Xóm Ba

We came to Sapa to trek. We wanted to trek up Mount Fancipan, the highest mountain in Vietnam and Indochina, but it was really expensive and would have involved an overnight. Instead, our homestay owner took us through a bamboo forest. Our day started by taking a half hour taxi ride to a set of waterfalls named the Love Waterfalls. After looking a the waterfalls, we started on the trail to Fancipan and trekked uphill for 2 hours. We eventually arrived at a little lodge and had lunch. On the way, our guide used his machete to make me and Neve walking sticks out of bamboo. For lunch, our guide gave us some bread, some veggies, a bit of meat and some fruit. There were also little containers of something. Our guide pointed at it and said “Milk,”. We opened one up and it looked like yogurt or something. Someone said that it was probably mayonnaise, so we put it on our sandwiches. We thought that the bread was sweet, and it was a weird combination with the sweet bread and the meat on our sandwiches. Neve said that her bread wasn’t sweet, so it was a little weird, but then I realised that it wasn’t mayonnaise, it was condensed milk. My mom and I had put quite a bit on our sandwich. There was also a cat who was very friendly and was really wanted to help us eat our lunch, especially the apples!

After that, we went uphill for another 2 hours before we started heading back down. At this point, we had trekked up halfway of Fansipan mountain. When we got near the lodge where we had lunch, and then we took a different path. This path took us through lots of jungle. There were huge leaves everywhere. We were going down through the jungle and there were trees everywhere with lots of bushes and plants. It was slow going because sometimes we would have to crouch down to get under leaves or trees. My dad and Neve were only a little bit behind my mom and I, but we could not see them because the jungle was so dense.

After the jungle, there was a bamboo forest. The bamboo forest was the worst part, because we were still going down and some parts of the downhill were really steep. We had to go a lot slower because we didn’t want to fall. I had already fallen 3 times. Our guide kept on telling us to hurry up because it was getting late and it got dark around 5:30. We tried to go faster, but we still couldn’t go very fast, because it was super steep. The trail was washed out and the rocks were super muddy, wet and slippery. We had to crouch down on our hands to make it down!

Eventually, it got dark out and we had to use our phone flashlights. Our guide had his phone, and we had one phone. It helped a little bit, but we were moving super slowly because we still didn’t have a lot of light. I think I fell 9 times on the whole hike. At one point, I almost fell off a cliff; it was dark out, so I couldn’t see very well and I fell, slipping down but caught myself just in time. My dad had to pull me back up. Everyone in my family fell and my mom was really scared going down. She does not like heights and she was worried about my sister and I. We finally made it to a road, and walked about 10 minutes before we got to a taxi. It was 9 hours of trekking, with 1.5 hours in the dark! The guide said that he hadn’t done the trail in a few years and that it had eroded because it wasn’t like that when he had done it before. The next day, we all got to rest. My sister and my mom were pretty sore.

Sophie

La nourriture dans Vietnam est très bon. Chaque nuit, les personnes de notre homestay nous cuisinent du nourriture différent. Ils nous donnent des petits plats avec 5 différents types de nourriture. Il y a toujours du riz et il y a toujours du soupe. Ils font des petits spring rolls beaucoup, et du brocoli ou champignon dans du porc. La nuit dernière, ils nous ont fait des frites et du riz de bamboo. C’est du riz qui a été cuit dans du bamboo, le riz est enveloppé dans un mince couche de bamboo. On a aussi des plats de légumes, come du brocoli ou de l’épinard.

Pour le déjeuner, on a toujours des crêpes avec des bananes, du sucre et du lait condensé. Ils nous donnent du thé aussi avec le déjeuner et le souper.Read more