Day 2: Sapa (Saturday, June 28)

After a rocking (literally) train ride, we rolled into Lao Cai about 5am... good times. We did manage to get some sleep on the train, so we were sort of ready to go. Our guide, Dom, picked us up at the train station and then we jumped in the car to drive the hour from Lao Cai to Sapa. The drive really isn't very far, but it is basically up and through the mountains. Now would probably be a good time to comment on the driving system in Vietnam, too. I'd like to call it moderately organized chaos. It's basically a competition to see who has the biggest balls. Almost a giant game of chicken. Motorbikes everywhere, even the biggest highways are essentially one lane in each direction, and the passing... well, it's frightening. Our driver for our stay in Sapa was particularly gifted in the art of "passing around curves on mountain roads."



Nevertheless, we made it to our hotel in Sapa and dropped our bags off before heading to breakfast and then starting out on our tour. Our first day in Sapa consisted of some trekking (i.e., hiking) through some villages and rice fields. The scenery in Sapa is outstanding... rolling mountains covered in rice fields, corn fields (the closest ViV has gotten to corn despite living her entire life in IL) and trees. Literally, it's green everywhere, as far as the eye can see.

On our hike (about 10km), we passed through several villages and got to see a few of the ethnic minorities that live in Vietnam, including the Red Dzao, like this nice woman that let us in to her home. There wasn't much to the house... just a few rooms with a "second level" used to store goods. As we learned throughout the trip - everywhere can serve as a bed and everywhere can serve as a toliet... whatever works. We also saw some Black Hmong villagers on our trek.

Another exciting encounter on the hike was water buffalo. Or more specifically, little kids riding their water buffalo. As Matt put it, "wouldn't it be great to be a kid with a water buffalo to play with?" We ran into a bunch of kids who were guiding their water buffalo around - sometimes by pulling and prodding, and sometimes just by riding on them.


Finally, an unexpected encounter - a field full of marijuana. Apparently, it is illegal in Vietnam, but the government basically lets the ethnic minority villagers do whatever they want to do... they don't follow the same rules as the rest of Vietnam. Very curious indeed to see a giant field of marijuana, and this wasn't the only one we ran into.