Vietnam: Touring the Village of Sapa

While biking through Sapa. we saw vast terraces for rice farming, and gardens full of vegetables. Water buffalo here are tame domestic animals. We visited small ethnic villages where everything is old, except the satellite dishes, which introduce the next generation (and their parents) to things their parents never imagined. Houses are still largely bamboo stacked vertically in the ground to form one room, earthen floors, filled with people who work 18 hours a day and never stop smiling.



















This is the kitchen















These are the bedrooms in a Sapa Guest house

Vietnam: Biking in Sapa

On Saturday morning we went to a mountaintop retreat called Sapa and spent the day on bicycles riding almost 40 kilometers down the mountain.

The “sag wagon” for our bicycle trip was an ancient Russian jeep! Fran rode the entire distance with no major calamities, kept smiling all day! [That was Bob's sentence. Actually, I fell off my bike onto a puddle of mud and that smile was really a grimace! Nothing was broken and , in truth, the ride really was all DOWNHILL. - Fran]

The chain on our guide's bike broke, so he had it repaired












Doesn't everyone run into water buffalo as they ride down a mountain?












A 20 year old jeep from Russia was our support vehicle

Market at Bac Ha (continued)

At the Market at Bac Ha you can buy clothing, food or Vegetables, have your tools sharpened or repaired by a silversmith, buy a water buffalo or buy a pony for your grandchild (only kidding, sort of).

Vietnam: Market at Bac Ha

On Sundays, the village of Bac Ha in Northern Vietnam has a market where you can buy just about anything! This is where the beautiful and colorful Flower Hmong people live.

Vietnam: The Road to Lo Cai and Sapa

Friday night we took an overnight train to Lao Cai, on the Chinese border.

Fran has always wanted to take a long trip on a luxury train. She has now decided that 2 nights is enough to last her a lifetime!

Vietnam 3 - Hanoi

Our Metropole Hotel is old French, and exquisite. Very formal and elegant. Tables in the spacious dining room are 15-20 feet apart, piano and violin music take you back to the 1940s. Fran felt underdressed without shoulder pads in her dress!

Vietnam 2

The Hanoi Hilton prison where John McCain spent five years is a horrendous place. Every square inch is concrete; inside tiny cells prisoners had one leg shackled in iron, immobilized, 24/7. One day in any cell would meet anybody’s definition of torture.





















The Vietnames are such a social people that solitary confinement is considered a particularly cruel form of punishment
A guillotine at the Hanoi Hilton - an idea borrowed from the French.