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Tiger Leaping, People Puffing

24/4/2019

By Pete
12-16/04/2019
Lijiang and the surrounding mountainous region is home to Naxi people and is renowned for its beautiful towns, stunning landscape and laid back vibe. Towns like Dali had been back packer hangouts for years. Unfortunately, even at out leisurely pace, we couldn’t find time for all that was on offer so we chose to do the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek.

Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world measuring 16km long and 3.9km deep from the snow capped peaks of Haba Shan and Yulong Xueshgan to the Jinsha River below and we had heard that the trek along the upper trail was unmissable.

Day one started with a two and a half hour bus trip from our accommodation at MaMa Naxi guesthouse (recommended if anyone does come to Lijiang) to the small town of Qiaotou at the southern end of the gorge. On the bus were a French couple, who were planning to do the whole gorge in one day, a Swedish couple, and a English couple, Lucy and Damian (who we had actually met at the Kunming train station the day before).

While the Swedes headed back to the original start (a decision they later regretted) Bea, myself, Lucy, Damian and the French couple tentatively started up a steep road not sure where we were going. A few hairpin turns later, we were standing at a Y intersection, gut feeling for some of us told us to the left, after much discussion, Lucy noticed a small sign (pointing right) to Naxi family G.H. the point on the map where the old and new paths met, we now staggered confidently up the hill toward the guesthouse 300 vertical metres above us.

The trek started in confusion as no one really knew where the start was. The construction of a massive new rail bridge over the gorge had turned the original start point into a construction site and the alternative start lacked any form of signage.

The final couple of hours was a pleasant downhill stroll through pine forests, bamboo groves and along wind swept ridges. Every where you looked were photo worthy scenes of the rugged snow capped peaks and the raging river below.

We arrived an hour later and found the well marked upper path way and its infamous 28 switchbacks, another 500 vertical metres to the pass at 2670m. To say we were buggered when we finally reached the path is an understatement but this vanished immediately we set foot on the precipice with awe inspiring views up and down the gorge.

We arrived at our overnight accommodation, the Tea Horse Guest house at the respectable time of 3.30 and after a wee lie down to recover, adjourned to the roof terrace to relax, take in the views and enjoy a well deserved beer. Lucy and Damian joined us later as did the Swedish couple who had only just arrived, the decision to return to the original start had added two, dust filled, hours through a building site to their trek.

If day one had been stunning it had nothing on day two for views or exhilaration. The forests of day one gave way to wind swept rock faces, sheer cliffs, knife edge paths and the occasional waterfall. The going was slow but not just because of the terrain, you just couldn’t help pulling out the camera at every turn.

Not long after passing through BenDi Wan village Lucy and Damian veered left toward Walnut Grove (they were spending another night on the trail) and we right toward Tina’s Guesthouse and the bus back to Lijiang.
We both like to trek but no trek we have done so far have ever delivered so many experiences in such a short distance.

Back in Lijiang we used our remaining day and a half to explore the ancient villages of BaoShi and Shuhe as well as Lijiang’s old town, where we again bumped into Lucy and Damian. All these towns are a little touristy now but this does not really detract from the architectural beauty of them. Better the tourist dollar to help preserve them than see them decay.

Yunnan is an extraordinarily diverse and beautiful province and to do it justice would take months (or years) we will definitely need to come back.

The original plan was to head north from tiger leaping gorge to Shangri-La before west into Tibet then further to Kashgar on Chinas far west border. Unfortunately travel restrictions and permit requirements made this idea less feasible and much less appealing. Tibet and Kashgar would have to wait, the new plan was to head south east to the Li River then turn north through Chengdu and Xi’an before finally west. Tibets loss is Xing Ping’s gain.

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And into China

21/4/2019

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By Pete
05-12/04/2019
We wandered up the road in the direction the conductor had pointed. At first there were no real signs of a border but as we turned the corner the impressive border edifice came into view, its funny how countries try to impress their neighbors with the size of their borders, it must be a boy thing! We entered the Vietnamese building through the door marked ‘entrance’...only to be told you have to enter through the exit, this was a border crossing not just a building. We exited Vietnam onto no-mans bridge, which was bustling with modified push bikes trolleying goods back and forth.

Contrary to our concerns regarding immigration’s knowledge of APEC cards, we were escorted to the front of the queue and, apart from a brief question about why I went to Egypt, breezed into China, Hekou, Yunnan to be specific.
Unfortunately as it paned out immigration are the only people in China who have seen an APEC card, which is a pain as you have to present your passport and visa for almost everything except going to the loo!

