I’ve been a bit lax getting these images sorted, but, got a chance to go through them this weekend. To take up from the last post, after an amazing few days in Halong bay, we headed by train to a town called Sapa , in the mountains north of Hanoi. Its pretty close to the Chinese border in an area known as Tonkinese Alps. The town itself is above 1700m above sea level. This particular adventure started with an overnight train trip from Hanoi to Sapa, about a 9 hour journey in a sleeper cabin.
We really had no idea what we had booked, other than it was in Sapa and we were going to be there for a few days. We met up with a group of about 8 and a local guide from one of the ethnic minorities in the area, I believe she was from the H’mong people.
We headed out of the village and met up with a group of locals who would be “assisting” us on the trek. Little did we know how much we would need then as the day progressed. We left Sapa round 9 or 10 in the morning and starting walking. The first mile of so was very tame, but when we left the road and headed cross country, it was a very different story. What was incredible was, here was this bunch of westerners in hi-tech hiking boots slipping & sliding down these rough paths when the locals, sometimes in flop flops were strolling along with no difficulty at all and having to help out these clumsy westerners .
If you are as unfit as I am, the next 7 or 8 hours were extremely tough and the least said the better! We stayed that night in a local house in the middle of nowhere, but, boy was I glad to see a shower and a few beers that night!
Anyway, here are some of the images from the two days in Sapa.
