Backdate: Hanoi trip Day 3

8/4/16 Fri: Aft another bowl of chicken pho, we saw many guides coming for the grp of us trekking to Ta Van Village (H'Mong and Dzay tribes) today. LL gave up the trek today and rested instead. Jess and I challenged the 12km of walk up and down in total. Omg. 

They were here for a reason. The trek up and down countless times was via uneven slopes in the woods, muds and rocky steps etc. Above was the beginning of our "horror"~ We had to avoid buffalo dungs along the way, and I gave up my idea of taking videos cos I had to hold on to my guide or the bamboos along the way for fear of falling and tumbling. *Poor Jess was wearing LL's sports shoes but it was too big for her feet, so it was painful for her along the way.*

Saw pretty terrains and rice fields along the way. *Awww my knees and legs~*

Su Su was my personal guide. She's 39yrs old and with two children, elder one being 18yrs' old alrdy!

Finally reached our first break stop. It was a small shelter and we were only thr to take some sips of water, and we moved on. *Su Su made a "heart" for me!*

The next 1/3 of the journey... *庆幸我们懂得苦中作乐!*

Reached the second break stop and we had a bit of sugarcane thr to replenish glucose ah! There's the view from the top.

Jess walked sideways la, backwards down la cos her toes were hurting. Here, we reached our lunch stop, and I bought 3 hand-made pouches (VND 500,000) from Su Su, as a way of thanking her. We shared lunch with 3 Danish ladies... simple ones.

Aft that, we still hav quite some distance to walk while Sol, the mum of a 3-yr old kid guided a grp of us. My cam's batt was exhausted, so no photos but I rmb gg into a local's shop and saw hw they weave using simple wooden machines and grind soy etc.

A van sent us back to our hotels, and I saw two big blisters on my toes! Above is a momento from our guides for buying things from them. Had dinner thr, and I tot the fish had a wierd taste to it.

Got to thk that big bottle of drinking water during our treks... I dunno if it was psychological but the water tasted really sweet during the tough times! And soon, it was time to take the SP2 train from Lao Cai stn back to Hanoi at 8.35pm.

 Coach 6 bed 19... 又是一个失眠夜~