It wasn't really a very good start to our trip to the mountains in North Vietnam. Firstly, I didn't manage to get my credit or bank card back so had to leave Hanoi heavy-hearted, people promising me (again) that the cards would definitely be there when I got back. To trust or not to trust; to cancel the cards and work out how to get new ones delivered to an unkown address in Laos or to wait for them to be hand-delivered by the hostel's tour guide. It's a difficult call. Secondly, when we get to the travel agency we booked the Sapa tour with, the manager starts demanding an extra $26 from us. Thank goodness we had taken the tickets off him for the trip before he mentioned the money and had gotten a receipt from his colleague the day before with "Total Paid" written on it. The receipt didn't seem to make much difference as the guy demanding the money was not the same person who sold us the tickets. Apparenly, we had bought them off his niece who wasn't experienced and shouldn't have given us such a big discount. I was still feeling really ill at this point(feverish, bad stomach ache) so Robbie said he would handle it and went across the street into their office. I could only sit for a minute hearing the raised voices and Robbie's repeated "but I have a receipt" until I felt I really had to be there to support Robbie and our case. The funniest thing was when the guy demanded the tickets back and Robbie quickly put them into his bum bag which then got slipped down his trousers. I'm sure I saw a smile cross the guy's face and soon after he agreed we could go without paying any extra. He had such a sad face on him when we were leaving, however, that it made me feel like we were robbing him. At the same time I also wondered if there would be any organised trip waiting for us when we arrived in Sapa. How I miss straight forward price tags!
Our night train strangely departed Hanoi on time but arrived at our destination (Lao Cai, on the border with China) 2 hours late. It was unfortunate that we didn't know we were travelling slowly as we not only woke ourselves up unnecessarily at 04:30am and sat with the light on for 2 hours but also the Vietnamese lady we were sharing a cabin with. We arrived in Sapa to a downpour, had to wait about 30 minutes for our bus to fill up and were then driven about an hour to our hotel. When the guy on reception said "Good Morning, how are you?", I could only mutter "cold and tired". "Ah yes," he said "long journey. No worry. You now have time to take warm shower and then get breakfast. You don't have to be ready until 9:30 for your first trek." I looked at my watch. It was 9am.
The mountain air and walking must have been good for me as I soon started to feel a bit better with the first trek. The landscape which we walked through was beautiful - misty mountains, lush green rice fields, rivers and waterfalls. From leaving the hotel to our stop for lunch we were accompanied by a number of tribal women. We knew their game - they wanted to walk with us so that we would feel obligated to buy from them when we got to their villages. And, of course, it worked. The women were actually really sweet during the walk, holding our hands to help us across rivers, making us presents from flowers they collected en route, laughing and smiling, asking us about our lives (giggling about the fact that Robbie and I are not together: "Yes, you are! Here, flowers to give to your girlfriend.") I chose the lady who had been walking by my side for most of the journey to buy a bracelet off. It didn't stop the next tribe following us for the afternoon stretch and persistently nagging us to "buy from me, buy from me". What with bags, jewellery and clothes on offer, some of the group arrived back at the hostel looking more tribal than the locals.
During the following days, we got to see several mountain villages and peep are heads into family houses which were all quite similar: mud floors, holes in the ground for stoves, a dedicated area for weaving and making clothes and a second floor where corn was usually stored alongside a sleeping area. We saw boys playing with bows and arrows and riding buffalos in a way that would make any Western boy jealous (for an afternoon at least). In the sunshine it looked a happy rural way of life but I did wonder how the families coped with bad weather - the area was hit by floods just before we arrived. I guess it's easier to be happy with what you've got when you don't know any better.
We were told by one of our guides that Sapa is renowned for experiencing four seasons in one day: the morning is often like spring, midday summer, the evening is like autumn and the night like winter. On our last day, however, it was cold and rained pretty much non-stop all day (which, from what I can make out from e-mails, isn't too much different from the weather in England at the moment.) As I didn't bring the jumper I have been reluctantly dragging around with me to Sapa, I'm looking forward to getting back to the heat of Hanoi now. Winter without snow is no fun.
Note on photos: I lost all my recent photos AGAIN one evening when trying to upload them onto the internet and hope they can be recovered when I get back to Hanoi. Apparently there isn't much anti-virus software on the computers over here so it has put me off posting any more photos.
