The waterfall next to our home stay in the Giang Ta Chai village.

The bridge and river across the way

The water buffalos resting before they start a work day on the rice fields up above

Our home stay with a huge front porch and the back house we stayed in.

Cat, next to the lady of the house and her 25 year old husband to the right. They are great hosts. Their house was given to them by her parents and their accommodation include (showers and toilets outside on the lower level) WiFi , electricity for homestay

Her husband is Vietnamese as he came from Hanoi to search for a wife who is a black Hmong, an ethnic minority in Vietnam. The black Hmong are Christian.

In these hamlet, a man must be married by age 25 or is considered too old! Then he had to move to a big city. A woman is considered old if she’s not married by 23. So in these hamlets they mostly get married young and there are lots of arranged marriages.

Our home stay was at 1500 meters in altitude valley with stunning views of the rivers, rice fields and huge mountains blanketed in fog.

We now head for the next homestay which will be at slightly higher altitude

Starting our hike by crossing a river

Walking through rice fields

Cat crossing one of the many bridges we’ll encounter

Jumping for joy when we finished climbing one mountain but we will go down many valleys and top many mountains today.

Family burial grounds right on their property.

An idea of what at least half our hike looked like, filled with rocks, lots of mud

Crossing another village, a little shop selling sugar cane.

Their Westfield plaza in the town of Xa Thanh Phu!

We are now close to our homestay In the town of Thanh phu.

This is our last homestay, they also grow everything we will eat. Our joint accommodation will be on the top right

The feast they prepared for us, accompanied by lots of rice wine,

Nga is our interpreter when this inquisitive group ask tons of questions about their lives ( there are 3 generations living in this house)

When everyone is done eating, we get close and personal with Nga find out much about his life, we start singing Karaoke, Nga has such a beautiful voice and he can’t read English but remembers every single word of every song!

It’s time to sleep, these are our joint accommodations with nets over the bedding.

After hiking 17 km in all types of terrain and weather, we are truly exhausted.

Another amazing day in Sapa!