We spent the night before last in a village in the Vietnamese mountains called Sapa, close to the Chinese border. To get there, we drove up a mountain pass to an elevation of around 6500 ft and found a very cute town that felt almost like were were in the Swiss alps, plus some squealing pigs that woke us up in the morning. The Victoria Hotel up there in Sapa is a beautiful place...fireplaces burning, tribal woman hand-weaving fabrics for their robes...good food and warm water!
The warm, humid air in the valleys rises up and meets the cold air higher up in the mountains, creating condensation in the form of fog coming up the mountains from the valley.
By the way...you can click on the images and they should enlarge. Here are some kids having lunch together out of a bowl. The girl just dropped here kitty into the house...there are animals everywhere in these mountain villages. Cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, buffalos, horses, cows...some more agreeable with car traffic than others. In general, none of the creatures living here, including the humans, are used to cars driving through their villages.
Rice planting is extremely laborious work. We were watching a bunch of planters putting each seedling into the ground for a while. It's amazing what a large number of people can accomplish when they work together on a project.
My dad checking the undercarriage of our car for a dead chicken that may be stuck somewhere. Unfortunately I produced the first casualty of our trip today. I managed to avoid the rooster, but the hen that came running after him had no chance. I'm glad it was only a bird not something more serious.
Love the shot of the children in the hut.
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