At 4:50am, we arrived at the Lao Cai station and were shuttled 45 minutes to our hotel in the mountain town of Sapa. The town is surrounded by hill tribe villages whose residents make a living either by farming or by wearing tourists down with incessant conversation and selling them tribal swag. Waking up before dawn was a bitch, but watching the sun rise over mountains of terraced rice paddies was completely worth it.
In the afternoon, we hiked to "Golden Stream of Love" waterfall. Uncertain as to why the stream was golden, feet were once again sanitized afterward.
Ladies from the neighboring H'mong hill tribe villages walk to Sapa Town every day to sell their wares on the streets. Whenever a tourist exits a building, they send out a tweet informing each other of the location and you are instantly swarmed by headressed women asking, "Helloooo, what your name is?" before demanding, "you buy from me."
Our second day in Sapa was spent trekking through rice paddies to the tribal villages, with an entourage of chatty H'mong women on our heels. They followed us from town back to their village, and after winning us over with heart-shaped wands that they crafted from ferns, forced us to purchase crappy woven pouches. They're scrappy!
Our "group tour"
We wrapped up the day with a glass of H'mong-made apple wine (which has a questionable recipe and distillation process) and hopped back on the night train after a dinner of "donor kebab sandwiches." The donor is still unidentified, and we're hoping it wasn't "thit cho," as it's unlucky to eat dog during the first half of the month.
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