6am was not a nice wake up call this morning, it felt as though I was getting up for a cleaning shift down the centre, YUK.
I had to run about throwing my clothes on because it was freezing, if we hadn't have had to check out of this hotel because it's fully booked with Vietnamese then we could have had an extra hour in bed!
We left our bags at reception until after the trek because we wouldn't have been able to check in that early to our next hotel before 12-1pm anyways. It just meant that we had to walk up the hill to get our bags after a stupidly long walk!
We grabbed some breakfast at the baguette and chocolat shop, the sun was trying to make an appearance today! (The weatherman is never wrong over here! Let's get rid of Derek I say! I'm going to start trending a hashtag on social media; '#getridofderekbringtheasianweathermantobritain'
We met ShuShu (our guide) and her sister ZuZu. We had opted for the long way to her village where her mother was cooking lunch for us.
They were part of the hmuong black tribe; there are three tribes in Sapa. Her traditional outfit was so pretty! It had all Aztec patterns on it, beads on her wrap arounds on her calfs, a petty coat and a frilly skirt. She was so precious! Hehe.
She had a strong head on her shoulders though, she was 22 and had worked for a hotel as a tour guide which is where she learnt her English, from people.
They get treated really poorly as tour guides for the hotel; they have to work a month in hand to prove that they are 'worthy' enough to be a tour guide. They get the same set wage whether they have 2 people or 10 people and aren't allowed to take tips. So now she works for herself, she had a friend that worked in their village, she was from Canada and bought her a phone so that she could set up Facebook for clients to get hold of her and she works through word of mouth. We asked her to do a trek because Chris and Oli went with her for two days. She asks for $7 (150,000VD) per day per person; which is hell of a lot cheaper than what tourist agencies are charging which is $25-35 dollars per day and you don't go to the traditional home of the guide, you go to a set up homestay or tourist traditional house.
She took us downhill through what was farmers land, through the rice paddies and the mud, bamboo trees were chopped down so that they made foot stools for people to get through. Even though the weather was still a little foggy, cold and wet the scenery was still beautiful. The way that the paddies are cut into the mountains is incredible. We walked for four hours through fields and and little villages, around the sides of huge mountains and more so jungle, a huge river flows between all of the mountains. It looks so pretty with the river and the little farm houses made of wood and all the little piglets running about the place; little tribal children running about the place and water buffalo grazing in the middle of the middle paddie fields. I don't really know what they are eating the rice isn't growing yet. We have realised that the best time to come to Sapa is between May and August which is when the rice is growing and almost ready to harvest so the fields are all sorts of yellows, oranges and greens! Even more of a beautiful place then I guess!
The sun teased us all morning, we reached ShuShu's village and she bought a huge sugar cane stick for 20,000VD but made 10,000 each of us when we all had a bit. It was a big bit and sugar cane tastes so good!
It's like a purple bamboo but you strip the bark and bite pieces off of it and suck the juice which is pure sugar and tastes AWESOME! and so bad for you!
We were amongst the tribes now and they were all just going about their daily lives in their tribal outfits, carrying their pigs or sucks for slaughter, taking their fields. It was lovely to just be amongst their culture.
We arrived at her house, here they all live under the same house. There is the mother and father, Shu Shu and her 6 sisters and one brother. However Shu Shu is the youngest at 22 and she is the rebel as she doesn't want to get married and wants to travel instead. Here that's not how the culture works, they have arranged marriages if the boy is wealthy then the parents agree to the wedding. They aren't allowed to travel they must stay at home and provide for the family and get up at 2,3,4am in the morning to see to the rice paddies as a family job, it's bizzare really how we think that this is strange but really it's the norm and we are the ones that live the exception and are lucky enough to have the choice, money and time to travel and do what we want.

Shu Shu's four sisters are already married and have left the family home, they get married at the age of 16 and are pregnant by 18, it's acceptable here but at home it's a frowned upon. Shu Shu's neice was 18 and heavily pregnant with her 2nd child.
(when the daughters marry they leave and live with the husband's family)
The family home was fairly big with about three wooden buildings, one big room with dividing walls, they did have television though. When the doors were shut even though there were gaps through the wood it was pretty damn warm!
Food was lovely; Shu Shu, her mother and her sister cooked. We had vegetarian and pork dishes. I opted for the vegetarian but I still can't stomach the fried tofu, BOFF. Good job Scott, Sarah, Mike and Caroline can venture out and try things. They had smoked 'pork crackling' but the fat wasn't crisped it was just thick pieces of fat and they are it no problem. Made me feel sick!
Then we were offered something which was potato but PURPLE!! It was alright, very salty... But I think I didn't keep think this thing is purple I would have like it more. What sort of vegetable grows PURPLE!?!

Food was lovely but Shu Shu's grandmother died last night and we all felt a little awkward you could say, being in the house because they all love together.. The grandmother wasn't there she had been buried near enough straight away I think but for a 22 year old to be working and the family to have us for lunch the day after was hell of a lot! So we all felt a little awkward in some way; me, Sarah and Caroljne bought a little bracelet from them because we felt obliged and then we had two bracelets given to us, Shu Shu had stayed up and made us them the night before, aw I wanted to cry. I'm such baby!

After lunch we went for another 2 hour walk around the village, Shu Shu was asking whether we wanted to get a lift back up to Sapa by motorbike, she asked a few times and we all guessed it would be best because we wouldn't have got back to Sapa until 7pm if we had walked and it wasn't fair I her as I think she wanted to be at home with her family. We all have her a top and jumped on the back of a motorbike which we asked her to organise from the bottom end of her village.
The ride up was incredible, we are kind offloaded done it! The weather got extremely better and the sun was out... We saw BLUE SKY for the first time in 4 days! We could see rice paddies and fame land, mountain tops and people were smiling and waving. Everyone was happy! The entire ride up to Sapa town we were all smiling and pointing at the view. We arrived at the market square and it was as though we had entered a completely different town. We could see everything in close and far distance, mountains were there that we hadn't even realised was there. There were people everywhere in T-shirts and shortS! When we left this morning we couldn't see 5metres in front of us and everyone was wearing coats and long trousers!
We have seen why everyone goes on about how beautiful Sapa is...