Sapa, Vietnam

<-- The french-colonized, mountain-side town of Sapa.

After a long night-bus ride we walked across the border from China to Vietnam. Our first stop was Sapa, a small town up in the mountains in Northern Vietnam. It was absolutely beautiful and exceeded all expectations. We stayed in a hotel built into the side of the mountain and our room had an unobstructed, magnificent view of the surrounding beauty.


<- Not a bad view for breakfast, eh?
We took a motorbike out (in typical MacCuaig-Roberts style) to explore the countryside. First trip, we went up, up, up, and froze, froze, froze. The second time we went into the valleys an loved the waterfalls and being able to see the local villagers harvesting their rice crops.
<-- Where's Waldo?... I mean Mark... does that boy ever get around!
^-- Tiered rice fields.
<-- Some H'Mong kids working hard to 'beat' the rice off the stalks. They gather it in bunches and whack it off the side of the bin numerous times until they are satisfied all the rice is off.
A local boy using the wind to clean the newly harvested rice. They stand on a platform, slowly pouring out the rice into a collection bin and the wind carries the debris and dirt away.--^




No those aren't mini smoke stacks. The rice collectors burn the stalks of the rice plants after they've beaten all the rice off of them. This makes for quite the smokey valley during harvest season. -->

Sapa was also great for a bit of shopping. The H'Mong people, a hill tribe, would come into town selling their goodies, and boy did I love it. They were, however, a little overbearing at times, swarming and fighting for your attention in what we now realize is the traditional Vietnamese way to handle us foreigners. Mark was able to miss all this shopping as he was laid up in bed with a fever for a couple days.