Sa Pa

21st March

I woke up hungry. I seem to be hungry often, at the moment, I think I'm burning calories just travelling.

The breakfast was amazing - piles of pancakes with fresh fruit and honey, chocolate sauce & coffee. 

We met our host - Zé a Vietnamese lady who comes across a bit serious & bossy at first, but she's so funny & friendly ( I found out later) and her & her family run the homestay.

We chatted about doing some trekking and she gave me a bowl to do my washing, which I did outside. The place is in a rural Vienamese village.

Some pictures from Booking.com:

and my pic of the upstairs:

I have my own room which is a treat. 

There was a low mist, so no lovely views of the mountains & rice terraces unfortunately.

The four of us took a Grab (Yes its back - no Grab in Laos!) into Sa Pa to get a local SIM. Then we all went our separate ways to explore the town. 

It's a vibrant busy place. I was hungry again so found a small café, where I sampled the Vietnamese 'Bánh mí' a baguette sandwich made with savoury fillings, pickles & fresh herbs. Its a fusion of French, Chinese & Vietnamese food, a slight hangover from French Colonial times. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1nh_m%C3%AC

It was delicious! I think I'll be eating a lot of these in Vietnam!

I then walked around to the small lake & found another place to have coffee. Vietnam is famous for coffee too, and unusual kinds like the salt & egg coffee. 

I went for a coconut coffee over ice, while I pondered over what to do for the next few days.  

I walked around the  busy streets for a while.

The fog was getting thicker & the town was cridlocked with traffic.

I love this large yellow building, in sort if Art Deco style, which serves as the Station for the mountain train. Sa Pa doesn't have a proper train station due to its mountainous location. 

I found a church:

and a Christmas tree:

There were so many ladies & some kids trying to sell things. I must have been asked 20 times.

I went back to the homestay, sharing a taxi with Siham.

Grab can't seem to find our homestay so we struggled with the Grab booking, having to book to another place. It all got a bit complicated with the taxi driver using Google translate etc. but we got there in the end.

Poor Kat - who wanted to come back later - got conned by her Grab bike driver......who actually wasn't really a Grab (they just wear the green jackets). He agreed to take her for 50k then stopped on the way as if to say, 'we're here '. When she said it wasn't the place he then demanded 200k dong to take her to the homestay. She tried to argue but they have you 'over a barrel' on a misty mountain road.

Back at the homestay, Zé invited us to drink some 'Happy Water' which she poured from a tea pot. I was a little reluctant, but the family were all drinking shots of it too and she was quite insistent. It tasted like vodka and Mama Mi - another little Vietnamese lady, who was chatting to us - said it was only about 30%....... it probably was just vodka....

There was a group of French travellers around the table with us and Mama Mi showed us a picture of her young son with his bride on their wedding day. She said he married the daughter of the chief from the next village. Its funny though, because they were dressed in 'western style' suit and wedding dress.

We then played some card games with her, Zé and the others. The games got a bit complicated & it all broke down into hilarity when we played a supposed drinking game called 'Toy o toe'......you basically adopt a pose with your hands drawn up like a bunny and your lips pushed over your teeth so as not to show your teeth. We then went round the table saying 'toy o toe' to the next person.....but you can reverse the direction saying ' eyeee ooo'........if you laugh and show your teeth, you have to drink.

One of the French girls just couldn't not do it without breaking into fits......it was funny. Zé is certainly a character!.....and I think she had a lot of 'Happy Water'.