Day 7 in Vietnam

Yesterday night we saw the moon for the first time in many days we have been here! Today is a great day to continue our much anticipated adventurous journey by trek into the Sapa valleys and mountains beyond. This journey will take 3 days and cover a distance of close to 100km. And this is not a horizontal distance from point A to point B as the crow flies. This covers hostile terrains in the Hoàng Liên Sơn mountains!

We assembled at the guesthouse lobby with all the baggage we needed to last us 3 days of trekking through the mountainous villages, including biscuits and medicine we plan to deliver at the houses of the minority peoples. The destination of the trekking exploration for Day 1 is at the mountain village of Xéo Trung Hồ. Our first stopover from Sapa is at Tà Văn(at an altitude of 1200m) during this first leg of the journey. After that, we continue trekking to another village, Giang Tả Chài, for lunch at a house of one Giay family. At the Giay house we got a brief glimpse into the lives of the Giay people, their customs and how they lived completely different lives as people who did not have modern comforts such as much-taken-for-granted water from a tap,with the use of electricity stretching mostly as far as the use of a light bulb. Yet in some houses, television sets were seen. This was an example of how modern society has influenced the lives of these minority people.

From lunch onward we trekked all the way to Xéo Trung Hồ and arrived late in the evening. The total journey on this first day of trekking is 18km on mountainous terrain. At Xéo Trung Hồ where we are to stay the night at a Red Dao house, we spot a barren earth floor and a simple sewing machine. We change in a small area made obscure by thin fabric hung like curtains as the toilet(if there be one) is too far a distance away, and by then it was too dark to walk long. Throughout this day, our idea of trekking has been relatively sketchy as a trek is near impossible to achieve in Singapore(absence of geographical means). After this first day, we could say we have grasped the idea of a trek.