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Well, we just aboutmade it over the border on a night bus from China! I think that bus journey has been the single most challenging part of our trip so far!! When boarding the bus which we hoped was the right one, we got ripped off by some dude claiming to be the "manager" who wanted to charge us 30 Yuan each as a "bag Tax" for extra fuelo - what cr*p, we did however pay him 50 as he was threatening to take opur bags off the bus - one for the "it's all an experience pile!" THe bus was a sleeper bus and for about an hour we were the only westerners on the bus - we tried to make conversation with some of the younger chinese but no-one was interested, probably as they all knew the scam and could reveal it to us if they spoke to us. The journey was 12 hours and was pretty much off road on a bus that wasn't designed for off roading - there had evidently been a lot of landsllides recently and i think we drove over all of them! Tiff and Simon, the only other two westerners that got on the bus helped make us feel a bit more confident that we were actually going to end up in Vietnam and not somewhere really random! Needless to say we didn't get much sleep due to the fear factor, bumpy roads, smelly feet and the large amount of smoking that was going on on the bus!! A couple of times the bus had to pll over to fix wherever the black smoke was billowuing from and we also had to hand over our passports at some sort of military checkpoint!! So we arrived at Hekou, the border with Vietnam at about 7 am and breezed trhough customs to Lao Cai, the Vietnamese side of the bridge . Our new friends Tiff and Simon hadn't booked a hotel yet but as we had a transfer booked, we called the hotel and they got the bus with us.
Sapa is really awesome - the drive from the station was even really beautiful with trerraced rice paddies being harvested all the way down. Our hotel was really nice when we arrived and we had a great breakfast before a snooze and a walk down the hill to the village of Cat Cat. Our immediate impression of Vietnam was thatt he people were very friendly - most of them want to sell you somethikng and you are bombarded with "you buy from me?" as soon as you leave the hotel front door, but they also want to have a chat with you and aren't as aggressive as the chinese. We had a great chilled out afternoon and got some nice food with a view!
The next day we had arranged a 14km trek with a local guide to the village of Tai Phan, our guide may was only 20 years old and was from the Red Dao (pronounced Zao) minority tribe from the village we were trekking to. She was really great and pointed out small hydro electric power generators, the indigio plant they grow and use to dye their clothes as well as other local foods and wild plants - it was a great day if slightly foggy, but the views were still astounding. We got to the village and had some lunch of noodles and veg, and then had the local herbal spa bath! This was awesome - they boin up a load of wild herbs and berries from the surrounding forests over a massive fire and then pour it into big barrels that you sit in for half an hour or so. The local people believe it makes them stronger and is their "miracle bath" the local ladies go to the bath after giving birth and are back working in the rice fields after 10 days - Amazing!
Then it was back to Sapa on the back of a motorbike which was surprisingly safe!! Great views and a fun ride home.
Dinner was the best food we have eaten whilst on holiday! We had HotPot - very different from the chinese hot pot, this one was a clear stock flavoured with lemongrass, tomatoes and local herbs, which is boiled on the table and you add your meat, veg, eggs and noodles - YUM i need to find the recipe for that!!! thebn to bed for a very deep sleep in a nice bed!! and more trkking to look forward to topmorrow!
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