Sa Pa

From LaoCai, we went to Sapa, where there a tribal people.

At the local market, there are more local tribal Black Mong people than tourest. This is Jennie favorite game of find the tourest!



The market extend out to the street where you can get everything from cabbages (from the Flower Mong people) to a hair cut!


There are also snack bars (?) where you can get a roasted sweet potato wrapped on a recyled math text book page.

At the food court, you can get noodles with all kinds of goodies.

Every where in SaPa, there were New Years Cherry Tree, decorated like a Chirstmas Tree!

Someone bought a orchid. (The picture on the right is of a different person with a similar orchid.)

A dance show at a local bar.

To Lao Cai

From Hanoi, we took a train to Lao Cai. The sleeper was sold out so we took a day train. They only had "hard seats" (we did ask if they had any soft seats and they laughed at us...). The train took 10 hours. Our bums were very sore at the end. As we got closer to Lao Cai, it got more and more crowded

The local people come and sell things onthe train. They pass you the things from under the screen.


Finally we're at LaoCai.

Pottery Town

At Hanoi, Nile, Takashi and Yoshie went to a Pottery Villege. At the village, there are people working hard at carrying clay, shaping clay (on the side of streets), taking it out of the mold, painting, selling, and carrying it around on the back of the bike.


And finally the finished product in use:

Hanoi

After Matt went home, Nile went to Hanoi with Takashi and Yoshie. They had a horrible experience getting to the city in the cab because the cab driver droppeed them off at the hotel his friend worked at and not the hotel they wanted to go to. Neverless, Nile was happy to see fragrant flowers for sale on the street.

After finding a hotel to stay in, they had stemer buns for lunch. The orangy, yellow thing is fermented egg yoke. It made the whole thing a bit smelly. There were a lot of people on tours. Here is a long line of Cyclo tour. This is the Hanoi church.



Pho is a noodle soup in Vietnemese. Pho Bo is beef noodle soup. This is a sign for Photocopy, has nothing to do with noodles.

Tet

For Tet they set up displays of flowers all over the city. People take family pictures at these displays. Tet is a big family event. People travel long distnaces to get together with their family for new year's.

On new year's eve, the streets were crowded with motor cycles. Here Jennie and Nile are pretending like they are stuck in traffic with the locals.

There were several stages set up througout the city. Here is one with traditional lion dancing. Two people make a lion and they jump around on these pillars.

At midnight there were fire works.

Afterwards, people burnt fake money for their ancestors. Here people are burning fake American money.