We have not seen the sun for 8 days now. We are stuck in a mountain village on the eastern edge of the Himalayas in fog and cloud for the second day running. Moreover we have had a power cut for most of the day today, now 3pm and no sign of power yet...(oh, joy, just back on and the heater should now work)
Ted is restive to say the least..."we should never have taken this trip to Sapa", etc...
We have had to shop here for down jacket/vest (only $20 each) to keep warm! The rain has not let off, but there have been periods when it was just mist in cloud. My new rubber soled shoes are surviving without taking on water and the hiking socks are warm, I slept in them too.
This town of Sapa is the centre for massive trekking in the area, so in this old part of town we have many shops supplying hiking and trekking gear at good prices. You ave to haggle a bit but they always smile when we are finishing so they ar3e doing well from our sales.
Hoang Lien Son mountains are home to Vietnam's highest mountain Fansipar at 3143m but Sapa is only at 1500m (just above Calgary but below Lake Louise).
It has a very high density of ethnic minorities who come into town to buy and sell. Many make their colorful weavings, embroidery, small crafts, etc. They are very very poor, I have not been able to bargain with any of them much yet. I am questioning our tourist desire to photograph people like this, making them objects instead of real people.
Today at the local market we saw people who have walked down early today from far-off villages to sell what little they have, almost bare feet, babies wrapped tight behind them, heads lolling. Some are sleeping exhausted on the street at 1:30pm.
Today we visited the new closed-in market and I did meet 3 old ladies, with old and new weaving for sale, and felt obliged to buy something. When I bargained down from 100 (thousand dong) to 90 she then threw in a little bag and of course it now came to the 100 she wanted. That's $5 but a lot to them. We had photos and toothless smiles...and an exchange of a Canadian pin on her dress.
We have also been to the supermarket to buy pens and notebooks to take to the vilage we will visit tomorrow, I am not taking candy...
The area is covered with sloping rice paddies and tht's waht most of the rural villages do, raise rice, along with corn, their staple. They have sub tropical summers and temperate winters and 160 days of a mist a year! It feels like London! But higher.
Many rare species of plants and animals are endemic to the region and the last remaining Vietnamese rainforest is here. But they are cutting it at a pace to build, we see massive logging trucks on the road. It's also a big soure of rock for roadbuilding.
Sapa sits at the convergance of the world's 16 "biomes" so plants and animals here at unique in the world. Sadly, we are not destined to experience any of this...as we have to leave at 7:30 in the morning and take the night train abck to Hanoi tomorrow.
Accuweather forecasts that after we leave there will be 3 clear days of sun here, I could weep.
It reminds me so much of Guatemala when we traveled there in the late 70s. Interestingly 80% of tourists here are Vietnamese and the other 20% of us are other tourists.
The train station for here is about 5km from the Chinese border with Yunnan, a province I have visited twice and which I believe is the most interesting part of China too.
Ted is restive to say the least..."we should never have taken this trip to Sapa", etc...
We have had to shop here for down jacket/vest (only $20 each) to keep warm! The rain has not let off, but there have been periods when it was just mist in cloud. My new rubber soled shoes are surviving without taking on water and the hiking socks are warm, I slept in them too.
This town of Sapa is the centre for massive trekking in the area, so in this old part of town we have many shops supplying hiking and trekking gear at good prices. You ave to haggle a bit but they always smile when we are finishing so they ar3e doing well from our sales.
Hoang Lien Son mountains are home to Vietnam's highest mountain Fansipar at 3143m but Sapa is only at 1500m (just above Calgary but below Lake Louise).
It has a very high density of ethnic minorities who come into town to buy and sell. Many make their colorful weavings, embroidery, small crafts, etc. They are very very poor, I have not been able to bargain with any of them much yet. I am questioning our tourist desire to photograph people like this, making them objects instead of real people.
Today at the local market we saw people who have walked down early today from far-off villages to sell what little they have, almost bare feet, babies wrapped tight behind them, heads lolling. Some are sleeping exhausted on the street at 1:30pm.
Today we visited the new closed-in market and I did meet 3 old ladies, with old and new weaving for sale, and felt obliged to buy something. When I bargained down from 100 (thousand dong) to 90 she then threw in a little bag and of course it now came to the 100 she wanted. That's $5 but a lot to them. We had photos and toothless smiles...and an exchange of a Canadian pin on her dress.
We have also been to the supermarket to buy pens and notebooks to take to the vilage we will visit tomorrow, I am not taking candy...
The area is covered with sloping rice paddies and tht's waht most of the rural villages do, raise rice, along with corn, their staple. They have sub tropical summers and temperate winters and 160 days of a mist a year! It feels like London! But higher.
Many rare species of plants and animals are endemic to the region and the last remaining Vietnamese rainforest is here. But they are cutting it at a pace to build, we see massive logging trucks on the road. It's also a big soure of rock for roadbuilding.
Sapa sits at the convergance of the world's 16 "biomes" so plants and animals here at unique in the world. Sadly, we are not destined to experience any of this...as we have to leave at 7:30 in the morning and take the night train abck to Hanoi tomorrow.
Accuweather forecasts that after we leave there will be 3 clear days of sun here, I could weep.
It reminds me so much of Guatemala when we traveled there in the late 70s. Interestingly 80% of tourists here are Vietnamese and the other 20% of us are other tourists.
The train station for here is about 5km from the Chinese border with Yunnan, a province I have visited twice and which I believe is the most interesting part of China too.
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