I need to pick up where I left off, but just a couple of hours before we pick up and go home. We rode the night train back last night and had a better experience back than up. Since daylight savings time occured in the US, we are now exactly 12 hours difference from Tulsa Time.

The internet was very spotty in Sapa. They had some internet cafe’s, but it was down when I went to check on it. I gave up.

Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll post the article I wrote upon arriving in Sapa, and then I will post some follow up articles decribing Sapa when I get home. I’ll also upload a selection of pictures.

Here’s the first article…

Sapa: City in the Clouds

We got off of the night train while it was still dark this morning (Monday) and loaded up in a hired van that was prearranged by Glocal Ventures, Inc., our hosts and partners. It takes about an hour to go up appx. 3,000 feet from Lao Cai City, the capitol city of Lao Cai Province, to Sapa. I wanted to take pictures of the terraced hills that were cut into the almost vertical mountainside and the houses that were hanging out over the edge of what seemed like infinity – or at the very least a long way down. Unfortunately it was too early in the morning and I couldn’t get good pictures while moving in the van in the low light. If I could have been still, I would have had some of the better shots of the whole trip.

We ate breakfast at the place where we are staying. It is staffed by some of the kids that have come from the orphanages and trained at the cooking school. They have pastries here that look phenomenal. No. I have not yet tried them, but I doubt that will last the afternoon.

We went to the town center today and walked through the market. The handicrafts are amazing, representing a tremendous personal effort and skill. The ethnic minorities are plentiful here. The Hmong and Red Zao women walk the streets with their wares trying to sell them. If they see that you have bought from one of them, they seem to think that you will buy from all of them. I have at several times found myself surrounded by women with their hand woven tapestries, clothes and small pillow covers.

The food there actually smelled pretty good, but I only partook of some sticky rice that Sherman bought and some root tea with sweet grass. They had bottles stacked and filled with what looked like animals preserved in formaldehyde that I used to see in the science lab storage room in High School. I later discovered that it is liquor fermented from various dead animals and insects, from enormous bees to scorpions.

I’m sticking to bottled water.

After the market I came back to the room to get some rest. I had not slept well on the train and took a nap for an hour and a half and it seemed that I had just closed my eyes, when Sherman knocked on my door. The others had gone to walked to town to eat and we went to join them there.

There is another group here working with Glocal Ventures. They are from Virginia and came straight to Sapa to work on a water filtration project at a school here. They were at lunch and we got to visit with them a bit. They are about one step ahead of us in this and I have had some good conversations about how to organize a larger group.

We all went different ways and I came to the room for a much needed shower. When I got back to the room, it dawned on me why they call Sapa “The City in the Clouds.” Though the sun had broken through in the morning, the mist had rolled back in. We ate outside for lunch and had been quite cold. When I got back in my room (which has an amazing view of the mountains and the mist) I could see my breath. I found the space heater and plugged it in. It is slowly warming up.

Good news has just arrived. Gail, the lady from Northwood that was with us, had lost her Passport and everyone was in scramble mode. There was a contingent about to leave for Hanoi to try and get her a replacement, but the call came that it had been found and the celebration went up in the hall.

I am typing this in the room and will copy it to a flash drive. Hopefully I will be able to upload it to blog at an internet café in town. I am afraid that the pictures, though amazing here, will not be so easy. I’ll try to select just a few and upload them as well.

Posts with related content

• No Related Post

TAGS: None