It had rained overnight, it was still raining, everything was damp; I had absolutely no idea how I was going to get though the next 24 hours. I never thought I was a princess, but I was reconsidering the label. Everything was damp and it sounded like there was a waterfall on the other side of the wall where our bed was. We could see the water draining down the side of the mountain into their drainage area and then around the house, through the gaps in the wood. The constant sound of water flowing was making us both need to wee quite badly, but it was pouring with rain and we'd have to go outside to do it: we were not ecstatic at the thought.

Yin cooked up some breakfast, noodles and rice, naturally, and we ate together after 9am. Her children and husband had eaten earlier, but she had waited for us to surface to eat with us. We considered our options and decided there was no point trekking in the rain to see.. nothing. The beautiful landscape that was Sapa, was now completely covered in mist, so we opted to stay in their home for the day instead. She told us about a party the village in the valley was having, so we agreed to go to that in the early afternoon. It was like a Mexican Day of the Dead celebration where they slaughtered a buffalo and drank rice wine from 7am to remember those that had passed on, this was going to be interesting.

Yin went to her mother-in-laws house, where her husband was, to let him know we wanted to go to the party; he came back with her about an hour later and they got ready. They were very conscious of their appearance, combing their hair and putting on their immaculately clean tribal attire. Considering everything else was falling apart and covered in mud, it was a vast contrast.

We then set off on the 30 minute walk down to the village in the valley; I was deeply concerned that we walked down the entire time, as it meant we'd have to walk back up the entire time when we were done. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd thought when she'd said 'its in the valley,' this was an obvious, clear indication that it was going to be beneath where we were and therefore would be down. I guess I just hadn't considered the incline and the fact that it would be a long way.

It was a precarious adventure to the village in the valley, with people hanging around everywhere and men walking around with strips of meat hanging from bamboo loops. One man accidentally dropped some of this looped meat on the muddy ground: he bent down, picked it up, added it back to his stack and carried on handing them out to people. The tribal people were then storing them, completely uncovered, in the seats of their motorbikes for later. As you do. We asked Yin why everyone was walking around with random bits of raw meat and she explained that it was a gift for peoples family members who could not join the party. Personally, I'd rather have a bag of bath salts and a 'thinking of you' card; each to their own.

We walked down paddie fields to where the real action was. The buffalo had been slaughtered at 7am and there were other tourists that had been there for it; they said they'd stabbed the buffalo in the neck, drank the blood as it poured out and then collected the rest in buckets. After it had bled out, they cut its head off. I was horrified at the thought and glad I wasn't there for the ceremony; it wasn't just the blood and gore that I couldn't handle, but the sound of a distressed and dying animal would haunt my dreams for many years to come. I'll pass thanks.

The buffalos head and hooves were lying on the ground where the tribal people were drinking soup bowls of rice wine; they were getting so drunk they had to be carried off to their huts. Considering the fact that it wasn't a western establishment and this entailed climbing up the sides of paddie fields, no stairs, with a passed out, old mans, dead weight to carry, it was not an easy exercise.

I was surprised at how the people, and their dogs, walked past the appendages of a dead animal like it was a rock, or some other inanimate object. The eyes were open and it stared blankly into the distance, its hooves stacked next to its right ear. We asked Yin why it had to be a buffalo, considering they were only owned by the rich tribal people as they cost 40 million dong each (£400) and were used as working animals to plough fields. She explained that it was tradition and they would inspect all the buffalo that were available; the one that was selected was either sick or had injured legs, etc. I told her there was no way I could watch them slaughter it, I would cry. She laughed at me and said that the families who owned the buffalo cried when they were slaughtered as they did not want one of their prize possessions killed for meat. It was the rules of the tribe though, and there was nothing they could do about it.

They brought out what looked like large buckets of buffalo meat and the tribal people grabbed chop sticks and tucked in. I then asked Yin why they weren't eating the meat with rice and vegetables, it seemed a complete waste. She then informed me that it wasn't in fact meat, but cooked blood. It had been fried to solidify and then boiled. Buffalo black pudding. Edd and I were offered chop sticks to try and both declined. It turned out Yin was a fussy eater when it came to meat and also did not partake in the consumption of congealed buffalo blood.

After standing watching for an hour, Edd and I decided to go back to Yin's hut. We told her to stay with her husband and enjoy the party, but we wanted to go back and sit around the fire. It took us 1 hour to hike back up to her house with me taking a 5-breath-break every 10 steps to cope. By the time we got to the top, we were completely drenched and very unhappy campers.

Yin's friend was inside, making us lunch (Yin had called her and asked to cook for us) with the noisy, middle child, called Moh, that had been left behind; we thanked her for the meal and she left with the Moh. We then hung our clothes around the fire, fully aware that everything was going to smell of burnt wood in the morning. We sat with Mutley, who was quickly becoming socialised, and chatted about the contrast in our lives compared to what we were surrounded by, until Yin came home at about 5pm.

She quickly got to work cooking slops for the pigs and we played with Shie (say she, it means light) her son. Edd asked her why she was bothering to heat up the pigs slops and she explained that they didn't eat it if it was cold. She had fussy kids and fussy pigs, poor woman. She then continued to cook our dinner while we played with her children.

Chow and Moh went to bed at about 6.30pm, climbing into their parents bed and going to sleep without dinner. While we ate dinner at around 7pm and had a nice chat with Yin about her house, their land and her husbands farming. She told us that the single goat, that had arrived the day before, was 2.8 million Dong: it was a very expensive animal. We then asked her what they would use the goat for and she explained that because goats were so expensive, they could be sold in the city for a lot of money; her husband was planning on breeding the goat for income. Their chickens had all died off because of illness, so thats why they didn't have many chickens roaming around and they did not eat their eggs, in an attempt to replenish their stocks. They only ate meat maybe twice a week as it was expensive, and they only ate their pigs on very special occasions. They did eat their chickens from time to time, but her husband had to kill it, slaughter it, cook it and serve it to her on a plate; she did not like the process at all. We laughed as I feel the same way about meat, only eating unidentifiable body parts and particularly not liking chicken. They did have electricity, but did not own a fridge to store meat in. So if they slaughtered an animal, all of it had to be consumed in one sitting; freezing some to use at a later date was not an option.

Edd and I came to realise, during this conversation, that Yin and her family were still setting up their house and land, having lived with her husbands family for most of their married life. They did not have much, were one of the poorer families as her husband had not inherited the family land and had to create his own. Yin seemed shy about this, being quite insecure about what her family had, like the fact that they did not have that many chickens was an issue to her. It was an interesting contrast with our lives as we considered a nice car, fancy phone, big house and nice clothes to indicate wealth; for them it was goats, pigs, chickens and crops. Buffalo were for the really rich people, the Aston Martin of the animal world.

It had taken me a while to comprehend the environment I was in, but by the end of day 2, we were not only grateful for what we had, but had come to respect the simple, happy lives of these mountain people.