We googled hotel then realised we were in China, we bing’d our hotel then strolled along the river front to the ‘Asia Theme Hotel’, checked in and went to our room to regroup. I’m not sure which was more worrying the full height wall murals of dolphins or the round bed!!... then I noticed the mirrored ceiling over the bed!!, Bea is never booking the hotel again.

Moments later we were back at reception explaining, via google translate, that we didn’t see dolphins, round beds or mirrored ceilings in their promotional material. After much discussion we were moved into what could best be described as a hotel room.

Comfortable in our more ‘age appropriate’ accommodation, we headed to the train station to book a ticket toward civilisation. Unfortunately despite Hekou’s small size it appeared that rest of the population was also trying to get out, we couldn’t get seats for two days and those were ‘hard seats’, we booked them anyway.
Discovering we had an extra day in Hekou we bing’d ‘sites and attractions near by’ - fortunately there were many very close. Unfortunately they were all the other side of the border. Ok lets look at food options, fortunately there were many..... the other side of the border.
Not to be put off we went exploring, found a really nice local market and a dumpling shop where the portions were twice the size of the promotional photos.

Later that evening we headed back to an area of street food stalls we had discovered, all the stalls had photos of the dishes so ordering should be easy....not. We soon realised the photos were decoration at best and that every stall had the same ones. We ended up pointing to dishes on the other patrons tables, then ingredients in the fridge and finally the wok. It was a great meal of the above, washed down with a couple of bottles of snow beer, the worlds most popular beer...allegedly. Being only 3.2%abv maybe why they sell so much.

After dinner we joined most of Hekou’s remaining population for a stroll along the riverside promenade, the rest were dancing in the town square. It was a beautiful evening and the promenade was alive with families and groups just enjoying the evening, it’s scenes like these, repeated on promenades around the world, that proves that our similarities far out way our differences. Hekou was growing on us...but
A day later we headed to the station and caught the train to Kunming.

09-12/04/2019
We both took an instant liking to Kunming as we strolled into the old town the next morning. The air was clean, the skies were blue, and lack of humidity reminded us of Perth on a beautiful spring day.
Our first mission was to cash travellers cheques (yes, old school and left over from travels several years ago) yes no problem sir if you have something to put the money into....yes I have a wallet....no something electronic. (We soon found out everything in China is done electronically).??? But I don’t have a Chinese bank account, I’m only visiting,... no problem sir, would you like us to open one for you?... What the!..how!..Ok then.
30 mins later I had a Chinese bank account and a shinny new debit card that I could use for WeChat pay, awesome. Unfortunately they were not able to cash the cheques as they were in Euros not USD. Kunming, being a small provincial city (7million plus people), hadn’t seen Euros for many years and their systems had been cancelled!

After spending the day shopping for essentials, and Bea’s birthday present, we headed up to West Lake Park for an evening walk (as the whole of China is on one time zone, the further west you head the later the sunset) China, on the whole, does parks and public open spaces really well, West Lake Park is no exception. A blend of soft scapes and structures, of lakes and lawns, of spaces for contemplation and places for self expression, usually through dance, and a wonderful place to wander and people watch.

Shilin or ‘the stone forest’ is one of the must see attractions in Kunming and one that I was keen to see since learning of it on Discovery Channel. The next morning headed out on a tour arranged through the hostel (not our usual method, but it seemed the best option in this case).

We suddenly found ourselves as members of a Chinese tour group complete with a flag wielding guide. Rather than being limestone Karsts in a rugged natural setting, they were surrounded by manicured parkland, lawns, gardens and large paved areas where the thousands of visitors could gather with their selfie sticks and photograph each other.

Discovery Channel obviously had out of hours accesses, and photoshop. I suppose when they have been drawing visitors for centuries they were never going to be in the wilderness.

On our last day on Kunming we took ourselves (no flag wielding guide required) to Xi Shan Forest Park, a vast 40 km long, hilly, natural park that runs along the side of Dian Lake. The northern end overlooks the city and famous for its spring flowers and dragon gate. The walk down from the top ticket booth is quite beautiful, with very few people, we had the path to ourselves up to the Lingxu pavilion viewing point, from where you are treated to panoramic views of Kunming and the lake (300sqkm) both vastly larger than they feel at ground level.

