Bien May Hotel Sapa

... got to fansipan, which is in the middle of the national park. So we trecked 16km on the fist day up to base camp up the steepest terrain I have ever expeienced litterally had to pull yourself up in some places as your legs were not long enough to make the step. After an incredible meal cooked by the porter (if you haven't tried garlic chips you deffinatly should AMAZING!), and a lot of happy water (strong rice wine) on John's part ...

... Hot Rock, which is owned by one of Ryan's friends, Mai. Mai is amazing and such a little cute vietnamese girl. She smokes thin cigarettes and has a diamond in one tooth and only dresses in the finest attire. We had steak, salads, pizza.....ohh man!! That was awesome! <br> Than Dawner and I went for a quest to find Dr. Pepper and FOUND IT!! Yess! I still have a can of it! But not for long. Than it was time to head back ...

... br>However, globalization has made it to this village and there are<br>signs of change. For example, some houses now have water heaters, a<br>couple of homes we saw had satellite dishes, and then there are the<br>cell phones. All the guides have cell phones &#8211; for work they say &#8211;<br>but we bet they use it to call each other too. It's wild being in<br>the middle of a rice paddy with water buffalo and you're H'mong guide<br>(in traditional clothing ...

... amp; her hands were blue from the Indigo blue dye they use to dye the clothes from the local plants. The grandaughter had an 18 day old baby that was delivered in the dirt floor hut &amp; the Grandma cut the cord. The women work in the fields till they start getting labour pains &amp; return with the baby on their back when the baby is 1 month old.<br><br ...

... to the bone, i realised that was wishful thinking! our guide, ping was a member of the hmong hill tribe people (thats right, the same zipper head gooks that moved in next door to clints gran torino!). she took us downhill from the town before we took to the tracks and trails of the local people to make our way to a number of remote villages. after a couple of hours of non stop rain the skys eventually cleared and we started to dry off almost ...

Sapa's a picturesque chilled out place compared to Hanoi.. Far fewer mopeds in the small town, surrounded by rice paddies and mountains. The first day started well as I managed to walk straight into a sign (insert stereotypical remark about Asian height here..) and open up an old scar on my nose.<br><br>After breakfast and first aid we wandered around ...

12th September<br>Train arrived at 5am and we caught the connecting bus to the town of Sapa. The bus journey was straight up a mountain but the views were incredible. We went to a hotel where we showered, had breakfast and deposited our big bags in a locker before setting off with our little bags on the trek.<br>Sapa is really cold, not surprising really as it is on a mountain Mei loved it and didn't have to hide from the sun once. There were ...

... so Jie and Carolyn took their opportunity to hit the bars of Sapa whilst the boys were asleep. <br><br><br>Our last night we ventured into the local part of town to a place that we had stopped for lunch earlier and we knew did the local hot-pot specialty 'lau'. The westerner crowd from lunchtime was nowhere to be seen and instead a rather raucous Vietnamese clientele was in place. Before we could even take our seats the red-headed ...

... Somebody fetched the other 3 while I introduced the guys to Luke. They slowly got ready and we gathered outside to go back to the hillside. We piled into the van and took off. We went back to the village where we&#8217;d bought the first pig. This time around we were looking for a pig, a duck, and a chicken. We walked until the path ended and no more huts or houses could be seen in the distance and we turned around. We had asked every owner of every pig that we set eyes on if it ...

... guide went flying by on the back of another bike and then Grandpa took off after them. I looked back down the hill and still no sign of Luke. Had i just been ditched in the middle of nowhere, by myself, no map, no money, no bloody idea what was going on???? As my stomach dropped Grandpa stopped at the top of the hill and ushered for me to hurry up and run up the hill and jump on. Phew, crisis averted. I wasn't being ditched I was just too fat. Not sure ...