Vietnam - Day 7

From Vietnam 2009

Jamie and I woke up by stepping off the train in Lao Cai. We then took a van up the mountain to our hotel, The Sapa Summit, in the little mountain village of Sapa.

After checking in and showering after our train ride, we headed out with our local guides through the village of Sapa, through the rice terraces, and down to the small 300 person village of Cat Cat. The H'Mung villagers live here and make all sorts of arts and crafts. They follow you around in packs asking and hoping you'll buy a little handmade item from them. The items are very pretty and you can tell they are hand stitched. We even saw the indigo plants they use for dye and the girls' and women's hands were dyed blue, black, and purple.

We hiked down to the villages before seeing an impressive waterfall and then hiked all the way back up to our hotel. After a great lunch, we wanted to rest a bit before seeing the town.

We had not really prepared for the weather, so I bought a little cheap rain jacket. Thank goodness I had brought a long sleeve shirt, but after we started our hike, I was hot, so I took if off.

Since it rained the whole afternoon and evening, we just took it easy and read and enjoyed the view from our hotel window. The rice terraces are yellow this time of year because it is harvest season. Back in the summer when we went to the Longji rice terraces, they were green. It is interesting to see the color change.

All for now. I've uploaded the pictures, but can't upload the videos because the rate here just isn't high enough. I'll wait until I get back to Hanoi or China for those. We have a long day of hiking on Day 8.