Sapa Trekking

Our Sapa trekking trip was awesome.  We saw some amazing sights, although the valley gets foggy and smokey.  The smoke is from the rice fields.  The rice harvest is almost over so they burn the left over stalks to help reseed and fertilize the land. Makes for smokey pictures :(  We tried rice wine, which is awful, and had a great night at our home stay.  It was definitely worth the extra money to start the trip further from the tourists!

Oct 18 - Trekking
Today we got to go trekking. The day started off with a motorbike ride from Sapa to the village of Ta Van. This is where the guy, Jorge, we were meeting had spent the night.  Most trekking trips go from Sapa and spend the night in Ta Van.  It was a little confusing when we arrived because they didn't realize we had been promised breakfast but we were fed pancakes (crepes) so it was all good. We set off on our walk with our guide Chi Li from the H'Mong (Mung) tribe.  It was a beautiful day. The sun came out and there was a bit of a breeze. It had been cold in Sapa since it has a much higher elevation, 1600m, so we had to shed all our layers. The walk was very nice but awkward at times. The trail zigzagged up and down the rice terraces. You had to watch your step a lot of the time because the trail was muddy and slippery. We went through a bamboo forest and stopped for a rest beside a beautiful water fall. We had lunch in the village of Xian Tao Cai.  Before we had lunch we were mobbed  by the locals trying to sell their wares. I somehow got away without buying anything.  Beau bought a belt/head band and some sort of whistle thing. We then continued on our journey. We got stuck behind a water buffalo for a little ways. There were marijuana plants growing along the side of the road. They make there clothing out of hemp. I hadn't noticed the plants before until our guide pointed them out.  We took another break in Su Pan and hooked up with two girls, Ester and Gena and their guide, Ly Sa.  We had a steep walk down the mountain to Ban Ho. This part of the walk wasn't all that scenic there was construction, big water pipe lines, and power lines. Across the valley one hillside was completely deforested and a road was being cut into the mountain side. Our guides said it was because of the Chinese. We made it to our home-stay and were happy to put our feet up. The home-stays are government regulated; they have to have a western toilet, electricity and a mattress for each person. Our beds were on the second floor, the family lived on the main floor with the kitchen and living area it was all open air. We got to eat dinner with our guides and our hosts. They prepared a ton of food. We were also served rice wine which tastes a little like vodka but thank goodness less potent but you do shoot it. Our host was really into it, we learned to cheers in Vietnamese Một hai ba, yo (1,2,3, yo). We drank about 3.5L of rice wine between 8 people. It was hilarious then our host started a dance party to some cheese 80's music video he had on the tv. We got some great stories out of our guide Ly Sa. She told us about her having an arranged marriage at 14 and how she kept telling him to "go away". She married this guy at 19 and now they have 4 children. Her husband has a girlfriend but Ly Sa says she's okay with it but the girlfriend can't marry her husband. If she wants to she has to come work for Ly Sa's family. We couldn't tell if it was common place or not to have multiple wives. She told some other stories many of which involved her saying "you crazy" and "go away" and "I kill you". It was a pretty awesome night.

The waterfall and our lunch spot

Our Home Stay

The beds

Dance party with our host

Oct 19 – Back to Sapa and Hanoi
There were roosters crowing every 30 min or less from about 5 am to when we got up. We had another delicious breakfast of crepes. We set off on another walk which was straight up hill. We arrived at Nan Ton village and looked around the school but we didn't see much else before we headed back down. It was very hot out but we got to go swimming in a river which was icy cold. We had some lunch and then the girls and their guide set off to meet their ride back to Sapa. We, unfortunately, had about an hour to kill before leaving. Mike played some cards with the hosts daughter and a little boy. It mostly consisted of throwing cards around. The ride back to Sapa was as uneventful as a minibus ride can get on a twisty turny 1.5 lane road can be. There was a room available to shower in at the hotel but there about 8 of us wanting to use it. So Beau and I went in search of some food. We found a market where the locals could buy meats, vegetables and fish. In the meat section you had to dodge little puddles of blood. There was a good little street food stall where we got some fried noodles for dinner. After eating we went back to the hotel for a nice cold shower. Hot would have been preferable. We took the shuttle back to Lao Cai and had a couple beers with Mike and an Aussie guy who was on our bus. We got on the train and settled in for our 9 hr train ride back to Hanoi. 

Our group minus Beau

The view

Where we went swimming brrrrr