finding my place in the world: sapa

another place i didn't get to go the last time i was in vietnam was sapa...there are two reasons travelers go to sapa; one, to see members of vietnam's minority tribes...and two, to go trekking...i got to do both...to get to sapa, i took a night train from hanoi to lao cai, the vietnamese of the side of the border with china...from there i took a minivan to sapa...the tour was supposed to start with breakfast at the hotel in sapa at 0800, but my train arrived later than expected, which means my minivan was late too...i arrived at the hotel after 0900, which was when the first trek was supposed to start...so i ate breakfast as fast as possible, taking some of it to go with me on the trek...i felt bad for the other people in my group, since they had to wait for me...but they didn't seem to mind...the day i arrived, it was sunny, and lovely...

my trek started at the hotel, and walked down, out of town toward catcat village...our guide is a member of the black hmong...tourism is one of the ways the tribes make a living now...from what i understand, they stopped wearing much of their traditional clothing, but then realized that's what tourists want to see...so now the "city" of sapa is filled with villagers wearing their traditional clothing...when our group started walking, a whole bunch of tribespeople walked with us...they tried to make friends with us, and everyone knew that they would try to sell stuff to us...the english they know is all related to tourists, but at least they've made the effort to learn...most of them know bits and pieces of a number of different languages...from this lookout point, we were able to look over the valley where catcat village is located...we could see the school, and some of the housing...

we could also see rice terraces...this wasn't the optimal season for seeing the terraces, but oh well...if i remember correctly, there is only one rice crop a year...

she was just sitting there, looking beautiful:)

this is typical housing in the village of catcat...according to our guide, only about 500 people live in the village...walking through, we saw random animals, but mostly houses with stalls set up selling stuff to tourists...i don't know how i feel about that...

and of course, there were super cute kids in the village...they're too young to know that they probably won't have an easy life...

at the "bottom" of the trek, we took a break at this waterfall...not surprisingly, there were places set up where people could order kabobs, drinks, and other trinkets...our guide told us we would have a 10 minute break...which of course ended up being closer to half an hour...

one of the places sold apple wine...

on the way back up to sapa, we saw the back side of the school...our guide said there are 42 students at this school, serving kids up to age 13...she called it a family school...she said that after that age, there are two options...one, to go to the school in sapa, and pay for it, or two, drop out of school and start earning money...sadly, most of the kids take option number 2...

after the hike, we had the rest of the day to explore the town of sapa...there isn't much to see...in the middle of town is a market catering entirely to tourists...nearly every stall sold the same thing, and all the vendors are aggressive...just in case that's not enough, there were ladies in the middle who walk up to you and try to get you while you're wandering...

underneath that pile of cloth in the middle is a little baby...who was just staring at the world...i have no idea who he/she belonged to, but i'm guessing all the women in this picture had half an eye on the baby...

the next day our group wasn't nearly as lucky with the weather...it was pea soup thick fog...we couldn't see a thing other than the road/trail in front of us, and not even much of that...

even petrol pumps need to be protected:)

at our first break on this trek, the boy was playing in the tree...i'm pretty sure he was walking with another group, as every trekking group has lots of villagers walking with them...

since i couldn't see any of the countryside, i spent the trek trying to take photos of the ladies...(i never did figure out where the men were)

the fog never did go away...

i spent a lot of time talking to a couple living in singapore, they're both originally from china...you can barely see the suspension bridge we crossed behind us...

it turned out there was a newer suspension bridge, from which i took this photo of the old suspension bridge...it's easy enough to see why the new bridge was built...