Day 251 - Making our way into the mountains

We woke this morning on the train as it pulled into Lao Cai station, and headed to the bus station to find a bus to Kunming in a couple of days time. However, we were told there were no buses into China, and that we just had to walk across the border and get an onward bus from there. With that done, we set about finding a bus to Sapa - which given the dozens of minibuses outside the train station, was not a difficult job!

Sapa is 1300m above sea level and is a mountainous area filled with numerous different tribes and villages. After nearly disappearing after numerous wars and recent border battles with China, Sapa is now a thriving community, and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Vietnam - and we can see why! Even after being here for only a couple of hours we fell in love with the town.

After finding a nice hostel to stay at for the next couple of nights, we set off to explore one of the nearest minority villages: Cat Cat Village. On our way we passed through the local trading market, where the H'mong and Dzao people (the most noticable groups of people in town, thanks to their beautiful traditional clothing) go about their daily trading with each other and the tourists. You really have to choose carefully when and from whom you decide to purchase something, because as soon as you even show an interest in someone's goods, a whole pack of other eager sales people will surround you in seconds!! In Cat Cat Village we enjoyed wandering around the picturesque countryside - Liv also smartly decided to make her purchase in a secluded part of the village where there was only one lone lady selling her beautiful local products from her smoke-filled room. We really got to take our time walking around, dodging gangs of dogs and herds of buffalo along the way, while we made our way up to the houses of locals to get a real taste of country life. We took a detour off the brick path onto a very muddy one, lined with walls of piled stones, where farm life was right in front of us in all its muddy glory. Around the corner we were enchanted by a delicate voice floating over the fence - as we peered over we saw a young boy feeding a buffalo and its baby, while singing to his heart's content. When we saw us looking on, he jumped up on the baby's back an continued his singing show!

A nice surprise was turning another corner and coming across a fresh, clean waterfall - just when we thought the village couldn't possibly get any more beautiful! The waterfall made its way through a tight rocky path it had been pounding a route through for years, and headed down to a valley below.
Back at the entrance to the village, we began our steep uphill climb back to Sapa, where we arrived an hour later after reluctantly resisting all the motorbikers offers of rides to the top! Once at the top we went back into the hustle and bustle of the market, and made our way to the town square and Sapa Church. As we wandered around we were blown away by the sheer beauty of the local people. The children specifically caught our attention - their faces already show signs of a hard life, and yet with unbelievable ease their faces break into pure smiles that make it almost impossible to resist their attempts of trading, the art of which they have been learning from their wrinkled elders.

At nightfall we ventured out for dinner, where Adam decided against better judgment to try some Bac Ha wine, which turned out to be the most lethal alcoholic beverage he's put in his mouth to date, even topping China's Baijiu! With nothing else to do but hide in our sleeping bags in our freezing cold room, that's exactly what we did until we drifted off to sleep.

Adlibing it amongst the minorities.