Chillin' in Sapa

For New Years Eve, we headed out of Hanoi and took a sleeper train to the hill town of Sapa in the Lao Cai province of North-West Vietnam, close to the Chinese border.  Although it's still in the Tropics, Sapa is nestled in a range of mountains which includes Vietnam's highest (Fan Si Pan at 3142m), the town itself is at 1600m so it's cold...well relatively cold coming from Cambodia.  At night and when the mist closed in it probably dipped to about 5 degrees which was bliss for me after a year of incessant heat although Em didn't like it as much.  The local population is made up of a number of ethnic minority tribes, each of which has a different language and traditional costume.  We hired a guide from the Black H'mong tribe to take us on a couple of day treks through the valley.  It was clear walking through the villages that a lot of people here are still living traditional rural lifestyles, subsistence farming rice, although many of the younger generation are getting work as tour guides, selling souvenirs etc.  There's no doubt that tourism and money is changing the place, which can't altogether be a bad thing for the local people who have a chance to make some money and live a different life, not tied to the land.  Our guide, Gi wore her traditional Hmong dress on the first day we saw her, but was just as happy in jeans & t-shirt the second day.  I really found this area to be beautiful, the people interesting and friendly, and it was probably the highlight of our Vietnam trip for me.  Here are some photo's from our day walks.