. These tribes still depend on<br>subsistence farming. The rice that they cultivate they eat &#8211; they<br>do not sell. So life up until 20 years or so was extremely ...

... all the guides were around 27 or 28 but I thought they looked 20 - 30 years older than that.<br><br> <br> <br><br>Walked past so many water buffalo which are massive animals when you are up close, so many fat pregnant pigs, ducks, chickens &amp; dogs. Visited one home where 3 generations lived. Grandma was 96 years old &amp; still did the clothes embroidery ...

we headed for sapa by overnight train, sleeping in a four person compartment with bunk beds.we set off at around 9 in the evening and arrived at the 6 the following morning. after being given a tempory room to shower, change and prepare for a trek into the mountains, we headed down for some breakfast and then, with our guide leading the way we set out into the torrential rain! i fully expected the trek to be postponed, but after half an hour, and ...

... head that way, maybe next year!<br>We head back to the village and have a look in the local market and then back to the hotel for our pick up.<br>Night train back to han oi for the two of us starts off well. a cockroach approaches my bed and the girl next to me nearly has an epo, she starts taking about 40 pills to calm her nerves! bleedin americans!!!<br>after 10 hours convinced the train had derailled, we reach han oi again! one more night and next stop thailand!

... a ce que tout ait une valeur materielle?<br> Ces tribus vivent pour certaines dans un denuement presque extreme, ont peine a cultiver assez de riz pour nourrir toute la famille et ont la legerete de nous acceuillir avce leur rires et leurs sourires pour nous ouvrir leur univers de simplicite. <br> <br> La est peut-etre le secret de leur vie en harmonie avec la vie moderne et les autres ethnies vivant traditionnellement ; la satisfaction de leur existence et independance.

... enough. Once there, the receptionist asked if he could help. I tried to explain that I was looking for 7 people, but he thought I meant that I needed reservations for 7 people. He lead me up several flights of stairs to show me an empty room. I explained again that I was to meet 7 people and he got it. He lead me back down a flight of stairs into a room with 4 people passed out on their beds. <br><br><br><br> I slowly woke them to out of their drunken sleeps and they got ...

... lunch it was time to head back up the mountain to catch the bus back in to town. We were given the option of a 3-4 hour walk up a long steep hill or a 15 minute motorbike ride. In the 40 degree heat, the motorbike was the only option for us. I jumped on the back of Grandpas bike (no helmets this time) and he took off, leaving Luke in our dust. After about 10 minutes at a particularly bumpy steep part of the hill Grandpa ushered me to get off. So i did ...