Sunday we visited the Tavan village in the morning and the Taphin village in the afternoon. The villages were very similar, but located on opposite sides of Sapa. They both harvested rice and corn, the woman sewed purses, clothing and everything in between. The children have the same no pants rule and all the 3 villages they wear plastic shoes, like Jellies. They dressed different from one another in the villages; the main difference was the Red H’mong wore huge red hats that folded back. The women of this village also shave part of their hair and eyebrows to show they are married.

I bought a beautiful purse handmade by a young woman. I posted a picture of us together. When I say hand-made I mean, they take hemp- string it out, dye it, wrap it on a loom, make fabric, sew it together and sew decorative patterns on it. Seriously handmade. She said she worked for 5 days straight on the purse. She sold it to me for 150, 000 dong or $10 dollars. Later in the van I found out that other women sold them for 35,000 dong or $1.50, so I was mad, but prayed that I could see that I blessed her with extra money, God has not answered this prayer yet. : )

As you can tell from the pictures, the land is just beautiful. The rice fields are on terraced strips down the sides of the mountains. The clouds settle down into the mountains casting a haze over the land. You can see the little Vietnamese hats from far away; they work so hard harvesting their crops.

Another thing we saw throughout Sapa were these red hickies on peoples foreheads. Sometimes there was one circle, other times up to 3 or 4. In the Cat Cat village I finally asked a villager and our guide translated for us… its to relieve a headache. They take the end of a Water Buffalo’s horn (its hollow, about 6” long) and fill it with Tiger sperm. They heat up the sperm over a fire then stick it to their forehead. They create such a hard vacuum that it makes a hickie. They buy the Tiger sperm from China, which is just a few miles from their village!

On the way back to the train station we stopped by and saw China. We went up to the border and took pictures of the buildings and the Chinese writing.

So last but not least, the train ride home… remember me saying it was somethin’ else, well this was that x100. We were in a 6 bed cabin, same 7 x 7 size, no air-conditioning and no mattresses! We had a little fan that rotated, but the blades didn’t turn. We had 4 crying babies on top of that and all we could do was laugh. I almost wet my pants, I-kidd-you-not. The “fan” will forever be my own Vietnam laughing moment. About an hour in we got someone to come fix the fan. He pulled out fingernail clippers, cleaned the wires, took the tape off of our baby wipes box, wrapped it around the fan and it worked! The windows were open and a breeze came in during the night, it was do-able all except the steel cots. We didn’t sleep much. But oh well, it was a great trip.

All the families agree that this trip was one of the high-lights of our Vietnam stay. When they first said, lets take an overnight train ride to a village, I was not jumping up and down to say the least, but we are all so glad we went to these villages. They were beautiful and peaceful. We have been to so many places in Vietnam, I cannot wait to mark it out on a map and see all the places we have been.