First a few pictures and stories from the rest of Ha Long Bay. I met a gal from North Wales, Sue, who was in the military and it was very interesting to hear and learn about another country's military and how it funcitons. She really stressed that when they go into another country, before they leave they try to rebuild and do as much as they can for that country. She felt that they truly tried to help people. It was a very lovely, open talk.
The water was so blue and beautiful and it was always a bit misty and foggy in the bay.
Th driver let me operate the boat for a bit (NOT!)...as you can see it's pretty serious business! :)
There were a few ladies that came out on their boats selling their fresh fruit on the bay.
With some great new friends; Fiona from Ireland and Megan from Louisiana.
Whiskey is huge in southeast Asia and everywhere you see it there are numerous animals in it! My thoughts on the picture after this one.....bugs should only get to be so big...and this one is WAY too big!
We were taking a train to Sapa,which I was very excited about because I had never been on a train! Let's just say that I got a little too excited because it didn't really meet my expectations! I can't believe it wasn't just like I've seen on TV! Ha!
It was a bumpy ride and I was up at 5am....the train stopped at 6am and we took a one hour bus ride to Sapa. I am running out of different descriptive words to describe the beauty I see...but it's truly breath taking. Almost right away you were attacked by little girls, asking your name, where you come from, how long you are staying, do you have a boyfriend, how many brothers and sisters do you have, etc. It's cute until they start harassing you to buy stuff and claimed that they talked to you first so you should buy from them or to remember them when you get to their village. It was saddening. We trekked for hours up and down the terraces until we reached the hilltribe village that we were spending the night in.
It was sometimes a bit scary walking on the terraces! It was almost a balancing act!
I felt like an old lady with my walking stick, but it came in quite handy!! I never fell in any of the terraces into the mud and water, unlike some of the other people!
The guides stopped us and had us rub indigo plant all over our hands....thus making them green....for quite a few days!
The amount of work and effort that went into and continues to go into creating, farming, and maintaining these rice terraces is beyond my comprehension.
While walking through many hilltribe villages we got to see many things. Here I got to have a try at working the corn mill! It's harder than it looks! They also had a rice mill that was run by water and we got to see how they dye their clothes with indigo.We also got to visit their school, which was very unorganized and didn't seem to be functioning very well.
Too often on our trekking we saw children taking care of children, with no parent in sight.
I felt this knife was a bit too big for this little guy...but again, there was no parent around to tell him otherwise!
Once we arrived in the village where we were spending the night, we got to relax for a bit and then they fed us an amazing meal! While we were sitting, enjoying the refreshing cool weather and then a brief down pour, I heard some squealing. We all ignored it until I finally got up to see what was going on. Just a pig strapped to the back of a motorbike to be taken to market! Cailin was NOT pleased!I said that is farm life!
Our group consisted of Anthony, from Liverpool, Brett and Keirsten from South Africa, Cody from Canada and our fearless guide Shu. We had many laughs and good times!
Saying goodbye to and thanking some of the villagers.
It was very refreshing and energizing to spend some time in the countryside. It was sad to me that I feel tourism has kind of wrecked the pureness of these villages because all they do is hound tourists for money. I assume before they were just fine living how they were.
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