Another overnight train and again it was worth it.
We arrived in Sa Pa to 360 degree views of stunning emerald green rice terraces, went on a life changing trek through various hill tribes and soaked our weary bones in one of the region's famous herbal baths.
CORRECTION. We saw f all for four days due to persistent mist/clouds that you could literally watch roll past your window, rain a bit heavier than a drizzle fell for about 72 hours straight and it was cold. So f*cking cold.
We're told there's a nice view there.
The temperature got up near 8°C a couple of times and we remarked on how much "warmer" it felt. Travelling with just a single pack we are not prepared for this kind of weather, we're hardly prepared for temperatures below 20 let alone close to zero. Oh yeah, and it snowed. In Vietnam it snowed.
So the trek was off and we instead had to drink red wine and stay warm in our room. It was a challenging few days.
This was our view for five minutes.
And this is what we could see for the rest of our time in Sa Pa, minus five minutes.
There is, however, always one saving grace in Vietnam - food. We ventured away from the tourist zone (shock horror) and found a strip of simple restaurants roasting whole suckling pigs and a range of skewered meats and veggies. Most importantly, they had ga den on the menu - the elusive black chicken. Despite attempts by the waitress to point us in the direction of the normal chicken we were presented with this little baby.
Super moist and fatty, a little bit gamey and 100% delicious. The bird was all it's clucked up to be.
And finally, we may have inadvertently had dog sausage. We picked a sausage off the rack and what came out cost about four times what you'd expect to pay for a sausage, had a strange astringency to it and Nicola now howls at the moon before going to sleep... Woof woof.