A chair lift arrives halfway up the hill, delivering its passengers to the start of the popular Dragon Gate path. The path winds down the steep western face of the hill often cut into the cliff or even tunnelled through it and while the crowds had built up, it was still a fascinating walk.

The path exits at the base of the hill where you meet up with others who had spent the morning hiking through the expansive forest area that make up the majority of the park before taking the bus back to the underground train terminal and the food street where vendors hawk delicious snacks and meals to the weary (and not so weary) trekkers.

Later we headed back into the old quarter via the river, again a lovely promenade with families and friends enjoying the balmy spring evening. We had dinner at a small street front Yunanese grill place, tapas style plates of grilled tofu, chicken feet, pig trotter, quails eggs or beans served with spicy dipping sauces and washed down with our new favourite Chinese beer, a cloudy wheat beer from Harbin.

The owner was so excited he comp’d us another dish so he could be photographed with us enjoying his food.

Next stop Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge.

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Slipp’n in SaPa

13/4/2019

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By Bea
01-05/04/2019
We arrived in Sapa 2.5 hours later and boy what a contrast! We were bombarded with ladies trying to sell us their handicrafts or take us trekking. Men wanting us to take a taxi. It was full on! We walked towards our hotel gawking in horror at the massive new hotels (Pete almost vomited at the hideousness of the architecture) we were quite disappointed in the place. After a short walk headed down some stairs and came across a completely different area… grungy, dirtier, hip and cool at the same time. We were in “old Sapa” and thankfully that was where we were staying.

We had noticed when booking that the hotels had names like, ‘Sapa Mist’, ‘Mountain Cloud’ and ‘Cloud View’, walking down the streets of the old town we could see why, Sapa is basically a white out!! It was really quite eerie. At times the mist would roll in to the streets also and gave it a totally different atmosphere - quite blade runner-esqe.

In the afternoon we walked through to visit Cat Cat village…. A waste of time after Bac Ha, basically it's the village that Disneyland built. Too touristy!
That night we dined at the hill station restaurant, an elegant designer restaurant that did a really good contemporary take on north Vietnamese cuisine. The next day, we explored Sapa, got our washing done and getting a western food fix….. hamburgers!!!! You just need to do it every now and then!

We were very keen on doing a 3 day trek and while we had read that it was easy to do yourself we had also heard of a company called Sapa Sisters that is owned and operated by the female Hmong guides themselves. The company was set up about 14 years ago by 2 sisters and the cousin with the help of a Swedish lady with the objective of cutting out middle men and privately owned operators to create better opportunities and empowering hill tribe women, it now has 27 guides plus employ extras during peak periods.
The plan was to trek down the valley staying the first night in the house of local family then trekking further down the valley to a home stay, day three would be a short walk before being bussed back up the hill to Sapa.

The night before the trek, there were massive thunderstorm and the rain continued the next day, a great way to start a 3 day trek in the mountains. Our guide, ‘Pen’, all of about 4 foot nothing, greeted us at the shop and after the obligatory paperwork we headed off. She offered us the opportunity to spend night one at her own home with her family and have dinner with them. She said it was just up the hill so we eagerly accepted.

With a couple of days clothes in our day packs and clad in ponchos against the drizzling rain we headed out of town. A few hundred metres on Pen asked if we wanted to take the easier route following the road around, or the scenic, more challenging route along small tracks around the rice terraces. We took the latter! I had no idea what that was going to entail!! The rain continued, the rice paddies were muddy.. I mean copious amounts of mud!!! As walked up and down the very small pathways our feet completely disappeared into it (aka quicksand!) it was quite funny as our boots were so covered and heavy they were hard to lift.

I was sliding everywhere and as most of my friends know my wonderful sense of balance, I had a hard time keeping my feet!!! My butt was soon covered in as much mud as my boots! Our guide had to hold my hand on numerous occasions to help me down the steeper sections (after talking to others who we came across over the few days I was not alone!!). There was one point when pete was taking a photo, I had my arm extended in the air, holding up an umbrella to cover the camera, standing in this muddy rice paddy, and the thunder was sounding… I did have a brief moment questioning what the hell was I doing here.

After what seemed hours we eventually left the muddy fields and joined a pathway. It was quite a relief. We came across a few others with their guides, they were wet but clean!!! They opted for the ‘easy option’…. Boring farts!

