sun day 170

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Waking up after what felt like a good nights sleep this was the 2nd day of the home stay. Getting dressed and sorting out my bag i headed down the bamboo ladder to find no sign of Mai and her husband. The children were entertaining themselves with some friends from a nearby house in clothes that look like they've never been washed - and running around with bare feet. As i sat just outside the house and read my book about an hour later Mai and her husband showed up with a bag of bananas they had brought from the market. With the fire being fired up a large batch of pancakes were cooked and after being filled with banana and sugar they were lovely. I was told to eat before the children but feeling uncomfortable in doing so i asked if we could all eat and share together - which we all did. With Mai sorting out a few bits first we then headed off with her youngest son who cant of been any older than 4 down to find the local waterfall. As the house was up one side of a valley i could see it from the property, but after a 20 minute walk past many tour groups we made it to the foot of the falls. Taking a few pictures of Mai and her son we then started to head back in the direction of the house, but stopping at the road we were met by Mai's husband who would take me back to Sa Pa on the back of his motorbike. Having a hug with Mai and her son and paying them for their lovely hospitality ( roughly $24 and a few dollars for the children) and saying goodbye i was ridden during a heavy rain shower back to Sa Pa. With not being able to see a thing, rain streaming off the hill sides and the roads being mainly unmade it was the hairiest ride ive done on my trip, was so pleased to have made it back safely. Saying goodbye to Mai's husband i dashed back into the hostel to dry off - even my underwear was soaked through! so, after a complete change of clothes i headed out for a bit of lunch and to see about returning to Hanoi. All the buses were unfortunately full for today so resigning myself to another night in the hostel i headed out to see if the rain was looking like it was going to stop anytime soon. The answer to that was no, walking up and back down the road i got pretty wet again so opted to try out the hostels restaurant for some dinner instead. Sadly the only good thing about this option was that i stayed dry - the food sounded so promising on the menu but the reality wasnt great. As nothing much was going on in the communal area i went down to my dorm room and relaxed writing up some of this blog until i fell asleep. It really had been an eye opening, interesting couple of days with Mai and her family and im so pleased i did it.

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