Ah, the beautiful Mountains!

These are the two H'Mong girls that befriended us on our first day in Sapa. They both speak perfect english and are just lovely. This was taken in the backyard of their home.
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I was so glad to leave Hanoi on Friday with Mum. I'm well and truly over Hanoi and its scams and rip offs.

The train to Sapa is quite an event. You go to the train station where it seems that 40,000 people are trying to get on the train as well. You plough through the crowds in the waiting room to get to a man who can help you with your ticket. Because the ticket that you have bought is not enough to get you on the train, you have to get another ticket stapled to that ticket or it doesn't count. You then head off into the station at speed, following a man who now has your tickets in his hand. He races through the crowd onto the tracks. The people at Sydney rail would have a stroke if they saw all the passengers wandering across the tracks like Brown's cows to get on the train. We made it to the train and got on and settled only to find that the man had put us on the wrong train so we had to get all our stuff and race off across the station again to the right one. Finally we were on the right train, in the right carriage and could settle. We had asked in our booking for bottom bunks, but of course they couldn't get that right here so we had a top and a bottom. Thankfully, the two men with whom we shared the carriage, agreed that they would take the two top bunks. We were very lucky and got to share with two tour guides who both spoke perfect english and were taking groups up to Sapa for the weekend. The cabins were nice enough and the beds pretty comfortable given their width. The biggest problem on the train was the toilets. Disgusting doesn't really sum up how gross they were at the beginning of the trip let alone at the end. Someone locked themselves into one of the toilets in our carriage so everyone had to use the one toilet for the entire trip. They make the toilets in the train stations in Sydney and Melbourne look like luxury but at least it wasn't a squat! The men in Vietnam are not the cleanest and they had been drinking beer once we left Hanoi, so their aim was not good. The toilet had wee all over the floor which was not helped by the fact that the toilet also leaked when you flushed it. They had weed all over the seat and they didn't bother to flush it after they went so the entire room smelt of urine as well. It was very difficult when I got up in the middle of the night to squat over the seat without touching it and wee. I'd recommend to anyone who is going on this train not to drink for hours prior to boarding and not to drink at all on the train so that you do not have to experience the loos. The toilets at the station at Lao Cai are squats but at least are clean so definitely much better.

H'Mong girls walking in the streets of Sapa in their traditional dress. They wear it most of the time unless it gets really hot or they are doing something really dirty
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Other than the toilets the train trip was good and we had a good night's sleep before arriving in Lao Cai. We jumped on a bus up the hill to Sapa straight away. Sapa is just lovely. The hills are terraced with rice paddies and there are houses dotted in amongst the fields. The locals were walking up the road to the town to go to the market, carrying their goods on their backs. We arrived and dumped our bags at the hotel before heading off for breakfast. Baguette and Chocolat in Sapa is an off shoot of the cafe here in Hanoi and is just divine. Breakfast was one of the best that I've had in Vietnam with real toast and Mum even got boiled eggs with soldiers.

This is one of the houses that you pass on your way to Cat Cat village in the valley below Sapa.
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We were befriended by two local girls from a village about 7 km from Sapa. They are living in Sapa selling craft from their village to tourists. They also work as trekking guides some of the time. They both dress in the the traditional Hmong clothing and were beautiful. They spoke some of the best english of anyone that I've met in Vietnam and they had both just learnt to speak from the tourists. They showed us around the market and the town, pointing out things of interest. We then went back to the room where they live in Sapa for them to show us their craft work. They live in a room off someone else's house and share between them. It's not much and I imagine it could be very cold in winter. The craft is just lovely, mostly cushions and bags and Mum and I bought some each. The girls then posed with us for photos with the hillsides in the background. They were some of the nicest people I've met in the whole time I've been in Vietnam and for the rest of the weekend they would call out to us and come over and say hello. They were very taken by my blonde 'baby' hair and white skin.

These two little H'Mong girls were selling trinkets in the street in Sapa. We got Chi to translate for them so that we could buy a little decoration.
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Unfortunately the weather closed in a bit in the afternoon so we stayed in the hotel room for a while. We had dinner at a nice Vietnamese restaurant called Mimosa. We were the only people there initially but it was really really good food and freshly made. We were both impressed.

