Sapa

This is my 4th day in the village of Sapa in northern VietNam. Blog access is possible again, but photo editing software is still rare. Thanks to Moira for pointing me at some websites which help.
The overnight bus journey from Kunming to Hekou was pretty uncomfortable, but it successfully delivered us to the border with an hour to spare before it opened for the day. Here's a picture of the border crossing (a bridge across the Red River) before opening time.

It was here that I met Ayumi, a nice young Japanese lady who was heading in the same direction - for Lao Cai and then up the 40km or so to Sapa. This is a really nice old French colonial "hill station", just by VietNam's highest mountain, the wonderfully named Fansipan (at 3143m). The air is great, and we seem to be constantly surrounded by rolling clouds. Ayumi and I have teamed up for a couple of one day treks in the hills, generally through rice paddy terraces and communities of various hill tribes - esp. "Black Hmong" and "Red Hmong". She has been great company, and we plan to make the (9 hour) bus journey to Hanoi together in a couple of days before going our separate ways. For Ayumi it is Laos, then Cambodia, Thailand, India. For me I need to do some new planning after my early exit from China!

My other pictures are of some of the local scenery and people - and of me and Ayumi at the start of our first trek.