Travels in SE Asia

Hi all, Many of you know that we are back home again and I have already told some of you about our last few days in Vietnam, but I of course need to put it all down here too! So on Wednesday night we took an overnight train to Lao Cai which is in northwest Vietnam, very close to the Chinese border. From there we took a van ride up into the mountains to a little town called Sapa. The area is incredibly beautiful and has become very popular for biking and hiking so it's definitely a touristy town. The elevation is approximately 1900 m. The area is mainly composed of stepped rice paddies and is home to a few ethnic minority groups such as the H'mong and the Dzao. We met our guide, Sung, who is H'mong and took off on our hike followed by a couple other H'mong women. They have arranged marriages at 13 or 14 years of age and children very soon thereafter. Sung is 20 years old and was married at 14 and has a 6 year old and a 4 month old. The men mainly work the rice paddies and the women make the colorful crafts (handbags, blankets, etc.) and also act as the guides. Most of them have learned English from the tourists. We walked up and down steep, narrow, rocky paths and across the narrow dikes between rice paddies. It was pretty overcast and foggy this first day so we couldn't see the tops of the mountains, but the scenery was incredibly beautiful. We ran into some other tourists with their guides and around lunch time we all "somehow converged" at the same place for lunch! The two women who "helped" us this far were heading back to Sapa and as a thank you to them we of course bought a few things. Obviously the plan all along!! After lunch we were followed by a few other stragglers - they all ask the same questions - what's your name; where are you from; how old are you (and no matter what age you say you are - "oh you look so young!"); how long have you been married; do you have any children; "no? then you will soon, right? one boy, one girl." You eventually have to say "all finished with shopping, no more" before they finally give up on you! We ended the first day in a small village at a homestay for an overnight stay - the home of a Dzao woman. The H'mong and the Dzao speak different languages but they also both speak Vietnamese so that's the language the communicate in. Staying with us in the homestay were also a guy who just graduated from college from Washington and a couple from Australia. The guides and the the hostess all made us a delicious local dinner and then the hostess proceeded to try and get all of us drunk of her homemade rice wine - 7 shots of it! Luckily it wasn't too potent so were were all still able to stand straight! This area of the country is extremely poor and most of the villages didn't have much but the basics. But, the people who run the homestays have made a bit of money - our hostess had a large flat screen TV and a nice stereo, but she still cooked over an open flame and the bathroom was a hole in the ground in an outhouse. We slept in a loft like area on decent mattresses with heavy, colorful blankets over us. That night we had hours of TORRENTIAL rain. I laid awake listening to it and fretting over the fact that we were going to have to hike in it the next day! I wasn't so much worried about getting wet, but more the fact of what those steep, narrow, rocky trails were going to be like. Needless to say, they weren't as treacherous as I thought they would be, but it was pretty precarious going at times. It was fun though too and we got drenched and muddy. Luckily none of us fell though ! We made it to another town by mid-day, had lunch and then were picked up by a van to be driven back to Sapa. I think we hiked about 14km the first day and about 8 or 9 the second day. We spent a couple hours in town and then were driven back to Lao Cai for the overnight train back to Hanoi. We found out that the torrential rains were all over the north and central parts of Vietnam and were the worse they'd had in 35 years! Parts of Hanoi got really flooded as well as mud slides up where we had been. We seemed to have missed seeing or experiencing the worst of it though. We arrived back in Hanoi on Saturday morning, our last full day. We walked around in the rain shopping for gifts, etc. It was amazing how much the rain kept people away from the city - even some shops were closed. Much of the traffic is comprised of people who live outside the city and because of the flooding they weren't able to make it in. It finally let us by late afternoon and held off until the early morning hours. We had a delicious last dinner of different kebabs grilled right on the sidewalk. Well, over a fire on the sidewalk! We flew out of Hanoi on our long journey home Sunday morning. This was most certainly a trip that we won't forget! I'll be posting some photos here soon hopefully and will let you know when they're here. Thanks for following us along on this trip and thanks for all your messages! Love to everyone!