After a 3.00pm lunch Pen checked, yet again, that we were ok to stay at her place up the hill, it didn't have a shower or hot water but there was a toilet, yes Pen we are OK, we are fine with that. We turned off the main path headed off up the hill and the 2km stroll to her house. We reached her house around 5:30pm!!!!! You do the math!!! Yes just up and over the hill mountain… did I have a massive brain fade or what! Omg the mountain was steep. It started on a small concrete path… not too bad, then it got crazy steep, then it got wet and slippery. My feet were just sliding straight back. I couldn't keep a hold.

The smooth concrete path finished at a rocky goat track cum water course, which we continued up. There were intermittent mud holes and water crossings amongst the rocks, and then it got seriously steep, with even bigger rocks. My muscles had taken a beating slipping and sliding about all day and now to be greeted by this, huge rocks I had to drag my self up and over, my body was soooo over it! I kept seeing these houses appear and wishfully thinking was this it? Are we there yet? Pen would say, shall we take 5 mins rest?...OK not even close, bugger.
(Note from Pete- As Bea dragged herself up this hell, up ahead Pen was walking up the path knitting and chatting on the phone!!!) Thankfully it had stopped raining that afternoon, so we could stop to admire the sensational views. Admittedly they got better as we were getting higher!
When we eventually arrived the buffalo was already in his house for the night, pigs were in their pen, the free range chickens & ducks had been fed, the obligatory dog and cats were chilling on the verandah and I needed a beer more than I ever needed one before!!!
Argh bollocks.. nearest shop was back down the hill where we had lunch, Pen suggested Pete could pop down and buy a couple, Pete suggested Pen could… well.. you can figure that out!
Note to self buy beer before climbing mountains!

Pen’s place was typical of the rustic timber farmhouses that dot the hillsides, built by hand over 25 years ago and added to over the years. Pen’s family, her husband, her in-laws and 2 of her 3 kids made us feel very welcome. Pen’s youngest son was at boarding school in the town so he could do extra study though I suspect it was to avoid the 1.5hr walk up and down that path each day. Most kids finish school in the early afternoon so they come can help work on the farm. We did see several kids helping plough the fields with the buffalo.

Pen boiled the kettle on the open fire in their kitchen and poured a lovely bowl of warm water for us to wash our muddied face and legs, much better.
Pen and her husband lit the fire and started cooking dinner and while pete helped pen with preparing the herbs from the garden, I sat on a little stool enjoying the fire. We and the family sat down to dinner in room and what a feast was simple home cooking at its best, tofu with a tomato ragout, chicken stir fried with cabbage, morning glory, spring rolls along with the fresh herbs and salad leaves pete helped prepare earlier, and heaps of rice.

With a full belly we headed off for day 2 of the trek. Pen asked if we wanted the easier way down or hard. I immediately said easier!!!! I can tell you now, I hate to know what the harder one was like!!! That was no easy trek!! Poor Pen had to hold my hand so often as I tried to get my feet into Iittle grip holes and gingerly stepping on the muddy paths trying desperately to avoid the “green areas” (moss is very slippery I can tell you!!) even pete lost his footing once! (A few more times for me tho!)
By mid morning we had rejoined the path and the other trekkers. This day was much easier than the first but the scenery just as breathtaking and… the sun was shining. What a change, such lovely weather. We stopped at Pen’s parents house for lunch and another great feast, steamed rice and various plates of deliciousness.

Our bed was in the same room as the rest of the family, a large room with several double beds separated with a light curtain. I'm sure the bed was a slab of wood with a yoga mat to sleep on!!! It was a tough sleep, didn't help that the roosters felt that 3am was sunrise!!! We heard the kids leave for their 1.5hr trek for school at 6:30am Before rising to another feast for breakfast. Steamed rice, omelette, cooked greens and fried preserved pork (fat)

A short walk the next morning, then a mini van back to Sapa ended our trek. I was grateful of a short day. We had a great trip, some great testing walks, incredible scenery but a hot shower and soft bed I was ready for!

Other than the descent from pens house, the level of difficulty of day to was pretty low, That was until Pete elected to take the short cut to he homestay, a short testing section at the end just to make you feel you had really trekked! While the homestay had hostel style dorm rooms it did have hot showers and BEER. There were a few groups staying the night here including a lovely group from Halifax, Nova Scotia . Hopefully one day we will get there to say hi again.

