Vietnam, Sapa

I arrived across the border by bus from China to Lao Cai in the north of Vietnam. It was quite a sight to see so many Vietnamese women with conical (lampshade) straw hats on and huge baskets of farm produce filled straw baskets balanced on bicycles, queuing up to enter China. They do this daily to sell their stock across the border. Anyway my first stop was a small town called Sapa, up in the green rice paddiy covered mountains. many minorities lived up here, just like in China, but unlike China, they could all speak perfect English in order to pester the many English tourists to death to buy their handicrafts. Well I guess they need to do this for a living, although it was really annoying, particularly after wonderful China where the only tourists are Chinese ones so they dont really count.

So I spent the next 3 days trying to get away from the thronging Vietnamese and Thai minorities. I went trekking and mototrcycling around the mountains, it was really peaceful and beautiful with all the lush green rice terraces. Couldn't really spend too long here though...just get fed up with people ripping you off....so off I went to Hanoi...