Sapa - Trekking Day 1

The 8 of us met up with our guide at around 9.30 after a late breckfast. We had to pack down our stuff into what we needed for the treck which was just jackets, boots, water, first aid and torches and store the rest at our guest house .It was good as our little group were all friends and there was no one else with us apart from our guide , Houm I think his name was, nice guy he did not talk to much though.
We walked for 30 mins odd untill we were on a dirt patch leading down the hillside out of town. We passed huge clumps of Maruajiana growing at peoples farms, obviously there is not much of an issue here with it!
The scenery was really really nice and the trecking that morning was down hill through vallys, gorges, accross old bridges and little villages. It was fairly hard going but really enjoyable. we were in the middle of no where and did not see anyone else apart from the odd villager. Me and Dekkick proceeded to make the view and the treck mellower by smoking ourselves silly. Its nice to do it out in the hills without any paranoia or worry.
It was and 8 mile or so treck thet day and as we walked for hours Sapa behind us did not seem to be getting further away, this was due to us zig zagging down hill, so we had coverd miles by lunch but only a few as the crow flies.
We stopped for lunch in a village and a beer. After we were mobbed by village girls trying to sell us thier hand made mountian clothes and trinkets.
Not long after we started trecking agian we came across some villagers up to something along the side of the path. They were all leaned down over something and as I got closer I noticed that it was a Dog that they had just killed and were getting ready for dinner as a big celebration.
They had burnt the hair off by the looks of it and removed the paws which were being prepaired seperatly. It was very odd to see and the vegitarians in our group were not impressed.
Our guide had told us that there was a very special celebration going on so this is why the dog was being prepared for the feast. I have no problem with this, after all what is the difference between eating a dog or a pig? These people are at substiance level and this is good food, no time for our silly western morals on this one. All the animals in the village roam and eat free untill the time comes and they do not have a clue what is happening as they are slaughterd very quickly after a good life. Much more humane than our system I reckon.

After a few more plesant miles we came to the village that we would be spending the night at. After dropping our bags and being showed where we were staying we had an ice cold beer which tasted great after all the walking and mud/dust. Dee has started drinking beer out here even, its a miricale ; )
There were a handfull of other tourists here also but not to many and they were nice. Our little group headed to the river , a few mins walk away as everyone wanted to have a quite smoke as the sun set. we found an absoulty lovely spot and chilled out for a bit.

Derrick being the type of chap with unlimited energy started bounding across the rapids and rocks up on to a big bolder in the middle of the river, I followed and so did Matt and we chilled out on the rock. The problem was we could not get back the way we came as we had made one way jumps to get onto the bolder. We decided to head down river for a little adventure and to try find a crossing. For about half an hour we walked but found no place to cross. It was starting to get dark now which is not clever with out a torch. So at about 5.30 we took our boots off, rolled up our trousers and made our way across. All of us ended up completly wet to the bone and both mine and Matts Cameras went for a swim. Luckily these have both sice dried out and no damage done.
We finally made it back to the village very wet , a bit cold and a bit embarresed as the girls were laughing at us and our state.
We changed and then dinner was serverd, loads of food and drink. Our guide and the hosts bought out rice wine they all drink and the 10-12 of us were all doing shots of this stuff, literally fire water. These guys know how to drink and it was shot after shot , very good natured and locals and tourists were a cheering eachother and getting merry. It was the kind of situation where it was rude to say no so the locals ended up getting us all twisted. I looked at the time and it was 7.30 pm and we were all rat arsed .It was great fun and very atmospheric in the big old village house. We all staggerd up to bed and passed out.
Compared to Halong bay this tour was great in every way that halong was shit. It resotred all our faiths in North Vietnam as Hanoi makes you ( me anyway) wonder why did I come here!