The view is almost indescribable and the pictures don't really do it justice.
The mist you see in the picture made the place even more surreal. We spent the night on a sailing junket (Indochina Sails). The boat is a grand lady with 10 or so guest rooms and beautiful wood throughout.
While in the bay, we boarded a local fishing boat and toured a local "floating" fishing village. These are built on floating platforms of plywood on top of 45 galllon plastic drums, anchored to one of the islands so the tide does not carry them off. The islands are too steep to be inhabited themselves.
While onboard, we met Igor Ustinov, the son of the actor Peter Ustinov (Inspector Hercules Poirot of Agatha Christie fame). He is a very charming gentleman, a well known Parisian / Swiss sculptor, who runs a foundation for the study of prejudice, and another organization that runs 26 schools around the world. He has a home in Lausanne, Switzerland, a condo in Montreal and a home in the Gatineau Hills near Ottawa.
After returning to Hanoi, we re-organized ourselves to jump on the King Exress night train to Lao Cai and Sa Pa. The Lao Cai train station is 2.5 killometers from the Chinese border. We were going to knock on the door, but as we had no visa, our guide vetoed the idea!
The train runs on narrow gauge train track, and the beds are quite narrow as well. The combination makes it interesting to try and sleep. Sonya descirbes it as "trying to sleep on a bunk bed in our travel trailer, while Paul is driving through the mountains and passing at the same time!"
Needless to say, I had the top bunk, as Sonya was not crawling up there!! We shared our cabin with a lovely young German lady, Tina, who was backpacking through Vietnam and Cambodia. Safe travels to her!
When we arrived in Lao Cai, there was a one hour drive to Sa Pa - ALL uphill. We spent the morning at the local markets where the locals buy their food. You can have your chicken running around or ready to fry as can be seen here!
After that we toured the local shops, set up for tourists, and saw a number of the local ethnic minorities selling their wares.
The next morning after breakfast, we walked down through the terraced rice paddiies to some of the small villages of some of the local minorities (Black Mongh and Red Zao). The views of the terraced paddies was incredible. We had seen a shot of these on a national geographic show about China but never expected to see this for ourselves.
When we got to the village, we stopped in a local home for a cooking lesson and lunch. Our guide Lan and I did all the work while Sonya was busy snapping photos!
The lady of the house cooked up the rest of the veritable feast!
Oh, yes, we also had some happy water, otherwise known as rice wine, being poured here by our guide Lan!
After finishing lunch, we walked to another village to visit the home of one of the local people, a 70 year old lady who invited us into her home.
After seeing this, Sonya realized that she would likely not ever need to do a kitchen renovation. Here's hoping that I can hold her to that!!
After that it was back to Lao Cai to catch the train back to Hanoi overnight. So, was the trip to Sa Pa worth 16 hours on a rocky train??? Absolutely!!
See you ini Hue!
Paul & Sonya
