Hotel Saomai Sapa

... said goodbye and thank you to the family who hosted us and it was time to head off on the 10km trek back to our minibus. Once again it had rained the night before, so it was even muddier than the previous day. Somehow though I survived the trek without stacking it again. The first part of the trek was about 2 hours and uphill all the way. It is said that it has the best views, however because of the rain, and the cloud over the hill we were climbing we could see no ...

... using toothpicks as currency ha ha

I personally found the first day to be a little more difficult just because it had rained the whole previous day so it was pretty mucky and slippery. Around the valleys there's no paved path for you to walk on you're basically walking on mud and rocks over mini waterfalls and streams.
The second day we went through the jungle, visited two different ...

... there.
Suffice to say – not a lot of structure, but tons of fun!




Then we walked
through a couple of villages. The Black H'mong are called this
because of their black clothing – the Red Dao – because yep you
guessed it – their red clothing. These tribes still depend on
subsistence farming. The rice that they cultivate they eat – they
do not sell. So life up until 20 years or so was extremely ...

... Present holiday
Mike & Carla from Washington DC - travelling the world for a year & 2 months into it. Mike is a teacher & Carla a lawyer
Eduardo & Carissa from Spain on their honeymoon
Lena from Germany who just finished studying engineering



Picked a bed each & hopped in under our mossie net for the night

... Tribe. We crossed rivers on bamboo bridges, passed herds of grazing water buffalo and harvesting rice farmers, skirted pristine rice paddies and marvelled at the fresh, sun-bathed scenery. The poverty was sobering....but the simple life of these hill tribe people was in some ways enviable. Lunch was simple village noodles and then another 2 hours of trekking brought us to the welcome waiting minibus! The next day was a slightly gentler ...

... In the evening we helped our guide to cook traditional Vietnamese dishes over a charcoal stove. The feast was amazing which we shared around a big table with the family and drank lots of rice wine. After a few games of cards we retired for the night before another days trekking in the mountains.

13th September
Had a really good nights sleep thankfully and the cold shower was outside with the spiders. After breakfast we were told ...

... women walking down the road, dressed in their traditional garb. Which is sandals with a black piece of cloth that is roughly 6 inches wide and 3 feet long. It is wrapped around their shins several times and tied up with string. A black pleated skirt with an over coat usually lined with brightly colored threads of silk. With a black turban/hat type thing wrapped around their hair that is tightly woven into buns. They are known as the Black Hmong people because they dye their clothes ...

... back in Sapa in the afternoon and the group split up to explore the town. Al and I wandered through some markets for a while and saw a street barber that gave straight-edge shaves and since my face was pretty stubbly anyway, I thought it would be a great local experience so I asked him for a shave. He sat me down and, thankfully, pulled out a brand new razor. He lathered my skin and meticulously shaved every square inch of my face.

I was really nervous that he was ...

... were so far up in the mountains it was quite cold and was a really nice break from the hotter parts of southern Viet Nam. Being so high up also meant we were closer to clouds and since it was the rainy season there were huge downpours daily. Our first day we were welcomed with monsoon-like weather and the streets literally gushed with water like a river. Since we were so short on time we somehow braved the rains and tried to check out the covered market ...

... walked past, surrounded by a police entourage, cool huh? Early night after the madness of the previous night...

The next day I fancied doing some walking and eventually walked about 8 miles-ish down to Cat Cat village, along the river and back via Sin Chai village.... nice scenery, a few tourists, couple of different tribes, walking past herds of buffaloes and goats.. the usual! The best bit was playing with some kids... they somehow turned rice grass into arrows and ...