Sapa Valley

I slept surprisingly well on the overnight train to Lao Chai.  At 6am, we jumped off the train and negotiated with a taxi driver 100k dong for a 45 minute ride to Sapa Valley with drop off right outside our hotel. Unfortunately, once again, we paid in advance.  All of the other buses and taxis left with their passengers and we were stuck waiting for the next train.  We waited well over an hour for the next train.  It was like the guys filled up every other van and Then ours.  We even left the station once and then returned 20 mins later to grab some other people.

The mountains and countryside were beautiful.  

However, when we arrived in the city, the driver dropped everyone else off at their hotels and then kicked us out of the van!  Just kept saying “don’t know. Don’t know”! We showed him the map, but the same response.  I was so pissed. We found WiFi at a coffee shop and then made the climb to our hostel, Lustig.

Qi

Stairs to our hostel

In my free sweater

Where we were kicked out

Looked beautiful so far

It was too early to check into the room, so we went on a tour with a local guide through the rice field. Similar to Hanoi, I thought if we were getting a tour, we’d receive Some sort of information but we literally just followed this lady and two children through the rice fields for hours.  It was incredibly 

beautiful.  Pictures don’t do it justice.  Chris and his daughter, Ani, were on the tour with us also.

As is my usual form, I slipped into one of the paddy’s 

Animals everywhere 

Our guide cutting sugar cane for us to try

I didn’t really like the sugar cane but I tried

Beer was much better 

It’s incredible seeing how people live here.  Still in mud or concrete houses, many family members together.  Kids just running around everywhere, unsupervised.  Happy.

For lunch, we went to our guides house.  She is part of one of the tribes in Sapa Valley.  They all live together in a house. The husband came and served us “happy water” (aka homemade rice wine).

Su-su and her son

Our hostel is probably the nicest hostel I’ve ever been in haha. Although part of the reason I wanted to stay here was for the fireplace lol (see photo).  We invited a guy in our room, Adam, to dinner with us and that was super weird. He does a live feed of his life, which would’ve been ok except he head talking to his camera the whole time and then commenting on everyone and everything around us. It was weird.  We had pizza, which was meh and the wine wasn’t so good either.  Oh well.  Went to play pool and have beers after.

Found a bar that was open

Best hairdryer I've ever used on travel (things you take for granted at home)