Sapa4
Never made the motorbike trip as yet. Instead of an easy Sunday afternoon, decided to trek around some other villages. They have just started cutting the rice and it was so colourful I decided to spend more time here. Then got chatting to one of the girls about doing a homestay and ended up next day treking to her village and then up the mountain to where her family live and spent last night at her house. Not exactly a homestay as those places more like guest houses in the village where as this was certainly a home stay without too many comforts but wonderful and no shortage of chickens, pigs , buffalos and dogs. The weather was excellent, the mountainside in its full glory with the rice terraces at their most scenic and the people very hospitable despite not being used to foreigners. We did some great walking and excellent photos. Was even able to inform that it was her 19th birthday according to her id card so she went from being 17 according to her the previous day to 19 in one go, bypassing a whole year !. The Black Hmong don’t celebrate birthdays so all irrelevant to them.
Then today treked back to Sapa. Had planned on a couple of days to recover but then was talked into a 2 day climb of Mount Fansipan tomorrow, the highest mountain in Vietnam. Given my total lack of gear I hope the weather will be good otherwise it could be extremely hard going. But too late now so can only hope.
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petefurlepa