Getting Dao With It

This weekend after three weeks in Sapa I finally got round to doing a 'homestay' with fellow volunteer Jess. Most tourists who come to Sapa end up doing a homestay so I thought it was about time I got myself involved.

We set off to Ta Phin Village on Saturday morning and amused ourselves along the way by taking numerous pictures of rice terraces, assuring the many Red Dao ladies who tried be our guides that we knew where we were going (and didn't want to buy anything) and waving at the many curious children we passed.

Our homestay choice was 'Xi Quan's Red Dao Homestay' run by a Red Dao lady and her French husband Olivier. After successfully navigating our way to Ta Phin village thanks to a hand drawn map from another volunteer who had already been to Ta Phin we made contact with Olivier to arrange our rendezvous (how French!) and had a cup of coffee in the secret garden place with fish pool, cocky cat and snakes in jars. A strange combination for a cafe but it worked for us, I think it was just having a seat to be honest. After the smallest cup of coffee I've ever had, no it wasn't an espresso, we dodged more sellers and waited for our host to come and meet us.

Olivier arrived and the Mother-in-Law La May popped up too (I don't think that's spelt right!) and we began our walk back to their home. It took us about 40 minutes to get there, the scenery on the way was stunning and the camera came out many, many times. The last bit of the climb was pretty steep and I was a tad embarrassed that Mother-in-Law had to help me up a couple of the steeper bits to avoid a comedy Kash sliding down the hillside type incident. Still I made it, there was even a scary one log bridge to negotiate, again with some balancing assistance.

The views, the amazing hospitality, the cute kids, the best meal either of us had eaten in a long while and even a comedy incident with a giant spider and some serious wielding of a bashing device by Xi Quan (the wife) will all be remembered with a massive smile on my face. Easily the best thing I have done on this trip so far.

Somewhere up there is our homestay!

Red Dao Swiss Army Knife

The Feast!

La May tending fire (probably happy not to be assisting me anymore!)

The View from our balcony

The house

Tiny!

Many more photos added to my picasa page!

Dragons, Dragon's Jaw and Cat Cat

Well it's been a busy old week as a volunteer here in Sapa, I'm not just larking around doing fun stuff on an extended holiday you know. Oh, wait a minute this post is actually all about fun stuff, sorry.....

So some highlights of this week include:

• Watching 'How to train your dragon' with the kids at school on movie night. Cute film, I want and NEED a dragon and the kids were sooooooooooooooo cute watching it. They really got involved in the film, it's nice to see them have fun like this they work really hard at school having classes in the evening as well as the English lessons in the day time.
• Having an uber posh volunteer dinner at the Victoria Hotel in Sapa on the cheap (it's all about who you know here). The food was AMAZING, you'd think we'd never seen any before the way we were all ooooooohhhhhing and aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhing when the dishes came out. We had very much fun indeed and it was nice to get a bit dressed up, as much as you can when flip flops are your best shoes anyway. We ended the night with ring of fire, plastic chairs and apple wine shots. Classy.
• Going to Hamrong Park just above Sapa Town on Saturday and seeing the Dragon's Jaw Mountain. Apparently the man dragon flew away when there was a big flood and the lady dragon got left behind looking up into the sky as her bastard of a husband flew off without her. That's not quite what the guidebook I read today said but in a nutshell there it is. Anyway beautiful gardens, comedy statues (pics below) great and slightly scary observation deck over the town, lovely afternoon, poor lady dragon.
• Walking to Cat Cat village today (Sunday) and enjoying the walk all the way down to the valley bottom telling the motorbike drivers who asked on the way past that I would not be requiring a lift back up because I would be walking thank you very much. Then changing my mind when I got finally got there as it was bloody far down, blooming hot and my flip flop had carved a lovely welt in my right foot. However I did only cheat to about two thirds of the way up and it was really funny looking at the faces of the puffed out people who turned around (to curse you) as you passed them on the way up.

So there you are fun fun fun. I promise I did actually do some work too but I don't want to bore you with that. This time.

Look posh everyone

Yummyness

Classyness

Sapa from Hamrong

Poor Lady Dragon Jaw Mountain

Sapa Town from the observation deck

Gardening in action

Really no idea why scooby was there

or this dude

Or a Gimley

Excellent health and safety

Cat Cat Villagers trying to go about their normal business

Part of Cat Cat Village

Cat Cat Waterfall

Inquisitive mountain piggy

General Loveliness

Happy Water

After a week in Sapa I moved accommodation to a cheaper place as I have decided to stay here for four more weeks. When I was checking out of the hostel I had been staying in on Sunday monring the owner Mr.Oaiy invited me and another volunteer who had also stayed there to join his family for dinner that evening. Little did we know that dinner would involve many shots of ‘happy water’ (rice wine) and turn into a comedy affair where every guest who walked through was invited to join us for shots. Some were bemused, some happy to be invited and some frankly just ran on up to their rooms in a bid to avoid the happy water shots. Probably the wise choice I suspect they knew something we didn't.

