The road to Sapa

Day 1 of the roadtrip- only a few hours away from Hanoi

Vietnamese biker on route to Hanoi, or at least in that direction

Homes and mountains-
alot of what we saw along the way to Sapa

view of a town from the road

shack along the way

Caution!
You may fall of the mountain

View of the valley/ farm area down below,
as you can tell the road we were on was pretty high up

The road varied all the way from Hanoi to Sapa.
There were different rocks and scenery during the trip, it was crazy to think
how different one part was from another just 30 minutes back.

From the left- our guide and my three travel buddies.

Home upstairs/ shop downstairs

Textiles made my the locals.
The town gets some tourists and offers homestays, so many of the homes display
scarves,wall hangings, blankets, and other goods that they have for sale.

Thai Water
Homemade "hooch" made from rice. Tastes more like vodka than sake-

countryside town that where we stopped for lunch

A kettle out in the village "street"- not sure what exactly it's used for.

We stopped in a small village our first day of the drive. We got to go up into someone's stilt house, check out their home, and eat on the bamboo flooring. After lunch we tried some "Thai water" and smoked tabacco out of what looked like a wooden pipe- tabacco bong. We didn't have the correct tabacco- so our guide used tabacco from a cigarette. When I inhailed the tabacco, it went straight to my head. I felt drunk, weak, and as if I might pass out. Pretty strong stuff.

A view from the stilt house

One of the many hilltribe homes we saw along the way.

Thai stilt house we saw near the road

Home of a hilltribe family, although I'm not sure what ethnicity they family is.

I forgot the name of the flower growing in this field. It's supposed to be good to stop bleeding- so people put it over cuts or something.

Motorbike packed to capacity with some sort of vegetable/ herb, not as funny
as the motorbikes with cages full of chickens or pigs- altough it must be
pretty hard driving when you get smacked in the face by greens.

Road construction- we saw lots of it.

Son La Prison
It was used by the French back when they still colonized Vietnam.

During the war the prison got bombed, so alot is rubble.

View from the watch tower where the sniper stood guard,
you can see the barbed wire that was atop the wall in the shot.

Next to the prison there's a small muesum. There was lots of info on Ho Chi Ming and the Communist Party there- partially because alot of the important figures that were associated with the communist party were sent to Son La prison by the French, at least that's the explanation I got.

The view from our car. We spent 3 days in the 4x4 that we boked along with a driver and an Englush speaking guide. Many of the pictures I took were from inside the care as we drove through the countryside and mountain areas. We made some stops along the way, but with Sapa a 3-4 day drive we couldn't stop every time we wanted to take pictures.

The most scenic and beautiful spot during the 3 day drive. This was someplace between Diem Bien Phu and Sapa, The hilltribe women are doing laundry, and others were farming the fields.

A hilltribe man fishing.

My friend with a local tribe woman. She was very friendly and let us take her picture.

kindergarden students getting out of school. All the students are from mixed hilltribes.
We got to visit the school so I'll post more about that later.

School letting out- junior high students

view out the window of our 4x4, [retty high in the mountains

water buffalo

Some of the mountain roads we drove on

along the way we saw many minority groups and tribe people.

Some friends that we made in Diem Bien Phu (hope I spelled that right).
They were so so awesome, they shared their dinner with us, gave us some "Thai water", and we had a fun night together. I really couldn't believe how hospitable they were. Even though we only spent one night with them, we became friends.

different alcohol with random creatures- like scorpions, worms, and snakes - in the bottles


hilltribe home- if I remember correctly it's a Hmong home

pretty flowers and mountainside


hilltribe girls carrying heavy wood on their backs-
it's funny we usually saw women carring heavy things and not many men


small town, somewhere between Diem Bien Phu and Sapa-
the dustiest town in Vietnam








air polluntion- along the way there were some areas with horrible air from
nearby factories. Can't believe people actually break that in every day.


my friends and our tour guide- their wearing scarves (which we got as gifts from our Diem Bien Phu friends) over our mouths cause the air was so bad, it was making our lungs hurt


Not far from Sapa now-
the view was amazing, if not for all the mist-
wish you could see how high up in the mountains we were