2 day trek!

The trek into the mountains around Sapa ended today!

I had a great time with my personal guide, Quan, and most of the trip involved visiting the many hill-tribes around Sapa that are inaccessible with the motorbike.

On particular the Xapho people who, Quan explained, keep to themselves and never venture out of the village, even to the Sunday market in Sapa. They were quite amazed at seeing a westerner and stood in awe as I passed, some of the kids even followed us (bare-foot) over the rocks and through mud for about an hour. I finally put their trek to a halt by giving them some of my banana snacks!!

The night of the first day I stayed in the house of a Tay tribe family. It wasnt as rough as it sounds, but rather featured a purpose-built attic where they stick the foreigners. The family was small: Man and his wife, Grandmother and two kids- none of em spoke English so we didnt really share much conversation... they tended to keep to themselves, but were VERY hospitable all the same. The kids were really cute (the elder seemed fascinated with my G-Shock watch and was playing with it for hours - pressing the light etc.. Im surprised theres still life left in it!).

That night there was a storm and I found it hard to sleep, despite the comfortable mattress and mozzie net which gave all the protection from any nasties

I awoke the following morning to the sound of the grannie making linen on the ancient-looking linen-machine-thingy...

Second day we headed back on an easy road-trek... thankfully this trek was nowhere near as hard as the Dalat one!