We caught a night train from Hanoi to cool off in the mountains of north Vietnam.
Sapa is a small town but it is full of tourists. Most travellers come here to go trekking through the mountain rice fields and stay in the villages of the hill tribes people.
On Saturday the town is full of the different hill tribe groups as it is the local market day. The different tribes can be identified by the different head dress and patterns on their clothing.
The streets are lined with vendors trying to sell silver bracelets, wooden toys and embroidered handwoven indigo blankets. For us it is annoying to have the locals follow us everywhere and pester us to buy things. They are lined up outside the hotel and restaurant doors. As soon as a tourist buys something he or she is swamped by all the other sellers nearby hoping the generous tourist will also buy from them. They are pretty persistent and will follow you for miles.
We met some people who did treks and they all had the same story. Sellers would follow them on the trek and then make friends with them and then they would feel guilty and buy things they didn't want to buy! In the internet shop were I am writing this blog there are lots of young girls dressed in traditional Hmong clothes. They are looking at Westlife websites, listening to music, playing games and writing to the friends they have made trekking. One girl is asking Damien for 10,000,000 dong!
