I went downstairs and breakfast was just being served. It was a meal of crepe style pancakes, bananas, pineapple, and honey. I scarfed down breakfast and then went to check on my jeans to see if they had dried out overnight. Unfortunately no, they hadn't, so the land lady took them from me and hung them over the fireplace. It seemed to dry them out pretty quickly but they smelled heavily of burnt wood. At least they were my scrap pair of jeans :)
It was lightly raining so we put on our ponchos and went outside for a group picture with the land lady before departing. Everyone had either donated a small tip or gave the land lady a small gift from home. I hadn't been to Canada since booking the trip so I gave her some different flavoured Hi-Chew candies which are popular Japanese candy that has made it's way to Taiwan. We said goodbye and headed off across the suspension bridge into the mist.
One of the french girls who had the roughest time the previous day due to her bad footwear had a phobia of heights and she tried to cross the bridge a few times but she just couldn't do it. Luckily Tou's sister had tagged along on the trip the earlier day so she volunteered to take the french girl ahead and we would meet up later.
And then there were 9. The trekking today for the most part was easier than the previous day. Only for the first hour or so it was really slippery as we made our way up some steep trails back up to the top of some of the hills. Our first major stop was at a small elementary school. School was not in session when we got there so Tou took us in and explained what school life was like for kids here. In the Sapa region, the Vietnam government provides free schooling for all children. Unicef provided some school supplies as well which was good to see. There were a handful of kids playing outside in the courtyard but there was this one really cute little girl who had stayed inside and was studying while we were there.
We left the school and headed up the path and into the Red Zao people's village. It was a bit different and the people here wore Red hats which made it easy to identify them as the Red Zao people. Tou invited us into one of the villagers houses and demonstrated how to make rice wine from scratch and explained some of the traditions of the Red Zao. One tradition was that once a girl has been married off to a guy, they must pluck out all of their eyebrow hair. A myth to explain this, is that back in the day one of the first Red Zao people got married to a girl, and when she was making food, some of her hair would get into the food. This was not "cool" so the man had her pluck out all the hair so that she would not be rude to guests with hair in the food. And somehow this tradition stuck and they are still doing it today.
Another extremely controversial tradition they have is that if the woman bears twins and they are of the same sex, then one of the children are killed. I didn't catch exactly why, but I think the reason is that they think if they do not kill one of the kids that they will both become very sick shortly after their births. This is of course illegal in Vietnam but it still happens out in the villages because it's pretty much impossible to police such activities.
We left the house and continued walking through the villages. It was really foggy and visibility was extremely limited. This made for a definitely interesting experience because as we would walk through the clouds, gnarly trees and little shacks and boulders would slowly reveal themselves. It was quite the unique experience and I'm sure I would have a completely different one had we been there in mid-summer.
After an hour or so of trekking further through the mist and terraced rice fields we had made it to our final destination: a small little house/shop/restaurant. We all sat down with steam coming off of our bodies as we waited for Tou to cook our meal for us. It was a simple instant noodle soup with tomatoes, cabbage, and a fried egg. It really hit the spot!
After lunch a tour van came to pick us up and brought us back to the hotel in Sapa. This is where half of our group departed back to Hanoi and we said our goodbyes to Tou. He had been a wonderful tour guide and really made the trip a lot of fun. We were definitely lucky to have his enjoyable company and expert knowledge of the area during our tour.
We had the evening off so we checked into our room and had showers because it had been a long past 2 days. Tou told us that some locals do laundry for really cheap so we stumbled around outside in the dark and found a little lady who offered to clean our stuff from what looked like her house. We went into her kitchen and figured out the price. She cleaned all of our shoes ($1/pair of shoes), and all of our laundry ($3 for a big bag of laundry).
Next it was diner time. We had told Sebastian, Asier, and Rachelle that we were going to eat at the Gecko for diner at 6:30 and if they wanted to join us they were more than welcome. 6:30pm rolled around and we made our way through the mist to Le Petit Gecko restaurant. It was a really small restaurant with only a few tables lit by candle light but it was really cozy with a large wood burning fireplace behind us while Celine Dion played from the speakers. We sat there for a while and it didn't look like anyone was coming so we ordered our food. Rob and I both ordered a 4 course meal of soup, spring rolls, main dish (chicken with lemon grass on a bed of tomatoes), and desert (banana and pineapple flambé) plus a mango lassi drink all for ~$6! The food value here was incredible.
Just as the waitress took our order we saw Seb, Asier, and Rachelle walk in the door. Apparently they had been waiting at the real "Gecko" restaurant, and that we had gone to the wrong one! It was so misty and the map wasn't so good and I guess we ended up at the first place with the word "Gecko" in the title. The real "Gecko" restaurant was actually right across the road but it was so misty we didn't see it.
Anyways it was great to see our new friends and we sat down to a lovely meal and chatted for a good while getting to know each other! It was a lot of fun learning about the Basque culture and discussing many of the differences and similarities between their culture and our Canadian culture.
We left the restaurant with our bellies full close to 9pm. Seb and Iwao were tired and headed to bed but Rob and I and the Basques decided to head out for a beer. Most places were closed but we found a small little place and drank our $1 beers. I must say that we had probably the most in-depth and intelligent conversation that I have ever had with basically complete strangers. We discussed politics, education, work, environment, renewable energy, and many other topics. It was really cool and the first time that I had really connected with some strangers and discussed topics that were much deeper than just plain small talk.
It had been a spectacular day and another great evening with new adventures and new friends!
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