Having bought our ticket from the train station ourselves, and being told it was for the 'locals' cabin and not for the 'tourists' cabin, we weren't entirely sure what we had let ourselves in for. However, it seemed to turn out pretty good for us. We had opted for soft beds, in a four bed cabin, but it was just the two of us, and in fact, the whole carriage was empty, so we even had our own toilet.
It was a ten hour train to Lao Cai, and then an hours mini bus up the windy mountain roads to the town of Sapa. A young Vietnamese girl sat in front of us couldn't handle the windy roads and was throwing up all the way.
The landscape is like nowhere we have ever seen before. Sapa town is similar to a European ski resort, but surrounded by rice paddies, set on stepping levels down the mountains.
We had a night booked at the 'Sapa Queen Palace' hotel, a decent room, with a hot shower...very important for a town with four seasons to its day: spring in the morning, summer by midday, autumn late afternoon, and winter by night.
Since it was early morning we had some noodle soup for breakfast to help warm us up, and took a walk around, taking in the magnificent views. Sapa town is fairly small, so we only needed a few hours to walk around. It has a large lake, similar to Dalat.
It became clear that it was possible to walk from the town to a local tribal village with a waterfall, so off we went. Downhill all the way, with spectacular views over the harvested rice paddies and across the mountains. We stopped by a cafe with 360 degree views for a ginger and honey tea.
We reached 'Cat Cat' village and spent a couple of hours walking around, taking in how these tribal people lived, smiling and waving at the children, avoiding the pigs in the walkway, and politely saying 'no thank you' to the endless souvenirs offered to us. Cat Cat village seemed very touristy, and was very littered. Unfortunately the littering problem is enhanced by tourists either buying the children candy or buying small souvenirs from the children and then they use this money to buy candy themselves. The climb back to Sapa town definitely got the heart rate up!
We went to a BBQ restaurant for dinner where you simply choose your meats and kababs and they cook them for you. We chose lots of veggies, pork, chicken, and Chris opted for some chicken stomach - ever the adventurous!
Later that evening a Vietnamese couple came to sit next to us and plonked a box of British Ales on the table. Of course this straight away caught the attention of Chris, and before we new it they had offered us each a bottle. I politely declined knowing I wouldn't really enjoy it, but Chris drank and cheered his way through - the Vietnamese cheers before every sip.

Having done some research we ended up booking a two day, one night trek, with a Homestay, through a company called 'Ethos travel'. They employ local tribal women as a way of providing a sustainable life and future development of the tribes. Since most families are rice farmers, and due to the weather in Sapa, the rice harvest is only once a year. So for six months they farm the rice, then the other six months they are eating the rice, but need to find some other form of income to buy food when the rice runs out. Ethos provide the income as well as English lessons, medical help, resources for improving homes, and general village help too, i.e building schools. Specifically they work with the Hmong tribe, the largest tribe in Sapa, with Chinese heritage. They employ eight women, all English speaking, who guide tourists around the villages in the Sapa region, and put them up for the night. But the unique experience with Ethos is that you are taken on treks where no other tourists will be, because you are with local tribal women, and not a Vietnamese guide, which most other companies use.
So we met our guide, Mi, or 'Big Mi' because there are lots of females in the area called Mi, at the Ethos home just outside Sapa town. With just a small day bag for our trip, we headed off back into town to go to the local morning food market. Mi led us around and helped us choose our food for the next couple of days. It was an experience to be shown how a local would by their food and how much they actually pay for it - of course tourists are always ripped off. We chose chicken, pork, and buffalo (only a small amount as it is expensive), to go with a huge variety of vegetables, herbs, noddles, and of course rice. All of this was thrown into Mi's bamboo basket bag.
A taxi then dropped us off a little way outside of the town to begin our trek. We trekked 8km, uphill, climbing from 1,200ft to 1,600ft, through rice paddies and fields, across streams, and up dirt tracks, to reach Mi's house. Mi stopped to talk to many villagers as we passed them by, teaching us simple Hmong words to greet them. We encountered many water buffalo in our tracks, but they are just gentle giants. The gentleman that Chris is, offered and carried Mi's bamboo basket for part of the journey, and Mi took Chris' rucksack. We chatted all the way, learning a lot about Hmong life, traditions, living in the mountains, food, clothes... you name it we asked it!
Arriving at Mi's house in a small village on the sloping mountain, we were greeted by a very bouncy puppy and lots of chickens. The patch of land included her house, where she lives with her husband and two children, and next door is her brother in law, with his wife and two children. They have a garden where they grow vegetables, and as I mentioned, there were plenty of chickens roaming around. Their rice paddies are further down the mountain. Her house was a reasonable size, but of course just a wooden structure. But thanks to Ethos, they had been able to build a new kitchen with better ventilation and concrete floors being laid throughout the house to help against the rising damp and known health risks associated with these issues. But when I say kitchen, I mean another space with a pit for a fire.
Within minutes of arriving Mi had began preparing our lunch, and wanting no help, I decided to watch and learn some tips. She cooked us up a feast! A chicken dish, pork dish, buffalo dish, endless amounts of rice, and a perfect chilli dressing. The trick here was to roast the chillies in the ash of the fire before crushing them with some corriander, lemon leaf, and hot water.
Mi invited her sister in law and nephew over to share lunch with us - a special occasion as the tribes have a diet of rice and vegetables three times a day, every day! So when we book these tours it is really something exciting for them to enjoy meat/noodles/eggs etc. Of course this all had to be washed down with numerous shots of rice wine, aka 'happy water', which was seriously strong - Mi said around 30%, but it tasted a lot stronger!
We let our food go down and then carried on for a further 8km to reach the village where Mi's sister lived, and where we would be staying. We stopped off for a few more supplies along the way to add to our offerings, including coffee, sweet cake, eggs, and sugar cane to snack on.
Mi's sisters house was a similar size but had a very small area containing the pit for the fire for cooking, so smoke was a problem. It was in a much more compact area of a village. She lives with her husband, three children, and a very cute but filthy puppy, which nearly came back with us in my rucksack. We sat in the sun and snacked on some sweet cake, before helping prepare for dinner. This involved peeling the garlic and rolling the spring rolls using rice paper. Chris in particular created some interesting looking spring rolls! Another feast was prepared; pork spring rolls, a chicken dish, a pork dish, garlic green beans, and of course plenty of rice again. The green beans were stir fried with a lot of garlic and were delicious - not like the squeaky stringing green beans we get back home. We also managed to exhaust their supply of rice wine between the six of us (the grandma had come over to join in!). This family are lucky enough to have a tv in their house, one of the only ones in the village, so throughout the evening more and more children would appear in the house, (no knocking on doors here!) gathered around the tv - it was funny to see.
At about 9pm the children disappeared home for bed, the normal bed time for all villagers, however we stayed up being entertained by the youngest two we were staying with. The girl, aged 8, found a piece of paper, some scissors and glue, and began making various origami - swans, flowers, a little box. Whilst the little boy, aged 6, used the scrap paper to make masks, to which Chris joined in and made some paper aeroplanes. Not before long we were playing their version of 'Rock Paper Scissors', which each round ended in a short game of hide and seek. I say short, since there aren't many hiding places in a house with no real rooms! We then moved on to one person being blind folded and having to catch the others. I think we played until gone 10pm, when the kids climbed a wooden ladder to the attic area for bedtime. We also hit the sack, prepared for a cold, restless night.

