Sadly, we left our excellent group leader Phoebe in Kunming as we boarded the bus for the Vietnam boarder. There were some tears and we all chanted "Just do it!" which had become our new mantra for the trip. The bus was decent - kinda like being on a plane for 12 hours. After about an hour, however, we ended up in this massive traffic jam on a narrow dirt road in the middle of nowhere for about four hours. I couldn't figure out where all these cars had come from! There was literally nothing around for miles. Weird. The worst part of it was that Kelsea and I really had to pee. Practically bursting at the seams, we ran out and went behind a rock on the side of the road or "go to the nature" as the Chinese call it. Desparately, we tried to shield our parts from the prying eyes of the people in the passing cars. No room for shyness here - "Just do it!" Unfortunately, our bus had carried on with out us so we frantically scrambled up the road trying to catch up. We made it, but just barely - whew!
When we finally arrived at the boarder, Hue, our new leader, and a heat wave greeted us. We dragged our dishevelled and haggard selves through immigration and on to the bus to Sapa - our first Vietnamese destination.
The next morning I groggily parted the curtains and gasped. It was so beautiful! Driving up in the dark, we had hardly seen any of the scenery. Our hotel was perched on the edge of a mountain cliff and I was looking out across a lush, green, majestic mountain range; whisps of white cloud were rolling in and out of the deep valley below. Just stunning. We all had breakfast on the terrace with the view and the warm morning sun. I was finally feeling like I was on a real vacation.
We decided to hit the town early - eager to explore this lush paradise. Peering through the hotel's front doors were about 20 local minority girls - ready to pounce on the first tourist with their baskets full of handicrafts. Having just been to the ATM, Kelsea and I were prime targets. I braced myself as I set foot out the door. Surprisingly, they were quite friendly and had impecable english. They asked me my name, how old I was and where I was from. They followed us from place to place and we chatted about this and that. They offered fair prices on their goods so I couldn't resist buying a few hand made bracelets.
Kelsea, myself, and another girl, Hannah, had decided that today shall be the day of pampering. It was going to be epic. We were is desparate need of a little TLC after travelling through CHina for a month. We spent the morning shopping, went out for a nice lunch, then headed straight to the spa, which overlooked the beautiful mountains. We got foot and cuticle treatments, pedicures, and full body massages and all for only 14 dollars canadian! We had truely become "flashpackers" (flashpackers are backpackers who travel in style.) I left feeling a little bit like a noodle - in a blissful state of relaxation. We agreed that for the remainder of the trip this would become a regular activity.
The next morning we got up early for the last trek of the trip: six to eight hours through the Vietnamese jungle to our homestay. During the trek we had the priviledge of visiting an elementary school and four villages with four different minority groups. It was a very diverse area and the countryside was breath taking. We were boiling hot and dripping with sweat when we arrived at our homestay, so our leader took us down to the swimming hole for a quick dip to cool off. We jumped in with all out clothes and swam around the waterfall. Unfortunately, the bottom of the swimming hole was about four feet of squishy mud. So although we were cooler when we got out, we definitly weren't any cleaner!
This homestay was the Hilton compared with our last one. Our hosts cooked us a feast of delicious Vietnamese food - which we gobbled down appreciatively. We drank cold beer and sat out on the veranda playing cards as the sun set on the beautiful jungle. Once it was dark we went star gazing as it is really good and dark here. That night we slept upstairs on bamboo floors with mats. Layers of colourful fabrics and mosquito nets surrounded us in a protective tent. I dreamt of exotic places and things while the songs of the crickets serrenaded me through the night.
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