More Adventures from Sapa

The second day in Sapa, we opted to split into two groups. Pete and I (Jeremy), wanted to do another day of trekking, while Jonas and Guider had some housekeeping things to handle (Note from Jonas: Due to wet clothing/shoes from the day before we opted to stay in town, bum around the market, and hit up an internet cafe to plan ahead for our return to Hanoi, the trip to Ha Long Bay, and our continued journey towards south Vietnam). So, PJ and I met Chum at 10 that morning and went over our itinerary: go see a big waterfall, hike around Vietnam's tallest peak (Fan Si Pan), then go see a local village of one of the various ethnic minorities surrounding Sapa. Unfortunately, Chum would not be taking us around, but he'd replaced himself with his younger brother, An.

The weather was nicer than the day before but still foggy and overcast. However, this weather only ads to the mystique of Sapa, so we didn't mind. After a short ride and a few flights of stairs to climb, PJ and I reached a huge waterfall. There were a few other groups of tourists also there. They seemed more in awe of the 6'5”, blonde hair, blue-eyed Pete than the waterfall though. One Chinese tourist even asked PJ to get in a picture. Best part: It was a dude who asked him, and he made his girlfriend take the picture of him and Pete. Don't worry, I jumped on that shot just as quickly:


HAHAHA. Pete and I also bought hand-knitted hats from the Hmong ladies. Pete looks very much like Brad Pitt in 7-years in Tibet (unlike Brad Pitt, it seems that men find Pete more attractive than women). Again, Pete is going to get the brunt of all of our jokes as he is not only not helping me to write this, but also he is still sleeping.


After the first waterfall, we were taken to the Bamboo Forest near Fan Si Pan and hiked to a more remote waterfall. To get there we had to hike a trail that had been washed out by all of the rain the day before and was extremely muddy. It was definitely worth it though as this second waterfall was much more stunning – it was roughly 70 feet high and fell into a tiny pool of water. What was so awesome was that this created a huge wind and sprayed a mist of water all over us. It reminded me of being in a tropical storm/hurricane in South Florida and for Pete it was a total novelty. I wasn't able to get a ton of pictures though, because my camera lens was soon covered in water, but we were able to get a few nice shots.


After hiking back up the trail, we went back towards Sapa and had lunch in the market. There were some interesting cuisines in the market, some you may recognize, some I would hope you don't:



Don't worry Connie, we weren't adventurous (that day) and opted to just have Pho Bo. While eating lunch, one of the older men eating near us was very happy that we had chosen to eat here (or just intrigued by PJ's blonde hair) and bought us our first shot of Vietnamese rice wine. Rice wine is totally a misnomer as it tastes more like vodka or baijiu, if you've been to China (Al, you may (or may not) remember that taste). The shot definitely made Pete more adept at driving a moto like a local though. After lunch, we raced down to the nearby Black Hmong village. On the way, we saw a group of villagers planting rice in one of the terraces. I guess they thought Pete and I would be good at planting rice since we're both pretty large... They were wrong. Pete and I pulled our shoes and socks off and hopped in the paddy. It took us a little while to get the technique down, and when we looked up they had easily quadrupled the amount of rice we had planted. We like to think we boosted morale and brought a lot of intangibles to the work force, despite our lack of specialized knowledge. Next time you eat rice, just think it could have been a product of this:



Anyhow, we were on a tight schedule so we could only help out for a little while, although we know we were dearly missed... We got to go into one of the villager's homes and check out how they live. It was pretty interesting to see, and I wish we could have had more time in Sapa to do a homestay. There was a little kid in the house who must have been about 2 years old. He was running around in just a t-shirt, no shorts. Every time he looked at Pete his eyes would get really big and he would let his jaw drop. It was hysterical and the two of us got a kick out of it every time he did it. We thought it would be impolite to try to get a picture of it though, so you'll have to use your imagination. After getting hassled yet again to buy handmade Hmong clothing/bags, we headed back to Sapa to meet up with Jonas and Guider. The four of us then had dinner in Lao Cai and caught the overnight sleeper back to Hanoi.

Here's one of my favorite pictures thus far on the trip. While Jonas and Chum were fixing their bike on the first day, Pete found an old lady in need of a ride home. Pete later told me that he almost wiped out taking her home, nonetheless, she was grateful for the help...


- Jeremy (without the help of Pete, as usual...)