The adorable kids waving as we wizzed by on the motorbike past the rice paddy fields.

Location: Hanoi and Sapa, Vietnam
Date: May 2010

Sim chao!

Aside from the Hmong market experience, the trip to Sapa was filled with adventures. But first, though inappropriate as it may be, I have to share a little bit about our experience getting into Sapa. First of all, my friend Abe and I went to the train station to get 2 tickets to Sapa, and the lady there immediately said it was full for the next night. Then she made a call on her cell phone and looked at us and said, "Ok, here are two tickets...my friend cancelled." We weren't sure what happened, but we were happy to have the tickets. The next night we arrive at the station and get settled into our car, which happens to be the very last one. At this point, there is a Vietnamese man sitting on the bottom bunk (there are 4 beds to a car) texting on his phone. His only luggage is a small black briefcase. A few minutes later a pretty Vietnamese woman enters the car with a man and they sit on the other bottom bunk. I start to get a little worried because it seems like there are 5 of us to a 4 bed car, but when the man leaves the car, I figure that he will go solve the issue. The train leaves and the man never comes back, and as soon as we take off, the man in the bottom bunk shuts and locks the door and turns off the lights in the bottom half of the car. Abe and I are a bit curious as to why the man wants to sleep so early in the ride (it is only 7:30 or so....) but we enjoy our train snacks and ignore the lower half of the car. However, a few minutes later, the man moves into the woman's bed- it was obvious that these two do not know each other, so we are just thinking that maybe they want cuddle buddies for the night or something...noises a few minutes later told us differently....so, needless to say, as hard as it was to ignore, Abe and I tried to chat through this little interaction below us and just chocked it up as part of the adventure. The couple continued their romantic rendevous throughout the night, but when we got into Sapa, the woman made her self presentable and then sped off. 5 minutes later the man left, going a different way. After putting our heads together, we came up with the reason for all of this craziness: we were in the prostitution car!!!! Either the woman at the train station was playing a cruel joke on us: "hahaha....we'll give those tourists an experience they will never forget!!!" or we just happened to be amidst one of the unusual ongoings of Southeast Asia....anyway....

After we got over our little encounter, we took a van into the highlands of Sapa, a beautiful region full of rice paddies and chao (water buffalo) and hill tribe people.

That was taken in Hanoi- thought I would throw it in- a cock fight in the middle of a park...very strange experience. The cock owners suck the blood off the roosters and then spit some substance on them in between battles- very disturbing to watch.

Met these little fellows around the lake in Sapa. Just 3 little kids, sitting and eating a meal of rice and guarding the water buffalo near them.

Sapa is often enveloped in a cloud of heavy fog- as we crossed the streets we could make out a herd of water buffalo in the middle of the road among all of the moto drivers.

Sapa Valley- Que bonita, no?

more of Sapa Valley

The majority of our time was spent cruising on a motorbike and getting out of the tourist track and into more of the remote villages, where every single person we encountered- Black Hmong, Flower Hmong, Red Dzao, waved with a huge smile and said hello. They weren't used to seeing tourists where we went.

Red Dzao tribe members

We went on a hike in Cat Cat Village on an old goat path. When we got far enough in, we rounded a corner and saw 2 giant black noses, and much to my delight, ran into these two beautiful creatures, just chewing their cud and enjoying the respite that the coolness of the river provided for them.

Sapa at sunset

The next day we explored a cave, and tried to go deep into all the crevices inside the cave, sharing a single headlamp. When we saw a bug with about 4000 legs, we knew it was time to leave. Outside of the cave, we met this lovely lady, May Ling, a member of the Red Dzao tribe, who invited us into her home, which was just down the hill.

As we spoke with May Ling, this little girl continued to bring flowers to us. By the time we left, I had a pile of flowers next to me so big that I could barely carry it out of May's house.

Sapa was beautiful and it was nice getting to meet members of many of the tribes. Next we will make our way east to Ba Be National Park, which is in central north Vietnam...

Dumbiet!