A trek through the villages

Monday 12th March

We met Ker this morning after yet another very nice breakfast.  Ker suggested that I swap my boots for a pair that I could rent for 25,000 dong (around $1) from the hotel.  This later proved to be very wise advice!

We set off through the town and into the coutryside, still deprived of a view due to the mist.  The road descended through a valley and into a number of villages.  Many of the hillsides were terraced for growing rice, but this will not be planted until later in the year.

Ker twisting hemp fibre

Village in the misty valley

Ker and Kate - in camo-wellies!

We stopped off for lunch and bought a few souvenirs from the local ladies.

With H'mong ladies at lunch stop

John at lunch stop

The villages were very basic, with pigs, ducks, chickens and dogs roaming around.  We saw many contented babies slung on the back of the women or children.

Village piggies

Looking after baby

Life for the villagers will soon be progressing as there is a hydro power station currently under construction.  The process of building the station and new roads is making a bit of a mess at the moment, but the benefits will be worthwhile.

Hydro station in progress

This bridge will carry water for the power station.
The safety rails are on the way!

At the end of the trek we waited for a few minutes for a car to arrive, which we filled in by having a few miniature cups of tea.

Red Dao ladies

Back at the hotel, we answered another email for Ker, and then settled the hotel bill.  The accommodation was included in the tour costs, so we only had to pay for our meals, hire of the car and use of the laundry service, which came to a grand total of only $50.

We then went out for a bit more exploring around the town and looking for an ATM.  We bought a few more items from the local ladies, spending our very last dong.  When we found the ATM, we discovered that it, too, had run out of money.  We pulled out the map and went looking in the mist for another ATM and it was skint too!  Fortunately we didn’t need any money before arriving in Lao Cai this evening so we went back to the hotel.  We took advantage of the hotel’s shower room and then waited for our bus to collect us.

The trip down was not quite as stressful as the one on the way up as this driver seemed aware that people might be coming towards us in the mist.  We were very pleased to note that the poor young man who got car sick managed to get his head out the window before losing his lunch.

Back in Lao Cai we had a bit of an embarrassing moment.  We were met by a lady outside the Kangaroo Café’s associated restaurant.  She wanted to take John’s rail ticket voucher over to the station to exchange for our tickets.  This was all fine, except we had never seen this woman before and had been given strict instructions not to hand our voucher to anyone except staff from the restaurant.  Had the woman been inside the restaurant, or had she known our names, we would have accepted that she was the genuine article, but we were very reluctant to deal with this stranger.  John went over to the station with her and all was well and he apologised for his mistrust.  We made a mental note to mention this misunderstanding to the Kangaroo Café to avoid similar confusion for other travellers.

I found the nearby ATM and refilled my purse with dongs.  We then had dinner at the restaurant and waited for the train.  We found our cabin with no problems and to our amazement we discovered that our cabin-mates were from Adelaide.  They were both widows who have been enjoying travelling together.  We all settled down to try for some sleep on our long trip back to Hanoi.