5-8 May 2018 Sapa, Vietnam

5-8 May 2018
Sapa, Vietnam

By Katie

We had the BEST couple of days in Sapa. We took a luxury limo van (orange leather captains chairs, ceiling lighting, wifi and charging stations) for the 5 hour drive to Sapa. All was awesome until Eliza got car sick as we drove the final miles on the very curvy road. Luckily, I had several empty plastic bags, and luckily for me, Brian was in the back seat near her and had quick reflexes to shout for a bag and catch!
It took a few hours to recover from the car ride, in our lovely hotel, The Sapa Mountain Hotel, right near the center town square. We ate a late lunch of pizza. We seem to be eating a lot of pizza on this trip! We had fun at the park, where they had exercise machines and a pit amphitheater where the kids danced on stage and made up a fencing game with their water bottles.
Then we walked about 2 miles to the market, along a nice park and lake. We saw many many things at the market, including all sorts of meat products. We bought bananas and some mangos, and ate them back in the hotel room.

 

Eliza trying out the elliptical machine at the park. She felt much better after her van ride experience, while Hayden and I needed rest at the hotel to recover!



A scenic spot to get our pics taken.



The Sapa market. Anything look appetizing?



Our mango dinner! We couldn’t be happier!



Ready to set out on our difficult-medium trek with our Sapa Sisters guide, Shu. All the Sapa Sisters are Hmong. We learned that Shu is 20-years old and has 4 sisters and 3 brothers. She lives in the village of Lao Chai with her parents and siblings, except two sisters who are married and live with their husbands’ families.

We walked through and ate lunch in her village, about 7 miles into our hike, on the way to our Homestay in the village of Tan Van.



Starting out the trek, first walking DOWN into this valley. There was a huge rainstorm the night before we left, so the trail was super muddy. We were wearing sandals so we wouldn’t get our sneakers muddy. Although, at first, it seemed too slippery for sandals, we were glad we wore them because we needed to wash off in every stream we walked through!



Taking a break and enjoying the baby. Two other Hmong women from Lao Chai village walked with us. One was the mother of this 6-month old baby girl, My. This picture was taken before I asked if I could hold her.



Next thing you know, Shu asked if Lydia wanted to carry her! Of course, the answer was YES! And then it was a fight about who was going to be next and for how long each kid got to carry her.





Hayden’s turn!




Eliza’s turn! Although Eliza kind of got jipped. She carried the baby around the lunch place but didn’t get to actually hike with her.

After Hayden’s turn, the baby needed to eat so her mom held her, fed her, and walked along the super slippery, very narrow trail at the edge of rice fields, all at the same time.

When we arrived at the lunch spot, the women said they were going to walk ahead to home. Eliza was mad, but she pulled herself together and enjoyed the few minutes she had with little My.

It turns out that the women who were walking with us, and holding

our hands during the extra slippery parts, wanted us to buy purses, wallets, and bracelets from

them. We didn’t particularly want anything, but it seemed worth $10 or whatever we spent for three little wallet things and bracelets, to be able to enjoy carrying the baby.






We walked down into this valley and back up again to the Homestay.



Our homestay! We were very happy to have arrived. It was actually a building for just Sapa Sisters tours and not actually someone’s home, although they lived nearby. We were happy to put our feet up and enjoy the view.



Playing cards before dinner. This is the room where we slept and ate. The kitchen, bathrooms and showers were across a covered patio. Our family took the beds in the background of this pic. Hayden had his own bed. Brian and Eliza shared, and Lydia and I shared. Our guide and another guide had the other two beds on the first floor. There were about 12 other beds upstairs. The kids were excited about using the mosquito nets, although we only saw one or two mosquitos!

The little boy of the family was playing with cicadas and a few other bugs during dinner.

The homestay was only a few months old. Very clean and nice. Less roughing it than we all expected. We all took a melatonin tablet because we weren’t sure how we’d sleep in a big open room, with a bunch of twenty-somethings staying up later than we did. Turns out we would have been fine since almost everyone went to bed at the same time and we were exhausted from our long hike!

The food was good too -- we enjoyed the french fries served before dinner and the banana crepes with honey for breakfast!



After dinner, our family played chopsticks (spoons) and eventually the whole group was playing! There were 6 other Americans, and one woman from Finland (who chose to read her book instead). One couple was from Boston and the other from San Francisco. We had some “home school” math lessons while playing, with the kids figuring out how old the group of four was if they met in middle school and have known each other as many years as the age they were when they met.

The game quickly turned to a drinking game in which the losers (we had two too few chopsticks) drank a shot of “happy water,” rice wine provided by the Sapa sisters. If the kids lost, they got to choose which adult would drink. Lydia won by being the first to get four of a kind most often, and I gave my shots to Brian- in my opinion, rice wine tastes like alcoholic dirty dish water.

Eliza was hilarious, making all the adults laugh, especially with her use of the word discombobulated.



Ready to head back out to trek another 4-5 miles back to Sapa town.



Petting the baby water buffalos. They start plowing the fields when they are strong enough, at 4-5 years old.



Brian had a spill in the mud. Unfortunately, he slipped and took Lydia out, and she fell into this lap. All fine but it really scared her.



Fun break from trekking, walking in the waterfall river. Fun UNTIL Lydia slipped and fell in TWICE!



Enjoying the scenery (with my “4-month pregnant-looking tummy,” which is actually our 5 passports in the money belt around my waist. Thankful for our three awesome kids that are grown enough to go on this family adventure!)

Another waterfall!



We were so hungry (I’m looking a little hangry), after the total of 14 miles of hiking through the mud, in sandals/Crocs for Hayden which don’t really have any grip, and then waiting an hour for our lunch. We arrived just after every other trekking group. Very happy to have an entire plate of fried noodle with pork or chicken for each of us. 

Eliza had a cold so we portioned off a section of her food with a chopstick, for her to start with, so that if Brian wanted to finish what she didn’t eat, it wouldn’t have her cold germs on it.

By now, we are pretty adept using chopsticks and prefer them to forks.