Sapa Tour and Cakefights!
Next morning we awoke to find Sho had been an absolute star - cooking us a huge stack of pancakes and providing loads of bananas, honey, sugar and lime! What a breakfast. We left absolutely stuffed and not entirely balanced for some more beautiful vistas of the valley by way of paths along the terrace-edges of rice paddies. One foot wrong and you ended up with a boot caked in sloppy mud. Well at least I hadn't stepped right in the chocolate cake (cowpat) like Martin had the night before. He still cites Sho's bad torchmanship as the cause even though it was more than bright enough to walk in just the moonlight!
After stopping by a huge waterfall with beautiful views and a vast array of souvenir pedlars we reached a house of the Dzay minority at Ta V An to see them smoking the entrails of a pig and where we sampled a strange peach/pear/apple cross-over fruit. After lunch and a swim at nearby Giang Ta Chai we ended up towing Sho up the mountain - I mean really - we're supposed to be the slow inexperienced hikers!
We briefly met Jo and ??? that evening before they headed to Hanoi for a quick exchange of information and a good giggle at the damage Jo had done to her leg after day 1 on the moto. Now if she were an experienced traveller... Oh and to imagine that we might have a budget for travelling!!
That night it was dinner and a quick English lesson and a search for a little present before heading to Lyly's house to wait for the girls to get ready. Some things transcend every nation on Earth!
Destination for the Birthday Party - the "Love Market" traditionally the place for guys to court their sweethearts...so think really cheap beer and food - classy! One of the many delicacies on offer for 1,000 dong ( 3.3p) was pig's intestines - surprisingly more tasty than I'd imagined and scarily similar to pork scratchings! There must have been nearly 30 of us at the party, consisting of our H'Mong tourguides and friends, some Northern British guys and gals, some Canadians and a Mexican and a German who we were quite sure were there for other things what with being over thirty and regularly hanging out with these girls - some of which were less than half their age.
The party got in full swing with plenty of "Mol, hai, bah, yo!" and a heap of food. Once the birthday cake was lost it quickly descended into total anarchy. A few checky splats of cream from the cake on our faces and tops were swiftly answered by some precision sponge-propelled cream-missiles to the face after which all subtlety was lost. In the ensuing battle of cream-covered hands, faces and hair enough people bounced off enough pillars, other people and floors to bend and break three chairs! Amazingly none of them were directly our responsibility! A fourth broke when the fat British woman at the end ate more cake than the chair allowed. Clearly she hadn't clocked that the cake was actually for throwing.
A seemingly aimless wander over town carrying a very drunk Lyly (she'd had to Yo all 30 people at the table with apple rice wine) took us via a couple of bars to a (fortunately) private Karaoke room considering the extent to which rice wine affects the tuning of your voice!
***VIDEOS OF VERY BAD KARAOKE SINGING!***
After stopping by a huge waterfall with beautiful views and a vast array of souvenir pedlars we reached a house of the Dzay minority at Ta V An to see them smoking the entrails of a pig and where we sampled a strange peach/pear/apple cross-over fruit. After lunch and a swim at nearby Giang Ta Chai we ended up towing Sho up the mountain - I mean really - we're supposed to be the slow inexperienced hikers!
We briefly met Jo and ??? that evening before they headed to Hanoi for a quick exchange of information and a good giggle at the damage Jo had done to her leg after day 1 on the moto. Now if she were an experienced traveller... Oh and to imagine that we might have a budget for travelling!!
That night it was dinner and a quick English lesson and a search for a little present before heading to Lyly's house to wait for the girls to get ready. Some things transcend every nation on Earth!
Destination for the Birthday Party - the "Love Market" traditionally the place for guys to court their sweethearts...so think really cheap beer and food - classy! One of the many delicacies on offer for 1,000 dong ( 3.3p) was pig's intestines - surprisingly more tasty than I'd imagined and scarily similar to pork scratchings! There must have been nearly 30 of us at the party, consisting of our H'Mong tourguides and friends, some Northern British guys and gals, some Canadians and a Mexican and a German who we were quite sure were there for other things what with being over thirty and regularly hanging out with these girls - some of which were less than half their age.
The party got in full swing with plenty of "Mol, hai, bah, yo!" and a heap of food. Once the birthday cake was lost it quickly descended into total anarchy. A few checky splats of cream from the cake on our faces and tops were swiftly answered by some precision sponge-propelled cream-missiles to the face after which all subtlety was lost. In the ensuing battle of cream-covered hands, faces and hair enough people bounced off enough pillars, other people and floors to bend and break three chairs! Amazingly none of them were directly our responsibility! A fourth broke when the fat British woman at the end ate more cake than the chair allowed. Clearly she hadn't clocked that the cake was actually for throwing.
A seemingly aimless wander over town carrying a very drunk Lyly (she'd had to Yo all 30 people at the table with apple rice wine) took us via a couple of bars to a (fortunately) private Karaoke room considering the extent to which rice wine affects the tuning of your voice!
***VIDEOS OF VERY BAD KARAOKE SINGING!***
Labels: Vietnam
posted by Ian Matthias at
11/18/2006 04:27:00 am
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