National Geographic part 2 and 3

Here's another picture book of what happened on the final two days of the hike...

On morning numero dos, We woke up around 8 and had a "pancake breakfast" aka diabetes central.  Just kidding, it was actually delicious - crepe like pancakes that you spread with honey, sugar and bananas.  Then we set off into the heat and sun for the most aggressive day -10 miles through the villages of the Zao people before we ended up staying in the lovely village of the Tay people.  Sorry that some of these aren't as well captioned - rushing to post before a flight.

The little piglets were also having a good breakfast too....

Du found tons of these "elephant bugs."  They were huge and slightly scary, but he ate them as a special treat!

Graves of the Zao people

Love how vibrant the Vietnamese flag is in this picture

A Zao woman and one of her roosters

Tay school children

Walking into town on day 2 for a late lunch - again, love the vibrant colors here

Scenes from across the street at lunch...

Yes yes, very mature of me, I know

A Zao women in the rice fields - you can tell she's Zao because she is wearing a red head piece

Du killing a snake that followed me through the rice paddies - I led the group because Priscilla was going slowly - Du was about 15 ft behind me and saw the snake rippling through the water in my direction - good thing he did!  We were really on edge after this...

Some kids at the local Zao school

At the end of the 2nd day, we finished at a beautiful waterfall surrounded by the bamboo forest - I had to go swimming!

The homestay the second night - it felt like a palace compared to the first night.  In general, the Tay people are slightly better off...

We made it!  Du, Priscilla and I

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Our awsome team plus the family from the second night home stay

One of the crazy things about the Sapa area is that there are many different ethnic minorities in a very small area and they all have their own languages, cultures and traditions which obviously sometimes come into conflict.  My guide, Du, for example, didn't really like the Zao people - when he was explaining to me how his father died, he said that he had disappeared while going to the bathroom one night after taking some opiates,but they thought that the Zao people had eaten him. 

After an amazing trek, I went back and explored the town of sapa for awhile and relaxed with some beer and fruit juice.  Finally it was time to head back to Hanoi on another overnight train. This journey was definitely different from the first train ride....I was bunking with a young Canadian couple who invited me to come drink with some Irish people they met while waiting for the train...3 hours of beer and great time put me sound asleep for the rest of the train ride  :)

View of an alleyway market in Sapa

Overall, the Sapa journey was phenominal.  It was incredibly eye opening to see the rudimentary conditions that these people lived in and being a part of their culture for a short time.   This will definitely go down in the books as an experience of a lifetime and making me more open and comfortable with things that are very different and may seem  a bit scary.