Fansipan

21st April 2010 Sapa was established as a hill station by the French. The overnight train took us as far as the border town of Lao Cai, right on the Chinese border. We arrived into Lao Cai at 5am. Luckily we had our minibus already booked and were able to push our way through the throngs of drivers offering us rides to Sapa. Once we were on the minibus we had to wait for the next train to arrive and in the meantime fend off the ladies selling Sapa maps and sexy “boom boom” torches amongst other things. ...

22nd April 2010 This morning we’d arranged to go on a guided trek to a couple of hill tribe villages with the Israeli couple we’d met yesterday, who were also staying at our hotel. We had read good things about the trek which the hotel ran, so they had booked the trek for us. At 9am our guide Chi was there ready to take us out. Chi is from the Black H’mong tribe and lives in one of the local villages. She has been giving guided treks for the hotel for about five years and despite never having attended school had an excellent level of English. ...