I don’t have my camera/phone/PDA thingy with me, so I’ll skip the photo this time. And some day when I get back, I’ll figure out why the photo in my last post came out sideways. But the main thing is that Em and I are in Sa Pa, chillin’ at an internet cafe. We had a great couple of days (well, 1.5) in Saigon and the Mekong delta, then flew up to Hanoi to catch an overnight train to northern the Lào Cai station, from where a chartered bus took us to Sa Pa. We hiked (with a guide) down through the valley all day yesterday, and spent the night in a “homestay” – basically, staying in the home of one of the (“ethnic minority”) families in the village. The scenery is spectacular – the valley is between towering mountaintops, with rice paddies cut into them from about halfway up, and all the way down to the river at the bottom of the valley. And we managed to get in a couple of dips at the local swimming hole – a beautiful spot right below a waterfall, with crystal clear (and cold!) water. SOOOOOOOOO nice after hiking in the hot, humid jungle.
This morning, after breakfast, we hiked to a neighboring village to see another family’s home, and then back to the swimming hole until lunch. Then we hiked back out a little ways (just to the nearest paved road), where a car was waiting to take us back into town. We took showers at the local Handspan tour office (we booked the hike and homestay through them), and now we’re getting caught up on some e-mails before dinner, and the ride back to the Lào Cai station. Then it’s another overnight train, this time back to Hanoi, and then tomorrow morning it’s off to Halong Bay, where we’ll spend the day (and night) on a boat. After which we head (via Hanoi, again) to Luang Prabang in Laos. I’ll probably post again from Luang Prabang, since we’ll be there more than one day, and there ought to be plenty of internet access there…
