Scene at Trung Do Village
Back in Sapa later that day ... main street!
View at lake in Sapa .... I have seen these swan boats in every lake in Vietnam!! Quyen said they are for honeymooners :)
Walking through Tay villages, which are usually set up at a foot of a mountain, or along a stream ... hence, the villages are generally named after a mountain, a field or river :)
Stopped to take a boat ride on the Chay River
Street scene in Trung Do village ... we walked past this lady with her water buffalo
Corn drying in front of a home in Trung Do
Fields we walked along
More scenes on streets of Trung do
Lady in village doing her laundry :)
Someone across from her shampooing his hair .... a mid day bath in the heat :) He smiled as I walked by.
Serene scenes in the field
Our path back to find our driver Nam to take us back to Sapa .... a peaceful country road, where we ran into the two ladies in front of us .... they were coming back from a wedding, a two hour walk away ..... these are usually morning affairs and very casual .... they had wedding clothing in bags they carried. Nice to have Quyen around to always translate these little tidbits for me :)
Road we drove on to get to Can Cau market early that morning :) Kind of rivals the flooded, muddied roads I was on outside of Dalat with the Australians!!
Aahhh, just a wonderful finish to my time in Vietnam ..... Sapa and the villages of the minorities!
Vietnam ...... I will miss your beautiful and ancient pagodas, your serene yet rugged mountains, lush, fertile green valleys, rivers teeming with fish, terraced rice fields, the long languid beaches of Danang, the mountain retreat of Dalat, historical cities like Hanoi, Hoi An, Hue, Saigon, your many many World Unesco heritage sights, and yes, even the crazy motor bike scenes and traffic congestion in Hanoi and Saigon, my lovely students at NBK School and the wonderful teachers I will always call my friends, the beautiful children at Nha Trang Orphanage who captured my heart as surely as anyone has, aaahh, the tasty pho, slurped and devoured with gusto at sidewalk stool cafes, hotels, restaurants, in fact wherever I found pho and being the national dish, it is available everywhere!!! and oh yes, Cha ca la vong!! .... and trekking in the the ethnic minority back country of Sapa area, the lovely lovely Black Hmong, Tay and Red Dao people I met along the way ...... Oh Vietnam, a country said to be obscured in the mists of time and legend ........ survivor of many foreign invasions and civil wars, but stands today, tall, proud, intact and strong despite so much devastation through the ages .... Yes, a people strong and proud, but oh, so gentle, kind, giving, caring! It is the people of the country who I fold to my heart and take with me as my most beloved souvenir. So hard to say goodbye to a country that touched and opened my heart ...... Troi oi, but you are a beautiful in every way!! Tam Biet my lovely Vietnam .....
Vietnam ...... I will miss your beautiful and ancient pagodas, your serene yet rugged mountains, lush, fertile green valleys, rivers teeming with fish, terraced rice fields, the long languid beaches of Danang, the mountain retreat of Dalat, historical cities like Hanoi, Hoi An, Hue, Saigon, your many many World Unesco heritage sights, and yes, even the crazy motor bike scenes and traffic congestion in Hanoi and Saigon, my lovely students at NBK School and the wonderful teachers I will always call my friends, the beautiful children at Nha Trang Orphanage who captured my heart as surely as anyone has, aaahh, the tasty pho, slurped and devoured with gusto at sidewalk stool cafes, hotels, restaurants, in fact wherever I found pho and being the national dish, it is available everywhere!!! and oh yes, Cha ca la vong!! .... and trekking in the the ethnic minority back country of Sapa area, the lovely lovely Black Hmong, Tay and Red Dao people I met along the way ...... Oh Vietnam, a country said to be obscured in the mists of time and legend ........ survivor of many foreign invasions and civil wars, but stands today, tall, proud, intact and strong despite so much devastation through the ages .... Yes, a people strong and proud, but oh, so gentle, kind, giving, caring! It is the people of the country who I fold to my heart and take with me as my most beloved souvenir. So hard to say goodbye to a country that touched and opened my heart ...... Troi oi, but you are a beautiful in every way!! Tam Biet my lovely Vietnam .....
Vietnam sounds like it was wonderful in so many ways, and there is such a diverse range of places to see there. The food also sounds delicious- we had Vietnamese for lunch yesterday but it wasn't quite the same as your descriptions!
ReplyDeletelove Sarah