Scott arranged a trekking weekend for us in Sa Pa – a hilly region near the Chinese border of Vietnam. Our adventure started on Friday night, with a sleeper train from Hanoi to the town of Lao Cai.
The train was actually remarkably comfortable, with big bunks, air conditioning and no hooting! We arrived at 5am in jumped straight into minicabs for the 30km ride through morning mists up to Sa Pa.
It was market day – and also Communist stand around and drill day – so we soaked up some atmosphere while we prepared for our hike. Here’s Mr Hai, our energetic and very capable (despite his gormless expression here!) guide, deciding on a route.
It was downhill all the way (luckily), and one of our first stops was a primary school expecting some important officials that day.
Incredibly, it seems the local tribes do dress in those exquisite costumes every day, even for farm work.
Here’s a photo of us before we got too sweaty!
Here’s where we stopped for lunch. Karen bravely took the very rickety wooden bridge.
Intrepid explorers. Walking through the villages was extremely interesting, seeing how water was piped through bamboo to supply drinking and cleaning water and irrigate hundreds of terraced fields.
No comments:
Post a Comment