Northern Vietnam - Sapa

After an amazing 3 days in Halong Bay we are now off to the hills of Sapa. Perched on a steep slope, Sapa overlooks a plunging valley of cascading rice terraces, with mountains towering above the town on all sides. Founded as a French hill station in 1922. We caught the overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai, one of the gateways to China and then caught a mini bus (1hr) up the hills to this small town usually shrouded in mist, but we with our amazing luck had sunshine and weather that wasn't too hot with no rain! Not sure who is on our side but I like it :) We arrived at our hotel to a dozen local girls dressed in traditional where greeting us with huge smiles and screams like we were celebrities. Soon enough they were our little tails following us around the town. It was very cute because allow they wanted us to buy stuff they were curious to know about our lives...
We wondered around the town that held such a French influence in the architecture and food with beautiful ladies in colourful garments running around smiling as we passed.
We ate breakfast and headed off on our trek into the hills passing villages and rice paddies along the way. The weather was sunny but they had had rain the past few days so the trek was a little muddy. The ladies and girls who had greeted us in the morning were now our personal helper down the hills to make sure we didn't fall in the mud. They guided us through the rough terrain all the way to their village (Tan Van Village). We arrived at our homestay around 2pm and in the most intense heat of the day we took off our shoes and went straight to work in the rice paddies. They showed us how to bundle the rice plants and knock off the mud to be made into little teepees to dry out before replanting. Every few minutes I'd hear little giggles from the ladies while they watched us work, I'm sure it would have been a funny sight. I honestly thought we were making more work for them in the end, but they really appreciated it. After about an hour of back breaking (not really) work we went onto the viranda in the shade for a nice cold beverage while we watched the villagers continue in the fields and the water buffalo plow paddies that would be relpanted. They work for 12 hour days with an hour for lunch bent over caring to these paddies....I can definitely appreciate that work and energy that goes into this even after one hour. Vietnam, after Thailand, is the largest exporting country for rice and we helped out very very minutely :)
Our homestay was half way up the mtn overlooking the cascading rice paddies which was a perfect spot to sip a Hanoi beer and watch the sun set.
We had dinner with the family and played with the kids, who had rotting teeth from the amount of candy they were fed from all of the locals....I joined in and ate it with them feeling bad that my teeth weren't rotted. We hit the hay pretty early in our loft bedroom and woke the next morning to the roosters, luckily no more work was to be done in the fields, just a nice crepe, banana and honey breakfast waiting for us.

After a lazy morning watching the villagers slowly increase in numbers in the fields we packed our bags and headed to the next village which was about 2hours away of straigh up and straigh down trekking. It was amazing walking through different villages and witnessing such a different way of life. Our trek was almost done as we sat at the top of a waterfall looking down on the Glang Ta Chai Village. We hiked down, ate a nice pho meal at the bottom of the waterfall, near the stream and waited for our motorbikes to take us back to Sapa. This was probably the most spectacular ride back to Sapa...on the top of the valley weaving back and forth as we watched the life happen below.
Back in Sapa Amy and I found a bar that had Shisha, so like old Cairo times, I had myself a Shisha and then went for a midnight hot chocolate and coconut bread...when in Sapa :)

The next morning Amy wanted to rest her legs so I hiked down 3km to Cat Cat Village. I trekked into the valley on my own and learned how to move a waterbuffalo from my path...good thing I had seen our guide do it the previous day, so I knew it could be done. I grabbed a long stick, started making a hissing sound and hit some nearby branches like I had a whip...surely enough this buffalo moved out of my path and down the hill to graze somewhere else. The hike down was very steep so I decided to catch a motorbike to the top again. Amy and I then hiked a mtn in Sapa which took about 30mins to view the entire town from the microwave tower. It was pretty surreal, it actually almost reminded me of a littler Whister Village, with it's European feel and look to it.

Before our overnight train back to Hanoi, Amy and I met some travellers and went to drink some Bia Hoi, which we had recently discovered. It's the cheapest beer in the world, literally .30cents for a pint...originally brought to Vietnam by the Czech's, it was continually brewed here after they left. It's a light coloured beer served from kegs on the side of the streets. It's a very local thing to do but you see the experienced traveller getting in there once and a while! After a few Bia Hoi's with a kiwi, Canadian, Irish, Aussie and the locals we made our way back through the valley to Lao Cai where we caught the overnight train back to Hanoi.