Sapa, 10/25

On Saturday morning the reunited group left in five Russian jeeps for a trip farther along the rim of the valley, then a hike down to a waterfall on the other side of the river. The picture to the left shows the convoy getting ready to leave. The steps to the rear are a shortcut from downtown to near our hotel. Below you can see how luxurious the Russian jeeps are!

Sapa streets were definitely not designed for two-way automobile traffic.

We stopped two or three times along the way just to look at the scenery, and to interact with some of the locals.

The kids love to look at thier image on the playback screen.

It was about 20 km to our drop-off point.

The trail was amazinly dry for all the wet weather we had the last few days. It was good to leave Sapa's eternal cloud behind, and actually get some sunshine during the trek.

A couple of H'mong girls shadowed us all the way down, but didn't try to sell anything.

They are building a new road up this side of the valley, so in several places we had to cross the construction, and find the continuation of the trail on the other side.

This construction is new since 2006. Then you followed water buffalo trails the whole way down. I'm not sure why they are putting in the new road, as the town at the bottom of the hill is connected to the road we traveled down on. Perhaps it is to open this area up to more settlement. I have been told that the government has "encouraged" some of the hill people to move down into the valley to increase rice production.

At times it looks like the trail just drops off the face of the earth,

Livestock is let out to graze where ever they can. These little pigs and their mother are grazing on what looks to be left-over dry rice straw. This type of rice does not require immersion in water during the growing process, but does not produce the yield that the wet rice fields do.

We stopped at a home-stay near the bottom of the valley for a refreshment break. Here Josh and Pam pose with one of our followers for the next Tiger beer commercial.

The homes of the minority people in the Sapa area vary, even within the same community. Some are on low stilts, like the home shown below,




some are on concrete slabs, like the one we stopped to have our lunch at, and others are on the traditional high stilts.

In this particular community, most of the houses sell themselves as homestays, as advertised by the circular signs. Some are obviusly more prepared than others for taking in guests. The home above also has the circular signs, but it doesn't appear to have power. Most of the houses with power also have satellite dishes for TV.

The wife of the home-stay owner demonstrated the operation of her loom to us, and some students bought scarves straight off the griddle, so to speak.

The sellers eventually found us, but we soon departed for the waterfall on the other side of the valley.

On the way we were greeted by Cliff Oxley's aunt and uncle.

The pool below the waterfall provided a refreshing interlude.

This is the lower of two waterfalls.

Rock and students in front of the falls (Courtesy of Josh)

Julia and Ngoc (above) didn't go swimming, but provided the valuable survice of watching our gear, as the sellers had followed us, and were patiently working on their products waiting for us to get out of the water. These were Red H'mong people.

Michael stirred up a hornets next when he asked one of the ladies if she could make him a pair of pants.




This young guy looked pretty bored with the whole process.

They were a friendly bunch of people, but most of the students were pretty well shopped out by this time, and tired of being hounded.

Refreshed, we headed back down to the Russian jeeps for the trip back to Sapa.

That evening the hotel fixed us a delicious buffet on the roof deck. Everyone enjoyed it, but the Sapa cloud was still there so we couldn't see anything beyond the railing.