Vietnam – Sapa 18/5/16 – 20/5/16

Day 3
Picked up at the train station, we were then taken by a full mini bus to Sapa. Sapa can only be described as a ski village from any mountainous area in the world. It’s quite big, with large, beautiful ornate buildings with traditional Vietnamese architecture everywhere. And as it’s high up in the mountains, it’s very hilly, just walking around is pretty strenuous. So we arrive at our hotel and informed we could shower before breakfast, ( by now it’s. 7.30am). It so welcoming, that we ate almost everything on the buffet. Afterwards we were informed that the bags we had brought, we would be carrying on our trek. We soon unpacked our 2 backpacks and repacked only 1, then we were able to leave the second one at this hotel. (Hope your keeping up as we were very confused about our luggage being split around the northern part of Vietnam).
There were 6 in our group – me, Tina and 4 Taiwanese girls. We set off on our 18km trek across the mountain and into the rice fields, following not paths but dirt tracks, along the side of Mount Hoa Valley to Y Linh Ho Village of the Black H’mong. Up hill, down hill it was pretty hard going for a couple of old timers like us, but we plodded on and made it to our lunch stop. Along with us 6 was our tour guide, and 6 local village women in traditional costume, all looking as though they were from Peru, in fact the whole trek looked like we were travelling through the Inca paths. These local ladies resided in the various villages we would be walking through. They were just amazing, so friendly and keen to talk to us though they understood very little English. They would leave their villages everyday at 2am to walk to Sapa, then walk all the way back. They are so amazing. We soon learnt from our guide that the government here in Vietnam only fund for boys to attend school until their 10 years old. If the family is rich enough then they can send girls to school, however for Vietnamese lifestyles education is very expensive, and any money the people have is saved for the boys education from 10 onwards. The girls stay at home and sew, stitch, make woven blankets etc, for the women to sell to tourists. The men work in the fields. It must be a very harsh life for locals. But as sad as it sounds all the girls and women are extremely friendly and helpful. Some have limited English that they pick up from tourists and can get by. Our guide was very fluent in English and when asked she stated she had learnt it the same way, ie following tourist on the trek. She added she was only 5 years old when she stated the treks. Another story she told us was that the girls are married off from 15 years old, some arranged marriages, some marrying the boys from their village. She added that if a girl was not married by the age of 20, then they would become “worthless” to the family and village. So would end up being the 2nd wife for the elders in the village. Her stories were amazing, sometimes tear jerking, but always full of life. These locals with us had nothing at all but their kindness and smiles on their faces, one of them was a 75 year old woman very fit, and put me and Tina to shame. An awe inspiring trek. We passed through many villages, all females, I don’t think we saw a single male in the villages, all selling the most beautiful hand crafted products, purses, pillow cases, wall hangings, bracelets, all very colourful and extremely beautiful. The walk took us across the mountain and in and around the rice fields. We finally made it to our “homestay” for the night. Again we were greeted by the female of the house who welcomed us with the same smiley face as the local ladies who had walked with us all day. The homestay was a huge 2 storey wooden building, we the trekkers were sleeping upstairs. Once up there we saw at least 20 single mattresses on the floor, one of which was a double. Quick as a flash my backpack was thrown across the room and landed smack in the middle of it. It was now ours and wo betide anyone who thought different. We were then joined by another group of trekkers made up of 5 young (just left school young) London girls, who did not stop talking. They were typical 18 year old girls, lots of education, but not a single ounce if common sense or courtesy for anyone else. You know the ones I mean, they were talking about how one of them should marry Harry, but he wasn’t good looking enough!!!! We decided on a quick walk near the homestay and came across the most amazing wooden shack of a building, which was a bar!! What a score this was. Beers, cocktails, fresh coffee it had it all. Surreal.
Day 4
Up by 8am,to a massive breakfast of pancakes with fresh pineapple, fresh limes and sugar syrup. DELICIOUSSSSSSS. Along with mugs of fresh Vietnamese coffee. By 9am we were back on the trek. Today’s was very hard work, as there were hardly any track to follow, just walks alongside the slippery rice paddies, through a bamboo forest to the top if a waterfall, and back down the mountain. The climbs were really sheer in places and was really daunting. Again we had several local ladies from the village where the homestay was, walking with us. Very hard, very strenuous but very worth it. It was fantastic, glorious, magnificent, and a memory that will last forever.
After lunch we were taken by bus to the hotel in Sapa for a great shower, and meal. There were lots to choose from, Vietnamese and water foods, but we got a burger each, and it was the best burger ever. Back to the train station to board the overnight train back to Hanoi.