Sapa

After a long day of walking around and site-seeing, we were quite excited about the prospect of sleep, however, we weren't sure what to expect from the sleeper train. Thank goodness a man from the tour company we had booked through accompanied us to the station, as we would never have found the train in the maze of platforms otherwise. The train was very nice. Each compartment has four bunks and they come with individual lights, water, and a pillow and blanket for each person. The ride was a bit rocky, but we all managed to get some sleep before we arrived at Lao Cai station. From here, we were picked by the tour company and we were driven in a minivan for an hour to get to Sapa. The drive was rather scary, as the roads are extremely windy and our driver was driving extremely fast! But, we made it there in one piece. 

It was so freezing cold when we arrived, that we were all very grateful for warm showers, followed by a nice hot breakfast. There was pumpkin soup at the breakfast buffet, which isn't something we've ever had for breakfast, but it was so welcome since it was sooooo cold!

The Hanoi train station

The Goldstones' compartment

We FINALLY got to wear our crocheted beans from Jo!

After breakfast, we were met by our guide - Tu. He told us to get ready for a day's trekking, and we followed him out the door and down the road. We were a big group, so our tour was just family, no randoms, which was really nice. Every tour group is accompanied by a varying number of local ladies who help along the way, with the expectation that the tourists buy trinkets from them at the end of the day. The people native to this particular area are from the Black H'Mong Tribe - the name partly originated from the clothes which they wear (predominantly black), not the colour of their skin.

We walked down the steep streets, through Sapa Town, and kept winding our way out towards the farmlands. There was a belt of low-lying clouds just below the town, so our view was obscured. This just added to the mystery and excitement of what we expected to see on our trek. It also meant that there wasn't much (or any) sun to warm us up, and that there was quite a bit of moisture around. Before long, we turned off the road, onto some dirt tracks.

The path meandered down the steep slopes, passing by homes of the farmers, venturing into the pockets of trees/bamboo plants and teetering along the edge of the muddy, terraced rice paddies. It became quickly apparent that all the moisture around was going to compromise our sure-footing in some places, and the local ladies became useful assistants from early on.

Balancing on the edge of a muddy, terraced rice paddy

The Vietnamese signal for "Take a picture!"

Easy does it!

We continued down the hill, and, once we dropped below the clouds, the view opened up before us. We stopped for a little while to admire our first view of the famous Sapa hills, and to take some photos. The mist showed up on the pictures way more than in person, but you get the idea.

Our first view of the hills of Sapa

The day continued much the same - with us slip-sliding up and down the slopes of Sapa, walking past little homesteads, balancing along the edges of the terraces and admiring the real beauty all around us. When you stop to think about the time and hard, manual labour that must have gone into creating the terraces (each level following a unique contour line), you can really appreciate the wonder and awe of the area.

We didn't just go down

Crossing one of the rickety bridges

When we got to the bottom of the one valley, we stopped for a break next to the river. There was a young water buffalo looking for its mom. It was so cute!

Stained hands of one of the ladies accompanying us

While we walked, we couldn't help but notice a similarity between Sapa and the Transkei back home. Well, in terms of the way that the people live, at least. There are loads of farm animals milling around (some of them with a dot of spray paint on them to help identify who they belong to), properly free-range! The children all seemed happy, running around in rags, some of them bare-foot, some with gumboots, all smiling and laughing while they played in the mud.

This cute little guy was happily running along when he wiped-out into one of the big puddles of water, much to Mel's amusement!

The 'serious' trekking ended at a 'restaurant', where we stopped for lunch. It was at this point that the ladies that were accompanying us brought out their wares. We were a bit irritated by the experience, as we were all happy to pay a tip that the ladies could (evenly) share among themselves. Instead, we had to buy products from them, which meant that some people made more money than others.

Outside the restaurant, there were a few groups of cute kiddies playing. Mel and one of them were amusing themselves by pulling faces at each other. We couldn't resist taking some photos of them.

After lunch, we carried on walking to the van that was going to pick us up. It was a rather steep hill and poor Jo's knee was hurting from all of the downhills throughout the day. Luckily we could go at our own pace and she took it slowly and made it! At the bottom of the hill, we were greeted by loads of little children splashing in some water during their school break. The teacher called them in, but some of them were adamant that they were staying out for longer! The chilly temperature and the water alerted us to why all of the children had runny noses.

Posing on the edge of a rice paddy... Mel almost fell in!

This little guy, splashing in the water, in his grey suit and pink Crocs was actually just too much!

At the bottom of the valley, we stopped off at a clothing 'factory' - a wooden house where a few people make the traditional Sapa clothing. We were shown the processes to get the clothes to look the way they do, from extracting the treads from hemp plants, to dying the material using indigo plants, hand-stitching patterns, creating patterns using bee wax before the dying process and shining the material using a pair of logs and a lady 'surfing' on the top log to create the shine.

Sewing the hand-stitched patterns onto the clothing fabric

A loom to weave the hemp into fabric

'Surfing' aka. shining the material

It was then a drive back to Sapa Town up some very steep and windy roads. Here we picked up our bags and were then dropped off at our beautiful hotel. They had a fire in the reception area, which was marvelous!

After thawing out a bit, we all headed up to our rooms for a nice, hot shower and to get ready to go find some dinner. It was New Year's Eve, but none of us managed to get a decent night's sleep on the train the night before. So after an early dinner (as in we ate at 5.30!), we headed back to our hotel. Just down the road, we saw a bar that Mike said he was keen to check out solely based on its name - Color Bar. So Mike, Kelly, Mel and Ross went for a drink.

It was a cool little bar. Dark and dingy, but they had a blazing fire and cold beers. They also brought a metal stand with hot coals and put it between us for warmth. The only other patrons were a young couple from America, who had been working in HCMC. We chatted for a while, before turning in at around 21:30 - wild New Year's Eve of note!!