Taking in the view at Heaven Gate at the end of our hike.
Today was our trekking day. We started off with some breakfast at the hotel and then packed our bags for the hike. While packing we saw that fog and dark clouds were rolling in and we were pretty sure we were going to get our first rain of the trip. We were right. We went downstairs to meet our guide (a local Hmong girl) and while waiting it started to pour. She seemed unfazed and said we should just go, so we left on our hike!
Our guide walking an irrigation system running between rice paddies
We got pretty soaked in the first 20 minutes and then it kinda rained on and off for the rest of the 5 hour hike. Our first stop was the Sin Chai village. Sin Chai is another Black Hmong village (like cat cat). It was also pretty small and turns out that they share the same primary and secondary school with Cat Cat. From there we walked across farms, forests, and trails until we came to a river. We even had to balance beam walk on some irrigation systems and logs to make it over some rivers and rice paddies. For this river we had to take off our shoes (except Yvonne since she was smart and had water shoes) and walk in the river to cross. We ate lunch on the other side and had some rest.
At our lunch spot
After lunch we pretty much did a vertical climb for a few kilometers to get out of the valley so that we could make it to the Silver Waterfall. In total the walk from our hotel to the Silver Waterfall was 15km and it was pretty difficult at times especially with the rain and mud.
Middle part of Silver Falls
At the waterfall we climbed a whole bunch of stairs (at this point, what was another few hundred stairs) to get about half way up the falls for a closer look.
At the falls, a car was waiting for us to drive us up to Heaven Gate which is the highest pass in Vietnam. From here we looked out at the great view. After enjoying the view we drove back into Sapa where we were dropped off at the hotel.
We cleaned up at the hotel and then walked around town to do some shopping and get some food. We ended up going for some pho and grabbed some banh khoai mon (taro and red bean mini pancakes). After eating we went to the street stall of our tour guide and bought a blanket made by her mom. We haven't bought much on the trip and we thought this would be a good memory and would help support her family.
View from our hotel room!
Tomorrow we are going to do another trek but this time it is an easier one and more popular. It will still be very nice. Hopefully the weather will be nice. Also, we leave Sapa tomorrow to return to Hanoi (via another night train), so probably no post.
Early in our hike
Sin Chai Village