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| The view from our balcony this morning! |
I'm not sure if it rained all night last night. I do know that every time I stirred I could hear the rain coming down. When we woke up and opened the curtains we were greeted with drizzle and fog. Actually the fog was so thick that it would have made a foggy day in San Francisco seem clear. When we FaceTimed with Sarah we showed her the fog and she was impressed. So when you can impress someone from the Bay area with images of fog, it must be pretty thick.
We knew yesterday that we were going to have to make some slight alterations to our days activities. The rainy weather that Sapa has been experiencing made one of the trails we were going to take too slippery and muddy. The overnight rain, that continued on and off throughout the morning along with the fog caused us to make even more changes.
In spite of the conditions, onward through the elements we trekked.
Our driver took us out of town once again. This time a little further and in a different direction. We slowly hiked about four miles, being joined occasionally by pigs and piglets, chickens and baby chicks as well as ducks and ducklings. We passed through Lao Chai village. This village was comprised of around 2500 members of the Hmong ethnic group. The walk was downhill into a valley. Occasionally Lo May would smile and say something like "if you could see right now you would be overlooking beautiful terraced rice patties". Of course, for the most part we could barely see beyond the noses on our faces. We did enjoy seeing some more of the colorful handmade clothes with their very detailed stitching. We also enjoyed seeing a rice grinder. It uses a fairly primitive but somewhat ingenious set up to separate the rice kernels from the husks (there is a picture below).
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| Once we were down in the valley the weather cleared...…….a little bit! |
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| Me and Lo May crossing the first of two suspension bridges. As we walked I told her about Ben, Sarah, Joey and Sweet Baby James. She enjoyed seeing pictures of all of them (plus Allie). When I told her how old Ben and Sarah were she shared with us that she was 29. She's married and has two boys (10 & 4). |
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| The Rice Grinder! There is rice in the hole on the left side of the picture. Water would flow into the trough until it was full. It would tilt backwards dumping the water and raising the grinding stone on the left. When the water emptied the stone would then pound down into the rice. This all day process would eventually separate the rice kernels from the husks...…….as the British would say, brilliant! |
We continued our walk to the Giang Ta Chai village. The residents of this village are a small ethnic group known as Red Dzao. There are subtle changes in the colors of the clothes and the designs for every ethnic group. The changes are sometimes so subtle that without a keen eye (not me) or a guide you might not notice. At the end of the walk, we crossed a suspension bridge back to our car and driver. We bounced our way along a bumpy narrow road that was being rebuilt back to the city center of Sapa.
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| Recognize this plant? Yep, that's a marijuana plant! They use the fibers to make clothes...…….that's their story and they're sticking with it. |
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| Hemp fibers on a weaving loom. I wonder what happened to the leaves? |
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| Very scenic, even in the fog and rain. This was in the valley and was as clear as it ever got. |
By mutual agreement, because of the weather we called off our afternoon activities. A little down time won't be a bad thing. There were some killer looking desserts downstairs and at least a dozen places to get a massage within about a three minute walk of our hotel.
YOU CAN'T JUDGE THE DAY BY THE WEATHER!
