No 2 Vietnam Favourites - Sapa

Sapa is in the hills (mountains to us) in the north of Vietnam very near the Chinese border. We took an overnight train there and back (too awful) and although the first day was misty, the second day was glorious. The hill tribes dress in their ethnic clothing, with the tribe named after colur of the clothes they favour. We mostly dealt with black Hmong, but other colour tribes come in on weekends to sell all their hand sewn stuff, would have liked to have seen that. It was always the women selling at the markets, or by the roads, never saw many men.
We went for a small hike on the first day, with our wonderful guide, Dao, down into a small village stopping off in to look in their houses and buying some of their creations.
The second day Geoff, matt and Meaghan went on a much longer hike down through the valley, through rice paddies and over rivers. Although they were tired and muddy they all loved it.
This was always going to be too hard for Henry so I stayed with him and with Dao again, climbed a nearby mountain - all steps but had me questioning whether this was indeed the easy hike! Luckily there were plenty of rest stops, a dance display, and plenty of rocks for Henry to climb on and the views were well worth the effort.