Well the soft sleeper trains were a slight exaggeration! We met Michael (from Germany) and made our way at 8.30 pm in our 4 berth cabin to Lao Cai in the North West. This city is just 1km from the Chinese border. We arrived at 5am very tired and freezing cold.
We met up with our guide, Sho, at around 8.15 am. She then took us up to the market, where she brought some food for our lunch. We saw some interesting stuff at the market, and I won’t go into any more details. We were soon on our way down the road, with two local Black H’Mong ladies and two girls following us, helping our guide. We veered off track down clay hills and through rice terraces. It was quite slippery and safe to say that it was good we had our trekking boots on.Lunch was at a small village called Y Linh Ho, which was basically in the middle of no where. Lunch was nice, but our two guides had to leave to get back to their village, but not before making us buy things off them. We brought two handbags and a little purse, which we paid too much for. We carried on trekking until we got to Ta Van, where we stayed the night in our first homestay with a Dzay family. They cooked us their version of homemade French Fries, which were delicious with garlic and noodle salt. This was followed by spring roll making, and lots of local food. This always includes pork. It was freezing cold and we cooked over a fire – one dish at a time. We ate it altogether – which meant most of it was cold – 🙁 – however what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!!
The next day took us up a very steep hill early in the morning, too much for me to handle. Thankfully it was the only major uphill for the day, so that was good. That took us to Su Pan @ for lunch, when we were pestered to buy more stuff. We worked out that the locals only know about 5 english sentences: ‘Where you from?’ ‘Whats your name?’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘This your father?’ ‘You buy from me ok?’ It gets quite annoying sometimes.
We then walked about an hour downhill to our next homestay, to the larger village of Ban Ho. Our homestay was on the outskirts of the village, and we met up with a Canadian and his tour guide. That night involved a lot of eating and many rice-wine fuelled conversations.
The next morning we had a delicious meal of PANCAKES for breakfast. As much as I love it, it was good to have a break from Vietnamese food. The homestay we stayed at had a pet monkey, so that provided some extremely cute entertainment over breakfast. We walked through the village to a waterfull and a freezing cold swimming pond. Dad took forever trying to be an expert photographer. Dad, Michael and I decided to brave the waters and took a quick dip in the pool. It was soooooo cold, but alright after a long day walking. We then walked back to the homestay, packed our things and took a minivan back to Sapa town.
That night we had to catch the overnight train back to Hanoi. It was another sleepless night for me anyways, and I was honestly sure the train was going to fall apart. Thankfully it didn’t, and we made it safely to Hanoi alive. I was dead for the next day.
The trekking was quite a mission and we felt a few muscles in the following days. The first day we trekked 17km and the second day was 14km. The third day was much less – and we had a minivan ride. We really enjoyed the trek – meeting up with the locals. Our guide was fantastic – she explained everything and had quite a sense of humour. She hadn’t been to school and has learnt English only by talking to tourists for the last 10 years, and more recently via e-mail and the internet.