During the trek you meet other trekkers, walk and chat a little then go off in your own direction. On one occasion nice couple from Australia.. he was from from falls creek. We said “oh we know the CEO of falls creek!” The guy said “oh I'll tell Stuart you said hi!” …. Small world when you are travelling

After a month on the road, staying in cheap hotels or hostels and a 3 day muddy trek, we waved the “luxury” card for the second time and booked into a the Aira boutique hotel for the night.
The hot shower never felt so good! We went out and bought some gin, some tonics and some snacks and came back to sit on our balcony and look at the wonderful views of the white out where the majestic fansipan mountain should have been. Fortunately the internet was working, so we could watch the footy, unfortunately for the Demons there structures weren't and they went down to Essendon.

The restaurant hotel had been received several good reviews so we thought we might try another attempt at my ‘birthday dinner’ The reviews were right, what a lovely restaurant. Great food.

After a good night sleep in a soft bed, and finally in bright sunshine we walked up to the Catholic Church and caught the 9.00 am bus back to Lau Cai. As we crossed the bridge and turned into Lau Cai the bus stopped and the conductor pointed animatedly up the road behind us yelling China China…. So we hopped off grabbed our packs and headed in that direction.

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Beautiful Bac Ha

10/4/2019

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By Bea
27-31/03/2019
After our Ninh Binh detour we were back on track, heading to the north Vietnam highlands by overnight train.

We arrived in Lao Cai, the boarder town with china, in the early hours of the 28th. Lao Cai is the stepping off point for Sapa and Bac Ha, both well known for their stunning terraced rice paddies and weekend markets where the diverse hill tribes, H’mong, Phu La, Black Dao, Tay and Nung dressed in elaborate ethnic costumes, meet, shop or sell wares. Most tourists head straight to Sapa and take a 2 hour bus trip to the weekend markets of Can Cau (Saturday) and/or Bac Ha (Sunday). We decided to head straight to Bac Ha itself and get the drop on the tourists. (Still can't understand why people do it from Sapa!!!)

Our friend Cynthia recommended Huy Trung home stay and we are so glad we listened. Unfortunately the home stay was fully booked on the Saturday, gut instinct told us to book Thursday and Friday then move on Saturday, sometimes it really pays off to follow your gut!!! What a delightful place. Mr Trung speaks good English and very willing to help with everything, thoroughly recommended (and after the next hotel and hearing horror stories from other travellers, even more so)
We arrived mid morning on Thursday to a warm welcome and local tea, shortly after being shown our room, Mr Trung knocked and presented me with a lovely rose from his garden as he had just noticed from my passport it was my birthday!!!

We spent the rest of the day walking around and sussing out the town.
Bac Ha itself, is a quiet, sleepy town, small and little in the way of ‘attractions’. We did the few sites that were there and spent the rest of the day exploring the back streets enjoying watching daily life. It actually is a lovely place. We stopped for lunch at a little local shop house for a big bowl of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup with either beef, pork or chicken). Pho is ubiquitous with Vietnam with each region having their own take on it.

Although the home stay offered home cooked meals with the family, being my birthday, we opted to try our luck in town. Oh boy… this is where we found out how quiet it really is… and how touristy it isn’t. There was hardly a sole around. Not many places to eat and we didn’t want another bowl of pho, or fried rice. We found a place where the customers were jovial and calling us to come in. We could see pictures on the wall and we were confident we could communicate enough to order. There was always google translate or just point at what the other diners were eating. We sat and waited and waited until our patience was running low, we tried to get attention but everyone, accept the other customers, were ignoring us. I eventually cornered a lady and she waived me away. She didn't want to deal with us at all. We tried again but they weren't interested. Annoyed we just left. We walked around and everything was closed. One hotel tried to get us in but he was too pretentious and rude. We tried another place where the kitchen out the front was stir frying something that smelled delicious. Again we tried to get someone and they said “No! no cooking”. They just didn't want to deal with us. Patience had run out and hunger had set in and we were over it - some birthday!! ;-) Pete was so annoyed, so decided to go back to the first place and use Google translate to tell them they weren't being fair (he actually asked if they were racist). After a few more phone translations and the staff being scolded by the customers, they apologised and quickly and easily took our order!!! The food actually was quite good! The locals having dinner insisted we sit with them for a few “happy waters” (corn based moonshine!!!) to apologise for the staff behaviour, ended up being a pretty fun evening.

