Sapa - Vietnam

 We arrived in Sapa at 5am but the bus driver was nice enough to let us all sleep on the bus until 6.30am when he chucked us off the bus. Sapa is about 5000ft above sea level but I wouldn't have known we'd climbed that high over night if it wasn't for the fact that a crisp packed had swollen up like a balloon in my bag. Some local ladies were waiting to greet us when we got off the bus. They wanted us to book a trek with them while we were there. We didn't want to make any rash decisions and so told them we would go to our hostel and have a think about it. We had breakfast and then got some info from our hostel on the treks that they provide. We decided between us that we would book a two day trek with them and myself and Kay would do a one day trek with the local ladies. Jess was coming to the end of her visa and so she would need to leave vietnam before Kay and I. Her plan had been to head to Loas and wait a few days for us there. 

We booked our trek with the local ladies, our guide Tam Tam was so lovely and we were very much looking forward to our trek with her in a few days. 

We then went for a walk around Sapa town and the lake. It was so unbelievably beautiful, you would think you were in the Alps with the surrounding mountains and french architecture. 

We had bought plenty of warm clothing in Hanoi but thankfully it wasn't that cold. The temperature would drop quite dramatically when clouds would come over the village, and particularly at night. 

We started our trek nice and early the next morning. There were about ten of us in total doing the trek. The first hour or two were a bit over cast but it wasn't long before the clouds lifted and we were gifted with the wonderful view of the rice hills of Sapa. We walked for a few hours before we stopped at a village for some tasty food. After lunch we walked for another hour or so before the majority of the group left to get the bus back to Sapa Town, they were only doing a one day trek. The three of us, two Israeli guys and our guide carried on for a short while to our home stay. There was another American couple already at the home stay. They made us some home made chips and gave us delicious plum wine to keep us going until dinner time. 

The temperature hasn't been very hot, maybe twenty degrees or so, so none of us had the sense to put on any sun cream. This resulted in myself and Kay getting a wee bit burnt on our faces and chest. One of the Israeli guys nicknamed me moonface because I had been wearing a headband which covered the top of my head which made my sunburnt face look like the moon, apparently! 

We had some time before dinner and so Jess, Kay and I went for a walk around the village. We stopped at a bar, yes they have bars in those remote parts of Sapa, and had a hot chocolate to heat us up a bit. 

Dinner was a mountain of delicious food which was followed by an early night, we were all pretty exhausted from our day of walking. 

The next morning we woke up early as Emelia, one half of the couple who were with us, was a yoga instructor ad had agreed to do a quick class with us. This was going to be myself and Kay's first ever yoga class and I was really looking forward to it. We all grabbed a towel and set them down outside. We did our short class which was brilliant, but a lot harder work than it looks! 

While we were all having our breakfast of pancakes and bananas, our guide came over to tell us that the lady running the home stay was very upset that we had used towels for our yoga that morning. He told us "she has to used those towels for over one year, and you have just got chicken sh*t all over them".

This started a hilarious discussion where we joked about how often they wash the towels we had used to dry ourselves that morning and that we were probably doing the next group a favour, since they would now need to actually wash the chicken sh*t off. I sincerely hope that something was lost in translation and that they don't in fact use the towels for over a year without washing them! 

We started off for our second day of trekking but we unfortunately didn't do much today which was a bit disappointing. After we checked back into our accommodation and showered, we decided we would go for a nice relaxing massage. I generally don't find massages relaxing due to the fact that I am so ticklish. This massage was the least relaxing I've ever had, and that is saying something! Some crazy chickens decided to start making an absolute racket underneath the window which made me start laughing which in turn made my masseuse crease up too.  We had dinner and mulled wine and we to our accommodation to relax. Jess decided to risk overstaying her visa and so she would do the second trek with us and then leave for Laos that night. 

The next day was very chilled, we were all a but stiff from our hike/massage and so we spent the day walking around Sapa looking at all the nice things on offer in the shops. 

The following day we started our second trek with Tam tam at 9am.  We actually ended up walking with some other local woman, which was a bit annoying as we were all looking forward to spending time with Tam tam but it turned out that the other lady was just as nice. We walked all the way through Sapa village, getting some raw sugar cane on the way. I didn't much like it as it gets stuck in your teeth, it's also not ideal for a diabetic so I just tried a little bit. We walked up and up and up a never ending hill, but the views from the top were beautiful. From the top, it was then mostly down hill, which can be very hard going too, using muscles your not used to using. Tam tam had told us that we would be able to buy gifts and souvenirs at the village where she lives but the woman walking with us only had bracelets for sale. We arrived at her village about 2pm and she asked if we wanted to walk any further, we were all a bit trekked out and anxious to get back to Sapa with plenty of time to pack our bags for our night bus. She gave us all a free "silver" bracelet and sent us off on motorbikes back to Sapa. 

We had enough time to pack and get some nice things from the shops before we left for the bus. 

We had read that this journey from Sapa to Laos was supposed to be horrendous but we decided not to listen to the masses and just booked it anyway. The bus arrived an hour or more late and so full already that they really struggled to get our bags on. The had to remove a live chicken from underneath to make room for Kay's bag. 

After boarding the bus, they made some Vietnamese people get out of their seats to make room for us and made them sit on the floor. I would feel bad but I'm sure they paid only a fraction of the fortune that we paid for that bus and they weren't going as far as us anyway. It was pretty difficult to sleep as we were going around corner after corner to get down the hill. We were turfed off our bus early the next morning and put on another bus which took us to the border. 

Quite an uneventful crossing by the usual corrupt standard, Jess even got through with only having to pay a small fee for overstaying. 

Goodbye beautiful Vietnam, hello Laos!