Sapa - Vietnam

This is 'Jar', one of the hill tribe ladies from Sapa. She is twirling hemp between her fingers that they later weave and make clothes with. The tribes ladies smile and talk all the time. As soon as you leave the hotel you are bombarded with a barrage of questions; "Hello, what's your name, how old are you, how many babies, oh, how long you been married...."? At this point when we answer "no babies" the questions get a little personal, they look at Keith and say "Ah you can't have?"




Take a good look at the picture of 'Jar' here, she drinks 1 pint of rice whiskey every day, she smokes 85 roll up cigarettes every day, she works on the field 8 hours a day then walks 5 miles to get water from the well, she then cooks for her whole family. She goes to bed at 10 at night and is up at 4am. Yet she doesn't have a single ailment to speak of. Mind you she is only 16 years old!!


Look at this little beauty! She spent the whole day tied to her mother's back while they trekked along with us through the mountains and all they ever do is smile - it's amazing!

This is the executive sales team getting ready to meet the customers!! After asking all the questions (see above) they move towards the sales contract fine print! ... 'When you get to our village - remember, I spoke to you first - you buy from me'!!!

It's a hard life being a woman in these villages.

High up in the hills now. We're far up North West Vietnam and only a short way from the Chinese border. It's often very cool up here and most of the time misty - we were blessed with a little good weather on our two days so we got some stunning scenery. This is the Hoang Lien mountains, there's a certain mountain only a few miles from here at an elevation of 3143 metres. It's the highest mountain in Vietnam (possibly all of SE Asia?) The name of which will no doubt bring the first non-anonymous respondee - with a splendid cup of tea (it's pure poetry).

The rice fields are an amazing site - just feast your eyes at planet earth wearing its git big green pair of corduroy pants!

This is an eight year old girl called "Sa" who took a liking to Elvis, she looks like a doll doesn't she?

Elvis had bought some bags and other items and was now receiving 'Royal' treatment. I was left to wallow in the mud!

No tractors here guys, this is the water buffalo and a young kid ploughing the rice fields (yes outsourcer, that's a water buffalo).

A lot of questioning is going on here, just the usual as before and then followed by some sales pitch! Can you guess by this picture who has been 'splashing the cash'?

This is our evening meal served with the rest of the group and our 'home stay' family! Afterwards the man of the house got out his homemade rice wine (lethal stuff) and we all did the Vietnamese 1, 2, 3, cheers..... (mot, hai, ba, zo!) We all knew how to count to three in Vietnamese, then the rice wine kicked in and shortly afterwards we couldn't even remember our names. The guy right at the front is French though - we remember that. Bonjower!

This is my little mate at the home stay. I called him Kato. Every time I would walk into a room he would do a 'surprise' kung fu attack on me (like Kato in the Pink Panther film). So I would do surprise attacks on him too. It was great fun until later during the night - after a few rice wines too many - I did a surprise attack on his brother by mistake and he ran out of the house looking horrified!!

I taught Kato a few of my moves from the old days, then his sister said 'maybe not a good idea' he's been getting disciplined by the school for beating up kids! Hummm - now I've shown him how to do it properly!!

The dangerous situations I put myself in to get a picture for the blog. I almost died of 'breath poisoning' getting this picture.

These fields are flooded and ready for the rice shoots to be planted.

We really like the 'lovely daughter' and 'handsome husband' comments so please feel free to make some more!

Nearing the end of the trek now and Elvis is still full of beans! When the scenery is this good you can just float along.

The mark of 'Zorro' (Hovis - I forbid you to comment!).

This is a fantastic couple from Perth that we met, Bethne and Conrad. You'll see these two in the picture at the home stay above having a few rice wines too many too! We sang songs through the night including my brothers favourite 'And the band played Waltzing Matilda' of which Conrad knew every single word! We enjoyed our time so much with them that we managed to meet up again in Hanoi, Hoi An and spent a couple of days with them in Ho Chi Ming City. Wonderful people and happy times - thanks for your company!

This is the town of Sapa, a French hill station that was built in 1922. Just time to browse around and stop at a little number called 'Baguette and Chocolat'. Do you think coffee and cake could have possibly been consumed? You'd be wrong to think not. Bethne and Conrad joined us too - also cake and coffee lovers! After all of this excitement it was back to Hanoi on the train, arriving 5am the next day, then to the Indian Embassy to pick up the visas and back on the sleeper bus for Hoi An the same day to meet up with some dear old friends (well they are when you're travelling a year and you haven't seen them since January) - but that will all become apparent in the Hoi An blog you impatient lot!!