Who

Xin chào, you sugar dolls!

The next day we took the bus, what else, to Sapa... the city in the clouds. On the way to the bus we were accompanied by a cute dachshund lady who joined us in the rain and felt so comfortable with us that she waited with us at the bus stop until our bus arrived. Somehow we have more contact with the animals here than with the people. The trip to Sapa was actually quite comfortable, as we were the only people in the small local bus. We went higher and higher into the mountains, and at some point we could hardly see anything of the beautiful landscape, as our view was blocked by the thick clouds in which we now found ourselves. As soon as we arrived in Sapa, we were immediately besieged by a few women who wanted to offer us trekking tours and other dubious things. We walked to our accommodation, which was a little outside of Sapa. The homestay was recommended to us by the two French women from Hanoi and was actually one of the best accommodations here in Vietnam. Funnily enough, we met Stijn from Belgium there, who had traveled with us from Cambodia to Vietnam a few weeks earlier.

Lihn, our hostess and her little family were super nice and their food was amazing. We were treated like old friends and Linh made sure to stuff us full of as much rice and vegetables as possible at dinner. She always laughed at me when I sat at the table like a bloated puffer fish after the second bowl of rice and couldn't move an inch. There were also four adorable puppies and a little tomcat who slept with us every night.

Sapa itself is more touristy, but still one of the prettiest towns in Vietnam. The small village of Cat Cat in the neighborhood is unfortunately mainly geared towards tourism, which is why you have to pay an entrance fee to even get into the village. The same is true of Vietnam's highest mountain, which is located near Sapa. Fansipan is the highest mountain in Vietnam at an impressive 3,143 m and can be climbed with an overpriced gondola or an expensive hike over several days. So we only looked at Fansipan from a distance. We spent a lot of the days in Sapa with the family of our homestay or in Sapa itself, as we liked everything about it. Colorful lights, flowers and colorful cloths that are made in Sapa and can be bought practically everywhere were hanging everywhere. We discovered our love for dried mangos and found a pretty waterfall that we were able to enjoy all to ourselves, as we only arrived there in the evening. Julian also shaved his hair off, which was a bit of an adjustment for me... after all, he's been growing his golden angel curls since we've been together. It suits him very well, though, and he's happy to save himself a lot of work. My highlight from Sapa, however, was the giant Indian moon moth (a moth) that was sitting on a fence just a few centimeters away from us. When I found it, I could hardly believe my eyes and could only gasp in disbelief and shock. Nature is so fascinating and creates such wonderful things that sometimes you just can't believe them. This moth was one of those things. We could have sat there and looked at it for hours... but we had to leave to start our journey to Luang Prabang in Laos.

(My brain is a bit muddy right now because of our trip to Laos, so this will be a short post, although there is definitely more to tell... never mind. I'll tell you more about our trip to Laos in the next post... quick disclaimer... it's going to be pure chaos.)

Until then

Thank you🐑