Cold we were not, and we got some sleep in between the roosters, dogs, and villagers getting up early. When we woke the children had already been fed and gone off to school. For breakfast we enjoyed egg fried rice, garlic green beans, and a noodle dish. We had definitely been fed well on this trip.
Mi and her friends took some time to add embroidery to their new clothes, made especially for new year. These women are so talented, learning at a very young age how to make their own clothes and use various plants from the forests to dye them pretty colours - the indigo plant is a favourite.
We gave our thanks to Mi's sister and her family by leaving them some money for a few months electricity. She returned her thanks with some homemade bracelets each and a lovely purse.
We set off down the mountains and stopped by Mi's family home en route. We met her mum and saw where she grew up. We walked winding down the mountains, through many villages and rice paddies, for 12km. As we passed through one village at around 11am it was lunch time at a primary school, so all the children were outside and so friendly, waving and running over to greet us and we walked by.
We stopped for our final meal at a more touristy spot, popular for other companies using Vietnamese guides. Again the food was great, spring rolls, a beef dish, vegetables and sticky rice. Mi even found some rice wine for us to enjoy with her one last time.
Our trek finished when we joined the main road around 3pm and were picked up and taken back to the Ethos house by a taxi.
We also left Mi with some money to show our thanks, as her five year old son had been in hospital whilst she was with us and the hospital bill would be costly. So hopefully the money we left helped her out.
This trek was such an amazing experience, the only way to get to see the real Sapa and understand and learn how the tribal villagers live. We won't ever forget Mi and her family, and hope to one day return to Sapa.

We booked back into the 'Sapa Queen Palace hotel', very grateful for warm running water. Having eaten a lot of delicious Vietnamese food for the past couple of days we opted for a pizza for dinner. Ethos met up with us that evening to find out about our trek, how it went, how we found it, and any suggestions we had. We would highly recommend using them, and we would use them again.

Up early the next morning to begin a long journey over to Laos. Very sad to be leaving Vietnam, and definitely not ready to leave...we could spend A LOT longer here!

We spent all day on a very cramped mini bus headed for Dien Bien Phu, 37Km from the Laos border. A long windy road down the mountains, and nine hours later we arrived. Oh, and we did have to wait for around half an hour whilst they actually lay part of the road for us to cross! Not only that, there was a sheer drop to our right down the mountains - pretty sketchy!
We searched for a room for the night, found a cafe for a coffee, and climbed nearly 500 stairs to a war monument, with a nice view of the city.
Dien Bien Phu is used just as a stop over for many tourists and travellers crossing the Laos border, so there really isn't much to do/see.
We grabbed a quick dinner at a street food restaurant and got an early night, ready to wake up early for another day of travelling...