Sapa here we come

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After a long day doing the perfume pagoda and a good dinner at the Baguette and Chocolate, we crashed hard till 11am the next morn. We dragged our overslept butts around Hanoing for a couple of ours trying to waste time till our 11pm sleeper train to Sapa. After an OK sleep being rocked in the sweat box the call a sleeper we arrived bushed at the town on Lao Ci at 6am. We found a local driver with a placard with the worst spelling of my name I have ever seen and plopped our buts into yet another minibus. A crazy twisty hour drive up higher into the northern highlands we arrive in Sapa proper at about 7am. We were treated to a quickly baguette and jam breakfast and it was trekking time. At about this time Jess and I looked at each other and thought what the hell have we gotten ourselves into. But we gathered some stuff up in our day bags for our two day hike and set off. Our guide "Show" was an amazing young girl who dressed in the Black Hamong traditional wear. She herself wasn't of the black Hamong people but said the tourists liked that wear better than her tribes traditional wear. She was very open, honest and spoke very good English. If anyone is going to Sapa and has a choice of guides I would highly recommend this great young girl. The trek was surprisingly easy and mostly down hill, which was of a great relief to both Jess and I. If anyone is going to Vietnam and thinking of skipping Sapa I suggest you give your head a shake and kick your self in the butt as this might just be the best part of Vietnam. Show introduced us to many of her family members and took us through some of the most amazing land I have ever seen. Being that I am from a mountainous area I was surprised at the aww that I experienced. The one night stay we had on the trail was spent in a traditional village in a locals house that show knew and introduced us to. We had an amazing dinner cook by Show over a wood pit with some of the family and shared some traditional rice "wine". Two of the younger family members Duan and his sister, 7 and 9 years old were the life of the place and very smart. They spent allot of there time cutting sweet potatoes, dipping them in batter and deep-frying them to make the best dumpling thingys I have ever had. Conversation was as good as the food and I went to sleep in the attic or loft of the old wooden shack of a house like a baby. The next morning we woke early had a huge stack of pancakes with bananas and honey. We said goodbye to the family and headed back out on the trail. We visited a school where Jess played skip rope with some cool kids and watched taking more excellent photos. Next was a waterfall that was surprisingly covered in tourists. Sensing Jess and I weren't enjoying the tourists, Show took us to visit another village and had some lunch. We then walked up the far side of the valley we had been walking down and caught a jeep back up to Sapa and to the end of our great times with Show. After a hard goodbye where we tried in vain to tip Show Jess and I had our first shower in three days, which was very needed to say the least. We crashed hard nice and early after a visit to Sapa's Chocolate and Baguette, but were woken early because of our proximity to the kitchen. We picked up our clean laundry, which they forgot to charge us for (score) and had some breakfast. That morn we had a half day tour of a local village called Cat-Cat which has a nice waterfall with little generators all over it for the locals power. After the nice short morning trip we did some shopping in Sapa's Mong market. We went back to the Baguette and Chocolate for lunch with a nice couple from Holland we had met on the mornings tour. This place is a must for anyone visiting the north as it is the best place to get a god chocolate fix. We then headed back down in a minibus to LaoCi and caught the night sweat box sleeper to Hanoing.

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