SAPA, rice fields,ethnic minorities and LANDSLIDES !!!!!

Nobody worry, we're allright :-)

We travelled up to Sapa, a little town near the Chinese border to see the famous 'terraced' rice fields and the ethnic minority villages.

Well... we got more than we bargained for!!!!

We met up with our guide in Sapa and started out trek down the mountain and in to the rice fields. The first day was great : we treked for 10 kms and saw some fantastic scenery. That afternoon we arrived in our homestay just when it started raining heavily.
We stayed with a lovely familly (3 generations living under the same roof), ate some great food, drunk some strong rice wine and then went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up under the rain and unfortunately were forced to cancel out 15kms trek for the day. A few hours past and we found out that we would have to spend the whole day and another night in the same homestay house because there were landslides and flooding all down the valley!!!!!
So instead of panicking, we ate lunch, played cards with the familly and drunk some more rice wine.

Today we eventually managed to walk up to the road and see for ourselves all the damage the rain had caused : landslides, flooding, parts of the road washed away and unfortunately a few casualties.

We managed to get back up to Sapa to catch our train back to Hanoi when the tour operator anounced that we'd be having to spend at least one night in Sapa because all the roads and trains are blocked in the landslides. Haaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're in a bit of trouble and are stressing because we were going back to Hanoi for a couple of days before we leave the country and fly to India.
Now we're stuck in Sapa, our flight is in 3 days time, our visas are running out and the tour operator has no news for us of when the roads will be fixed :-(

But we're staying positive : we've gone and bought a couple of souvenirs from the local market, taken some photos and are just about to order some more rice wine!!!

We'll keep you up to date when we have more news.

In the mean time, go and hava a look at how beautiful Sapa is : link