So I am sat here on the beach in singapore typing my first blog entry
on my new iPod touch. I'm reply pleased with it thusfar and managed to
get a great deal.

Anyway, back to the Blog! We spent a good couple of hours imbibing bia
hoi from the same establishment as previously mentioned before a
lovely chap came along telling us that if we went to his bar, we could
drink for free. Now being the cynic I am, I wanted to know what the
catch was but on arrival, there didn't appear to be one - woohoo!

I was all to aware that we had a train to board in just over an hour
so I left soonafter and headed to the station bound for Sapa.

On the train, our awesome guide, Chinh, introduced us to the delights
of Vietnamese rice wine - oh my goodness. Apparently,1 hour later, I
was found singing to my iPod between the carriages and the next thing
I remember properly is waking up in Sapa, having eaten breakfast and
put myself to bed! Now you may not think that sounds particularly
serious but in between these events (and bearing in mind that I had
only had a couple of these mysterious 'rice wines') we had apparently
slept for 4 hours, got off the train at Lao Cai, boarded a bus to
drive into the mountains (which was alledgedly quite traumatic),
unloaded the bags, showered and changed in the hotel and then went to
the local market; all before breakfast! And such are the memory
erasing properties of rice wine.

Once I had recovered from this incident, I awoke to find myself in one
of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. Sapa is like an
Alpine ski town tucked away in the mountains of northern Vietnam but
has its own distinct cultural identity due to the number of ethnic
minority hill tribes that live in the vicinity. So alpine is it,that I
expected a tribal Julie Andrews to dance down the high street
proclaiming that 'the hills were alive with the sound if music!' I
loved it.

Whilst we were in Sapa, we had our first opportunty to try genuine
Vietnamese food. Our first dinner was a BBQ - yummy I hear you say -
this BBQ was loaded with black chicken (the meat is actually black!),
whole quails (complete with heads and all) chicken feet, and then more
normal thing such as beef intestines, stomach and lots and lots of
deep fried animal skin. Amazingly, if you picked through the fat, bone
and other unpleasantries, it was all surprisingly tasty. The
Vietnamese are a poor and therefore do not have the choice of
boneless, skinless chicken breast from Tescos; they really do just get
an animal and hack it into bite size chunks and throw the whole lot in
- bone, skin and all. They are not huge on making it look nice either!

Our second and third days in Sapa were spent on a lovely trek through
the mountain trails down into a Black Hmong village for a homestay.
Now perhaps I should tell you about the Black Hmong before I go any
further! They are one of the many hill tribes that reside in villages
near to Sapa but they are also one of the poorest ad so have decided
to make their living by selling handicrafts to the tourists.
Previously they used to sell opium but that was 'outlawed' by the
gov't previously so handicrafts were left as a livelihood. The people
all wear the traditional garb of Hmong which is a handmadeblack outfit
of woven hemp embroidered with an individual pattern for each person.
Most interestingly though is the intelligence and spark that these
people have. From the moment they see you, you are accosted by a girl
(the boys stay at home to work) of an age between 5 & 17 who greets
you in English, then asks you where you are from before switching to
just about any other European language if you aren't English. They ate
witty, funny and real fun to be around. As a result they make friends
pretty quickly with the tourists. They remember everyone's names and
almost align one of them to each of you for the duration of your stay.
I was hugely taken by the fact that they had this method of selling
which was a refreshing change from the old ladies who just gummed at
you trough betel nutted mouths and smiled in the hope you would buy
from them. The latest generation of Hmong kids were extremely sharp!

So the nine of us tourists plus Mr Chinh and our local guide set off
down the mountain with 30, yes 30 Hmong in tow. They aligned a child
and an old lady to each of is and they walked the 7km to the village
with us. Now we were all wearing sturdy walking shoes, had liters of
water with us and backpacks. They, alternatively wore only their black
outfits, flip flops and carried two small bags: one filled with all
manner of things to sell us at the far end (although we didn't know
that then!) and the other filled with personal possessions. I
marvelled at their sure footedness and balance as we traversed the
rice paddy walls and narrow footpaths, all as they chatted away to us
in fluent English - my guide was 12!

We arrived at the lunch stay where we ate a plentiful bread lunch and
the kids made a last ditch effort to dell us their wares. No menton of
us buying anythig had been made as they walked with us but it was
clear that this was the done thing. I found myself buying a random
little mobile phone wallet for easily 5 x what it was worth (I think I
paid $2 for it) but the whole experience was worth the cost tenfold.

We were to spend the night at a local 'village homestay' but when we
arrived it appeared that the whole thing was designed for tourists and
we werent going to be getting the authentic experience we had hoped
for. As it turned out, it was actually a lovely evening: the family
cooked us a splendid feast and even brought out the dreaded
celebratory rice wine after we had bought 'enough' beers. Needless to
say I do remember the karaoke but I don't recall doing the handstands
against the barn wall with another member of the group! My defining
memory of the evening is Mr Chinh belting out 'eternal flame' by the
Bangles in a Vietnamese accent - priceless!

We finished the trek the next day in blazing sunshine and headed back
to the hotel to recover and made preparations for the next day where
we intended to drive to see the highest mountain pass in Indochina. We
awoke in the morning to fond he glorious crystal clear weather we had
experienced the previous 2 days had been replaced by a fog so thick,
you couldn't even see the hotel on the opposite side of the street!
Unbelievable. The mountain pass trip was cancelled and we spent the
final day in Sapa playing pool and drinking hot chocolate as the
temperature had dropped close to freezing point with the change in
weather. That evening we boarded the night train back to Hanoi ready
to join the locals for morning exercise the following day.

Speak to you next time when we 'do' Hanoi and head to Hue, the home of
Chinh, our guide.