Roll your own

It was however lovely to be invited to a family dinner and the food we had was my new favourite, Vietnamese spring rolls and a clear soup to dip them in. These spring rolls were however of the roll your own variety. I was surprisingly good at it having never got the hang of the whole tortilla wrapping deal. It seemed our host needed no excuse to down a shot with a cheers every time and glasses were refilled without you even noticing. It reached a point where I started sipping every time we charged our glasses and as our host got less and less comprehensible we tried to make our excuses to go home. No deal.  Sometime later we did manage to actually leave the premises and make our way home. It was a great evening even though I didn’t understand everything that was going on. Large parts of the conversation were purely in Vietnamese and I’ve still not progressed much beyond ‘thank you’ ‘no thank you’ ‘hello’ and ‘cheers’ which I remember because it sounds a lot like chipmunk. More language learning with Kasia no doubt to follow.

Happy Days

So I've only been in Sapa for six days and it already feels a bit like home. I've had a great first week at Sapa O'Chau. On my first day at the 'office' some students were visiting the school so I got to tag along on their afternoon activities with the kids where we walked to a nearby village called Cat Cat to play some games. The scenery was stunning, the sun was shining, the kids had fun and I could not stop smiling. The rest of the week has seen me start work on a funding proposal, fundraising strategy and learning the Lion Sleeps Tonight in the classroom with the kids. Brilliant.

Some other volunteers from the UK who had been here for a few weeks left yesterday it was lovely to see the impact they had made on the organisation and the people in the time they've been here. We also had a brilliant night out on Wednesday to say goodbye, starting with a beer keg at cafe and ending with bargainous cocktails at bar in town. Needless to say everyone was feeling it the next day.

Yesterday saw some success and failure on the haggling front. Firstly the fruit lady who possibly didn't understand that her role is try and get more money out of the tourist and quoted a lower price than us. Result. Then later in the day I was trying to find a guesthouse to move to for the next few weeks and negotiate a good rate. I didn't have much luck in that I seemed to pick the only ones where little or no English was spoken and lets just say my Vietnamese doesn't go very far. Anyway the price in one place went up the longer the conversation went on, starting at $10 a night and then $12 finishing at $13. Needless to say I left. Better luck today I hope.

Sapa O’Chau

Well here I am in sunny Sapa after an overnight train journey that could’ve gone better in terms of the number of ZZZZZZZZZZs achieved. At least it was comfy even if I spent most of the night plotting how to successfully dispose of two of my noisy chatting cabin mates, alas the window didn’t open wide enough. However sleep deprived I was I still managed to stay awake for the journey from the Lao Cai train station through beautiful scenery up to Sapa in the North West of Vietnam. It’s a very pretty place and is a welcome slowing down of the frenetic pace of Hanoi.

I have actually found a rather brilliant social enterprise to volunteer with whilst I’m here, I’m unsure how long I’m going to stay but after my first meeting at their Café and seeing some of the people involved I’m really excited to be here. Sapa O’Chau is a school, trekking, homestay and very recently opened café run by people from local minority groups who are tapping into the tourism trade here. Their trekking business is in fact the only one in Sapa run by local minority groups and there are also trainee guides from the school who are learning English. I could ramble about what they are doing but it’s all laid out rather nicely on their fab website so go take a look there at www.sapaochau.org

It’s a brilliant organisation always looking for volunteers who can teach or help the business in some way. I spent the afternoon in the café meeting some of the staff and students who work in the café gaining new skills and practicing their English. Everyone was so friendly and I felt like this was the volunteer experience I had been looking for. They are clearly very passionate about what they do and I can’t wait to get stuck in. I think I could be here for some time.

Walkabout

On Thursday I planned to go for a short mooch around Hoan Kiem lake and the areas around it. It turned into a marathon heading in totally the opposite direction when I consulted the guidebook whilst having a nice cup of tea and changed my plans for the day. I thought that Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum didn't look that far away and I fancied a walk so after working out my route off I went. Sometime later and a comedy photo with the pineapple seller later I arrived at my desintation.I didn't actually want to see the body (good job too as it was closed) but it was an impressive buidling and the one pillar pagoda was just round the corner. In all honesty that was a bit of a let down. However I did then go into the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Might not be the most exciting subject you may be thinking but it was genuinely one of the best museums I have ever been to. It was half museum half art installation and I got really excited going round (it brought out the sad museum geek in me from my degree days and is totally making me want to go back down that route). I took far far too many photos and have edited them down in my picasa gallery so as not to bore you.

After coming out of the museum feeling a bit giddy I navigated my way to the Temple of Literature which is where fancy and very difficult examinations used to take place. It was a very beautiful and surprisingly tranquil place in the midst of Hanoi craziness. I loved that too. Now any sensible person would've got a taxi or cyclo back to their hotel at this point owing to tiredness but being stubborn (and in money saving mode) I walked on. My feet were killing me, I had put my birkenstocks on thinking I wouldn't be walking very far and it was now raining and quite cold again. Anyway on I trudged ignoring all shouts for a ride. Even when I fell off the pavement into a MASSIVE puddle of god knows what and my sandals got all squishy I continued on. I was proud that I found my way without having to look at the map and I reckon I qualify for my badge in Hanoi Road Crossing (I'm totally a pro now i've even stopped the I don't want to die mantra). The happy sight of my temporary home loomed and another fab day almost came to a close. I realised if I went up to my room on the 5th floor i'd probably never come down again and I needed dinner, so I decided to go even though it was a bit early and treated myself to my new favourite food, vietnamese spring rolls. Yum. Some photos below of the day.

I paid for this with pineapple purchasing

Excellent marching

Very big grave

Inside the Ho Chi Minh Museum

At the Temple of Literature

Cheeky Tortoise

My new fave food!