The next day, the ever accomodating, Mr Trung, presented us with a map of a great walk we could do to get the best views of the rice paddies. Being a photographer himself, he understood Pete's desire to get some good shots. He organised a taxi to drop us off at the start point and we could wend our way back to the home stay along rural tracks. The taxi driver got a little lost, but did take us to an incredible viewpoint high on a rock with a sheer drop that gave us both wobbly legs, before finding the correct start point

What can I say but wow!!! What a spectacular walk. Beautiful views of the surrounding area. It's incredible. Such steep mountains, full of terraced rice paddies and corn fields. People out ploughing their fields with their buffaloes, or loosening the soil with picks. Small villages and farm houses with their veggie gardens and family pigs. I still can't understand why people miss this town out. Anyway, it was a great walk though it took us longer than expected… too much scenery! so arrived back at the homestay just in time for a much needed beer before a delicious home cooked meal.

Another couple, with guides, had arrived during the afternoon and joined us at the family dinner table happily enjoying Mr Trungs cooking and drinking home brewed corn spirit that he infused with mushrooms and honey, very drinkable!!!

The taxi picked us up at 6:30am the next morning for the 30 minute drive to Can Cau and its market. Like most markets in Asia it's best to get there early but here it's even more important so you can avoid the tourists coming up from Sapa who arrive around 9am.

We were greeted with a great local market. Under the huge canvas structures you could buy almost anything. There were tables laden with fresh vegetables and ladies sitting on the clay ground offering herbs or spices. There were people walking around with live chickens tucked under their arm (ready for that weeks dinner) while others loaded their motorbike with wriggling piglets in hessian bags (for the farm not the table, yet!) or a bamboo cage full of ducks.

Ladies dressed in their traditional costumes haggled over the price of eggs or gossiped about Mr Wangs latest indiscretion. Initially we thought this was for the tourists but soon realised they were super shy and didn't want their photos taken. It was just their day out and time to dress up!

Elsewhere people sitting down to all sorts of delicious smelling foods for a hearty breakfast before they headed to the buffalo sales. There was a lot of discussions and inspections of the buffalo but we didn’t see any actual transactions.

We came across “moonshine corner” (our description). An area of steps where sellers with 20 litre plastic drums filled with their homemade corn spirit offer tastings to customers before syphoning some into their empty coke bottles. It was probably the coolest part of the market. They wanted pete to try and so of course he obliged!!

Needing breakfast we decided to sit down at a place where they were cooking curd and greens in an enormous wok over an open fire, we found out it was a local tofu and herbs. It was served with a very spicy dipping sauce, greens and rice and was delicious. The locals loved the fact we sat down to have some. Obviously most tourists just wander past looking at the food, taking photos…. But too scared to try!! That's not us! ;-)

The guy sitting next to us had a small bowl of clear liquid beside him as we sat down he got up and came back with 3 small cups. He dunked each one into the bowl and promptly offered both of us a cup each, yep it was his recently purchased moonshine! Great breakfast beverage!!! You can't sip this either - it's a shot. And try telling him no - that was impossible! After Pete had downed 8 and me 6, thankfully we finished our food and had the excuse to leave, it was actually a lot of fun!

Not quite full we opted for another bowl of something… yup you guessed it, it was pho! We found one that we could see a nice broth with lots of meat. So again we sat down to their delight and happily slurped our way through this bowl.
As we finished breakfast the first tourists from Sapa were arriving, many of them gawking at us, curious that we would choose to sit down, in this clay field of canvas structures, and eat local street food, cooked in well worn pots, over open fires. Yeah such daredevils!!!

By 9.30 the market felt flooded with tourists and cameras (yes… we are tourists.. and yes we have cameras… but we are different!, just ask us) so it was time to head back.
We casually checked out of Huy Trung Homestay over a lovely cup of Vietnamese coffee (Pete loves this stuff) then moved to the Congfu hotel in the town centre. Boy what a come down, and this we found out later was one of the better hotels of the town too!!!
We also discovered that the town was suddenly full of white people that weren't there before, they had arrived by the bus load and had filled the previously empty hotels and streets. By Sunday night they would be gone and the town would revert to its sleepy self

Starting out early again the next morning, yet again trying to beat the tourists, we walked down to the Bac Ha market which is very similar to Can Cau, similar produce, similar buffalo, in fact we noticed several of the same vendors. Again we also partook in some delicious delights, we thought we ordered a bowl of meats and vegetables but no... another bowl of pho!!!, and again we left as the other tourists started to fill the market. The markets wound up early afternoon, the buses headed back to Sapa and by evening we had the town to ourselves again.

We were picked up by a local bus to Sapa, the next morning. The girl at our hotel organised for us to sit in the front seat, driver took a fancy to Pete and kept putting his hand on his knee. I thought it was funny, Peter thought about his sexuality....

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