Day 4 - Ma Le to Lung Cu to Ma Le

Today we head off for Lung Cu the most northern town in Vietnam as their have their weekly market today. We arrive around 9am and the market is well and truely alive with amazing colours of people from ethnic groups wearing their traditional clothes. It's such an interesting market with people selling both ethnic and western clothes, traditional medicine (we saw someone look like she was telling fortunes using a raw egg in a bowl), modern medicine, fresh and cooked food, tools, household items, mobile phones and Sim cards. It's such a visually stimulating place with the colourful clothes of people from the surrounding villages coming to the market in their traditional clothes. We head up to the flag pole hill and eat some yummy food we got at the markets, including this very yummy pancake/bread that was being heated on coals. Afterwards we enjoy a coffee in the nearby Lolo village before heading out for some more exploring in these far northern roads and villages. We go 'off road' for a bit (which Jean loves and Lila and I love a little less). We see the most northern road in Vietnam and Jean and Lila visit another border point, however it is a bit more serious with a watch tower and camera, as well as skull and Cross bones on the border marker post. We also visit another border area which is basically a big hole in a wire fence with a billboard of the other side (only written in Chinese and Vietnamese.
And as if we hadn't seen enough border points we saw another one which we could walk across and we saw people go across on their motorbike and come back with beer (as it must be cheaper on the Chinese side).Read more