Fresh off the boat from HaLong we grabbed the night train to Sapa to attempt to get some sleep before our trekking started the next day.
When we got to Sapa at 7.30am it was cold! Hanoi had been like an Indian summer - reminding me of being back at school in a still warm September in England and HaLong had been warm enough for sunbathing. You don't get that at altitude!
We were wearing all our clothing for breakfast at the Auberge hotel and this was sitting inside! According to someone's iPhone it was 13 degrees - makes me wonder how I'm going to cope with 4 degrees back in the UK... Oh well!
Cat with hat - having just removed her gloves! Hmong lady in the foreground - they worn the same costume whatever the weather!
We soon warmed up as we started walking in the sunshine, accompanied by our guide La and an entourage of Hmong ladies 'helping' us.
Our entourage - following us in the hope of selling us something when we stopped for lunch.
The first morning trek was gentle - we headed down the main road to Lao Chai and then cut across some fields to see the beautiful rice terraces - all fallow at this time of year, but still stunning!
We stopped at Lao Chai village for lunch and the deluge of Hmong women and children trying to sell us stuff started. I had to buy a snazzy head scarf off the lady who befriended me, but we held out against the kids trying to sell stuff - it was a Sunday so they weren't in school - but it only encourages them to skip school if they make money...
Pregnant piggy - we saw lots of rotund piglets - yum pork!
And lots of ducks - it wasn't clear what they did with the ducks - La seemed to say that they didn't eat them or the eggs - think it must be that they eat both the ducks and the duck eggs!
Corn hanging to dry at one of our rest stops
After Lao Chai we hung out for a bit waiting for the day trippers to get the bus back to Sapa and this is where a Red Dao lady befriended me to sell me her wares!
Then we had a 30 minute scramble to the first nights homestay at Ta Van village. When we got there another group of 6 where already there and surprise surprise using the hot shower!! Just what we needed to clean and warm up. After 4pm the heat disappears from the valleys and it got cold again. To combat this we ended up perched on small stools around the kitchen fire for most of the evening.
After a delicious dinner - which strangely enough included fries stir fried with garlic (yum but not exactly traditional!) all the women quickly whipped out their embroidery - each woman had to make 2 pieces for each of their family member's for New Years (Tet) and they only had a month to go to finish them!
The other group's guide was constantly stitching!
After a night snuggled up under our blankets & mossie nets we were refeshed for a banana pancake brekkie and for the going to get tougher.
This time the trekking was off road and mostly up hill. We were walking the narrow mud ridges between rice paddies - trying not to fall in... A moments distraction lead to me getting a wet foot!
Stepping stones across the river
We stopped in Giang Ta Chai for lunch and for the one nighters to catch the bus back to Sapa. We were immediately mobbed by ladies and children trying to sell us stuff - they seemed to favour James - perhaps they thought he was the man with the money!
It got cold again when we weren't moving, which promted us to wear all our clothing and for me to wear my new Hmong scarf like the locals to keep my head warm!
Cat modelling the 'wearing all your clothing at once' look
Moni and Chi who sorted out my scarf!
We had an hour to kill so I showed Moni and Chi my photos from Vietnam - they've never left Sapa so they were fascinated by the pictures of HaLong bay. They told us about their lives in Sapa and how they hope to visit Hanoi one day - but they need to make lots of money first...
They showed us their embroidery and told us that it can take a year to embroider a full outfit - however some women do it quick so they can sell the pieces to tourists! All the women around here have stained fingers - either blue from the indigo dye they make the hemp cloth out of - or green if they are embroidering with green thread - you don't really see the stain when they use yellow!
Saying goodbye tour new friends we headed downhill to Ban Ho and our final homestay. We literally went straight down the hill - cutting out the switchbacks if the road - it was really steep and I was so glad that it hadn't rained recently, otherwise we would have been going down on our arses!
That night we ate with the family and shared some rice wine with them - warming even though we were far down in the valley so it wasn't as cold as the previous evening.
Ban Ho - really pretty, but right next to a whopping hydroelectric pipe!
Another nights sleep - probably 12 hours! And the next day we were off for a short walk to the school in Nam Toong village up the hill.
Cat outside th colourfully decorated school
Red Dao ladies waiting on us to leave so they could follow and sell us things at lunchtime!
Piglets on the way back from the school
We headed back to Ban Ho for a quick instant noodle soup and then had to walk back up the steep slope from the previous day. I was covered in sweat by the time we made it up the hill! The shower back at the Auberge hotel was very welcome are getting the bus back to Sapa!
We had a few hours to kill before getting our night bus back to Hanoi so we wandered around the market and got the hard sell from the vendors - the ladies from the lunch stop had warned us that prices in Sapa were higher than buying out in the villages - and that was definitely true - we had to bargain hard! I'd always prefer to buy from the ladies direct and not from a shop.
So back to Hanoi it was on a twisty turny night bus - technically a sleeper bus, but I'm not sure anyone managed to get much sleep until we hit the flat roads!
