Delights of Bac Ha

I lied when I said we wouldn't update for a few days - internet is just too cheap here not to go on again (4,000 VD about 15p an hour).

Bac Ha Market

Today we went to Bac Ha market which happens every Sunday and everyone comes out in their Sunday best - the tribe here are mainly Flower H'mong - so called because of the bright coloured clothes. Got there after a bumpy journey of about 3 hours and spent a couple of hours wandering around the market. It was pretty huge and fascinating. Pigs being sold one place, food another, loose tobacco with men and women trying it in huge vertical pipes. Blacksmiths reshaping the farm's shovels, handicrafts, rice wine out of gasoline canisters. It was a photographer's dream.

Flower H'mong women

After the market we wandered around the streets a bit and saw a few hundred metres away where the 'car park' was. Horses were tied to railings and one of them seemed to have been clamped (see photo). After lunch (more great spring rolls) we drove onto a Flower H'mong village and met the grandson of the tribe's last king. He basically spends all of Sunday meeting tourists and plying us (and himself) with corn wine. Needless to say he is more inebriated as the day goes on as its pretty strong stuff. We were certainly not the first set of tourists that day!

Then another couple of hours on the bus to the Chinese border (we were missing China already) at Lao Cai (vietnamese side)/Hekou (Chinese side). The Vietnamese can just go into China without a visa and vice versa (according to our guide anyway). Then back to Sapa for dinner and an early night preparing for trekking tomorrow

Horse clamping is a serious problem - cowboys!