On the Sunday morning we trekked down to Cat Cat Village which is about 3 km from Sapa, on the way we were befriended by a woman and a little girl. The little girl was only 8 years old and was walking with another woman from her village as a chaperone. They chatted to us as we walked down the mountain. The woman was carrying her 5 month old baby on her back and said that she carried her to and from Sapa every day. They pointed out their village on the other side of the valley as we walked down. They have to walk down to Cat Cat and then back up the other side to get home. The walk down is really lovely and you pass lots of little houses where they are making the indigo dye that the Hmong use to dye their clothing. You can smell the dye from ages away, it's very strong. We also saw the women picking the leaves that the dye is made from. It's a very strong pigment and many of the women have blue hands from working with it.

This woman walks 7km up and down the hills every day to go to market, carrying her baby on her back. The little girl with her is from her village and has just started selling things on the walking tracks. She is eight.
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At the bottom of the valley is a large river and waterfall which is really beautiful and helps cool you down a bit. You then walk along the edge of the river for a while to complete the circuit. We bought some more craft work from these women. I even got a belt that the little girl had done the sewing on with some help from her mother. I'm going to use the panel of embroidery to make a dress in Hoi An. They then set out to hike up the side of the valley to get back to their village. We were starting to get very hot so when Bono and Sakura (these are the names on their hats anyway) started to hassle us to go on motorbikes, we eventually secumbed and went up the mountain with them. Quite an experience and I'm not comfortable on them at the best of times, let alone going up a hill. At least there was no traffic to speak off.

This is Lyn wearing the traditional headdress of the Red Dzao women. We were really pleased that this lady let us try it on and showed us how they put it together.
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When we got back we decided to have a cool drink in a cafe and a Red Dzao woman came to try and sell us some of her handcraft. She was really lovely and let us try on her headdress and posed for photos with us. They are really heavy things to wear. No wonder they have such good posture. She even unfolded it and showed us how you fold it to get it to look right. In reality is is just a large scarf that is put together in the right way to sit on the top of your head. They look quite strange when they take it off because they shave the front part of their hair so that you can't see any of it when they are wearing their hats.

These are some of the many rice paddies that are built into the sides of the valley surrounding Sapa.
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After lunch we set off to walk up the radio tower but unfortunately the weather closed in again and fairly soon you couldn't see the other side of the valley. So we decided there was no point in hiking up the hill to look at the clouds and went and sat in the hotel instead.

The Hmong girls bumped into us in the street as we were heading back to the hotel to leave and said goodbye. They were just the nicest people, I wish that more of the people here were like them. I'm sure that they will go far in Sapa, they will probably be running the place in a couple of years as they are only 17 and 20 at the moment.

This water buffalo was being difficult for his owner and ended up being left at the bottom of the hill with something to eat.
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Getting on the train to go back to Hanoi was interesting. We arrived at the place that our tickets said we should go and it was closed, door locked not lights on or anything. So we headed to the station to see what we could find. Inside there was no sign saying King express and the man at the door spoke no english. So we went outside to try and find someone who could help us get the ticket that would actually let us onto the train. We found someone who was stapling tickets and he pointed us to two very flustered looking people with a motorbike. They stapled the extra paper on and sent us away. We then went to look for our train and were pointed to the train on platform one by the women checking tickets. So we went to get on it which caused much consternation for the ticket collector because he already had people in those seats. We did much standing around on the platform while they tried to sort it out and eventually they realised that it wasn't our train anyway and that we were meant to be on a different train. So we waited for the first train to leave and then for ours to turn up. In the end we realised that the train on the other side of the station was ours, so trundled across the tracks and tried to get on. The woman checking tickets for our carriage was a stickler for forms though and wouldn't let us on because while our tickets said that we were on carriage number 5, the little white piece of paper didn't have carriage 5 written on it and therefore we couldn't get on. We found a man who could explain it to her in Vietnamese and in the end she agreed to write 5 in the gap herself. So we finally got onto the right train and could settle. Again we shared with two tour guides, one from Friday night and another man who had been there for nearly a week. It was a pleasant trip back again though a very early start to the morning.

I'll write about our couple of days in Hanoi another time because I don't want to spoil this section with complaints. Sapa was wonderful and restored my faith in Vietnam again. It's a definite must visit, as much for the people as for the scenery and the cooler weather.