Sapa Sightseeing

H'Mong ladies weaving
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We head off from our hotel in the bus, after about 5 minutes our leader realises one party member is missing, frantic phone calls follow and she is ferried to us by motorbike and the rest of our trip to the railway station is uneventful. Our train is an overnight trip to Lao Cai. We both sleep fitfully all the way arriving at our destination at 5:30am. We are hustled to our bus for the drive to Sapa. We discover that the reason for this is that first group to Sapa gets the available rooms at the hotel, others wait for checkouts which don't have to be out until 12pm. We are lucky and get rooms straight away. Remember this if you are travelling to Sapa.

Our Hotel
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After a shower and breakfast we take a walk for about two hours down to the valley floor. The scenery is spectacular, unfortunately however the weather is not one hundred per cent but as it turns out, we have the best weather for the day during our walk. This is a gentle "breaking us in walk" for the next two days. An interesting historical sight in the bottom of the valley is the remains of an hydro electric power station built by the French to supply power to Sapa. The buildings and intake  are all still standing. We are ferried back to town by motorcycles. The rest of the day is free. We browse around town visiting the markets, including the local produce, meat and fresh tofu parts, all very interesting. There are not many vegetables and friuts that are not available in Australia.

Carol ready to trek
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Next day dawns with a pea souper of a fog, we can hardly see more than 10 metres but it starts to lift as we prepare to leave. Not promising conditions for photography though. The first part is easy just down the road then we turn of onto a track and head for the bottom of the valley. All the while we are accompanied by H'Mong ladies trying to sell us goods, this is to happen for the whole extent of our trek and becomes quite a nuisance. In their defence they do help a few people when the going gets tough but expect payment from us in the form of a purchase. Then its up the other side, all the while treking through terraced rice fields, the rice is about two weeks away from harvesting and just starting to turn yellow. The going is fairly tough and we have to ford the river before reaching our lunch destination. I rock hop and Carol elects to take off her boots and walk across. Lunch is a welcome respite, fresh bread rolls, fresh fruit and a cold beer. Hooray!!!

Sapa views
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After lunch its uphill again, many groans from everyone, but this is only a two hour stroll compared to the mornings exertions. We arrive at our homestay. which is well organised, has great views and as the remnants of the days fog lifts we see mountains we did not know existed. Tea is a feast with the meal being cooked by our guide and yours truly who does the stirred fried pork and vegetables in a large wok over the open fire. Quite a surprise to our fellow travellers apart from Carol. We all eat well the sample the local Rice Wine, a bit like fire water at first but after a couple, not too bad. Everybody sleeps extremely well.

Working in the rice paddies
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The sun is out this morning and quite warm, after a breakfast of pancakes and fresh fruit we head off up hill as usual. The H'Mong ladies are in our face before we even leave and follow us all the way as usual.This mornings walk is the toughest of the trip and all our guide seems to want to do is get to the end as fast as possible and the slower people are left very much to them selves and given little time to rest, as soon as they catch up he is off again. The track is very steep and slippery and quite difficult, not much time for looking as you try to keep your balance, eyes down all the time. Carol finds it very hard as do some of the others but we all make it eventually with a lot of muttering about our trekking guide who is being quite unreasonable. We finally reach the end and sit down to a cold drink, our guide wants us in the bus so we can go, we rebel and tell him we are going to finish our drinks first. Some of the others are still arriving. Finally we all get in the bus after being told no drinks allowed in the bus and lo and behold who gets in with a drink but our guide. Not a good way to end unfortunately. Back to Sapa for a shower, wash the clothes and lunch, then relax for the rest of the afternoon.

River crossing
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Today, Sunday, we are heading off to the Bac Ha markets which are famous for the way the women dress in their finery. The drive in the bus is quite "tortuous" with two of the party becoming car sick on the way. We drive back to Lao Cai and then onwards to Bac Ha. The first few kilometres from Lao Cai is on a dual carriageway road which suddenly stops at a sheer face and the road dives off to one side and becomes very twisty again and quite rough. Its quite an experience to meet a bus or truck coming the other way. The road climbs up through the mountains to Bac Ha and at one stage the fog is so dense that we can't see more than about 10 metres but this doesn't slow our drive who seems to fancy him self as a F1 racing driver. Bac Ha is a disappointment to us being a fairly grimy country town with the only real attraction being the markets and the women who do dress up very attractively in their multi coloured costumes with a preponderance of pink in the dress and hat designs. Other interesting parts are the animal market, lots of water buffalo for sale, the tobacco section where you can try before you buy and the ladies sitting along the road with their white 20l jerry cans. We wondered at first what they were selling but when we saw people tasting the contents realised they were selling the local Rice Wine.The markets sell pretty much what we have seen elsewhere and eventually buy one of the many wall hangings for sale after haggling with three stall holders in a row.

Bac Ha market ladies in their finery
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After lunch its back in the bus and a return to Lao Cai, we have a quick stop over to see the crossing point into China with the obligatory photos to say we were there and then off to "Ga Lao Cai", that's the railway station, for tea and then onto the train and off to Hanoi.