The hike, the drinks, the food and the crazy guy

thThe next am we awoke at the Cat Cat guesthouse and took it upon ourselves to hoof it down the little road with the intention of walking around a village called, of all things, Cat Cat. It was a long way down to the bottom of the valley that lay between us and Mt. Fan Xi Pan, the highest peak in Vietnam which I mentioned in the previous post. It was a lovely day weather wise, the temperature much more suitable for walking than it is here in the soggy south. About half an hour later we were at the bottom, our minds full of breath taking views which we'd just passed by. At the bottom there were a few buildings scattered about which made up the village, there was a river running through the valley with small waterfall which we stopped to look at for a while. We poked around and looked at the wares being hawked by the local people and then eventually set off on a path up the side of a small hill which we thought would lead us to the bottom of the road back up to Sapa. Down in the valley there were numerous footpaths like the one we were on. I'm sure at one point these paths were the recipients of only a few footprints, belonging to locals and their herds. These days there are plenty of brand name sneakers, sandals, and boots that leave their mark as well, but on this day after a few minutes of walking, we found ourselves quite alone. From where we were we could see most of the bottom of the valley, including the road and path which we'd descended on, a group of motorbike drivers waiting at the road, which was our destination, and several other paths, upon which were other guests of Sapa, sweating like we were in the late morning sun. Our only concern at this point was whether the path we were on actually led to where the motorbikes were, or whether it lead into the middle of no where, at which point we'd have to turn around and retrace our many steps back to where we came from. We had been able to see the bikes, but the path dipped and swerved into and out of thickets, over knolls and and across berms and after a lengthy spell of hiking we began to question our navigating. Just as the doubt arose in our minds, we popped out of the trees to find the motorbike drivers parked and waiting right in front of us. So we selected two noble looking steeds, hopped on their motorbikes and they buzzed us up the hill.
It was lunch time when we got back to the guesthouse and since it had such a lovely terrace restaurant with a beautiful view, and we all had a hankerin' for cheeseburgers, we decided to chow down there. Twas a great idea, the food was super, and after lunch we walked the 30 paces to our rooms and 75% of us closed our peepers. For some reason 50% of us had peeper problems, Dad had one red eye, I think he'd forgotten to take a contact lens out, Jessie's lower eyelids were swollen, not sure why, so she iced them. The rest of us were fine, I slept and Mom read a book for an hour or two.
Later in the afternoon when we all got going again, we decided that since it was our last night in town, we would show ourselves a good time at a couple local watering holes. So we plodded around the town for a few minutes, spotted our former H'mong friends along the way and eventually happened into a dimly lit joint called Tau Bar, which was down a side street and in the basement of some building. It had diversions such as a pool table and a dart board, the latter being of slightly less than professional standard, I think it was magnetic, but since the pool table was occupied we drank brews and whipped magnetized darts for a while. Later on the pool table cleared up and we played a few games, had a nice encounter with a local nut job, an old guy that came in, danced around the room, didn't say a word, jigged his way over to jessie's beer and promptly poured most of it on the floor and then jigged his way out again with the help of the staff muscle. It was and interesting few moments to say the least, but it gave us a chance to chat with the security guy, who told us A)that guy had head problems and B)his (the security guard's, not the nut job's) daytime job was a tour guide for foreigners. So we talked it over and decided that although it was fun walking around all devil-may-care this morning, we would like to take another tour to some more outlying villages and have the knowledge of a guide to answer some questions we had. It was arranged that this fella, Jhuan was his name, would meet us at our place in the morning, and he'd take us by jeep to two villages a few kilometeres from Sapa, where we could see the lifestyles of a few more minority tribes. Great, it sounded like a good plan, and the price was right too, 15 bucks a person, for the whole day, the jeep, lunch and a trip to some hot springs as well. we continued to play pool and eventually the social nature of the game sparked a meeting between us and a Scottish dude named Ian, who was in town for a few days, doing basically the same stuff we were. The five of us played for a while and shortly thereafter an english girl joined our group. Her name was Heather, she was 19 and she was zipping around northern Vietnam on a motorbike, by herself, for a couple weeks. This story was pretty overwhelming for Mom, as it would be for all moms I'm sure, but it made for some laughter as she told us how she couldn't kick start her bike herself so she always had to find someone to do it for her, and how she wasn't tall enough to sit on it and touch the ground so when she stopped she always tipped over. Despite these 'shortcomings' she was in good shape and seemed to be having a great time.
By that time the sun had been down for a while and the beers were starting to fuel a strong hunger in our collective stomach. We decided to make our way to the Indian restaurant in town and Ian and Heather joined us. Now by this point in the trip we'd yet to top the 1 million dong mark on any of our dinner bills, but that night, with our best effort, which included two bottles of wine at 21 dollars a piece, we managed to topple the mark. One million dong, sixty dollars, yee ha! At dinner Heather regailed us with more anecdotes of follies and foibles which she'd survived during her trip and we scarfed curry and wine til we were sufficiently bloated. After dinner Ian and Heather went back to the bar, but we turned in for the night, as we were going to be up early for our tour. That night the temperature was b-e-a-utiful, cool enough to make the thick duvets on our beds a neccessity and I personally, slept like a baby.