Outside Sapa -- Cat Cat village

The closest tribal village -- well, kinda, it's really set up for tourists in a big way -- is Cat Cat, which is just a 3km walk from our hotel. After breakfast this morning, wearing our pebbly-bottomed trekking shoes, we set out for a hike. Today is much warmer than yesterday, thankfully, which made the walk even more enjoyable. Cat Cat is a Hmong village, and we passed many stalls filled with scarves and jewelry on the way to the beautiful countryside. The Hmong dye their cloth with indigo, so there were dark blue strips of cloth hanging to dry, fresh from the dye bath. It was a mostly downhill walk, and we passed gorgeous rice fields, a stunning waterfall, busy people, various livestock (a couple cows, some chickens, a few pigs), and motorcycle guys ready to drive exhausted Westerners like us back up the hill.

this waterfall was powerful and stunningly beautiful

little bridges made of bamboo, which is thick and tall and EVERYWHERE

Hmong women carrying wood

me at the Cat Cat waterfall, even happier than I look. i kept laughing and feeling overcome with gratitude for having the luxury to see this place

a moment's pause at the waterfall, checking our location

I love this photo of Marc, pointing at the waterfall

the famous Vietnamese potbelly pig, in situ

beautiful Sapa valley

we don't know what that building is -- a hotel vacated? who knows. but what a view.

We have to check out of our room at noon, and the bus picks us up at 4:30 to drive us back to Lao Cai, to the train station where we'll bounce along all night back to Hanoi. We're going to hire somebody to drive us around during the interim, to nearby villages. My next post will be from Hanoi. So very glad we got to see Sapa.