Last tuesday 15.8. after making a visit to uncle Ho Chi Min's mausoleum we packed our things and boarded on a night train to north of Vietnam to Lao Cai (3km from Chinese border).

Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum

Ho Chi Minh museum

It's only about 350km away from Hanoi but the trains are so slow here and it lies up in the mountain so the journey took all night. During the night somebody tried unsuccesfully to brake into our sleepingcar. This kept Jukka up all night.

From Lao Cai we took a minibus to Sapa town which is a popular stop for tourist to make trekking trips to smaller villages around inhabited by ethnic minorities. We booked a two day and one night trip.

mountain view? taken from our hotel balcony

This far it was definitely the best experience although first day was quite hard to walk in the pouring rain and cold (we were 1600m above the sea level). We walked in the middle of rice fields and passed many villages were the local people tried to sell us hand crafts. I bought a lot of things there.

Sapa girls

doing business Sapa style

Sapa valley

The night we spent at Soy and Sin's house in Sapa village. They were of the Dzao people. Such a friendly and welcoming people. That night we had an amazing dinner with about ten different types of dishes. Also we drank some local rice wine which reminded more vodka than wine. The atmosphere got better and better the more "wine" we had. At the end of the evening we were singing finnish and vietnamese songs maybe a bit too loud. We made it difficult to sleep for Soy's two sons.

 Sin and Juki smoking tobacco

Soy and Sini

Next day the scenery on the route was even more amazing also because the weather was much better, we had sun shining all day. We saw a big waterfall and many other H'Mong and Dzao villages.

hazardous Juki

waterbuffalo

This morning at 5:30 we got back to Hanoi after a rough night on the train. We went to the Hoan Kiem Lake to see the morning life of Hanoi. Around this lake early in the morning people are practising different kinds of sports from Tai Chi to Aerobics. It's the best time because at this hour the air is not too hot for doing sports.

surviving the street crossing in Hanoi (what a style)