Trials and Tribulations in Sapa

Sapa, the aforementioned mountain town that was cold and rainy when we arrived, remained, you guessed it, cold and rainy. In fact, the weather actually just slowly devolved from bad to worse over the course of our three days there. Despite these less than ideal circumstances, we still managed to have fun, mostly due to our great tour guide and good group of people.

The cast of characters on our 2 day trek included a 2 dutch guys, one 25 and one middle aged, 2 young aussies from tazmania, and a crazy finnish man. never quite figured him out. we walked down the muddy slopes and rice paddies from Sapa to a minority village of Black H'mong for lunch, and then continued on battling rain till we arrived at our "homestay" at about 2:30. I put homestay in quotations because the popularity of this area has created a new economy of homestays for trekkers in which familes house many people (in our case 14, two groups of 7) and cook them dinner etc. Our homestay also featured a pool table outside as well as karoake capability, but alas, no heat.

We whiled away our time and eventually made it to dinner. Post-dinner we had a few hours to try and keep warm and entertained before going to bed. Laura and I, natural entertainers that we are, taught everyone (well everyone young) Celebrity, which was played with great gusto until about 10 when bedtime was declared. The most memorable part was the crazy finish man calling out "karoake, we want karaoke" at random intervals after everyone was in bed and the lights were out. bizarre.

We increased our warmth by sharing a bed and pooling our blankets, but others did not fare quite as well. After a breakfast of banana pancakes we opted for the easy way home (less mud) and walked through what I'm sure were some beautiful views.

Now we are happily ensconced in Laos. hurray