Video produced/edited by Mckenna

Good morning my folks,

All of the sudden, I woke up during the overnight bus was drifting left and right repeatedly by following the road among the mountain. I looked the window, I couldn’t believe my own eyes: overnight bus was speeding at very small, dangerous road among with other big three overnight buses on mountains. It was like 2:00am, I looked at overnight bus driver, he was turning steering wheel by spin, spin, spin by following the hundreds of sharp curves road. I couldn’t imagine how exhausting for driver after the trip with steering wheel. Also, during the many sharp curves road, I kept falling, spinning my body hitting other end of wall in my mini-bedroom by every time overnight bus turns sharp curves road. I somehow managed to fall sleep again. To be honest, it was pretty intense experience for me.

I woke up again: we arrived the destination: SAPA!! The city we, international studies members mostly forwarding to visit Sapa. Why? - If you types “Vietnam” in the google: the images will pops up. I promises you that it will guarantee shows one image - Sapa in top page. The image should looks like beautiful terrace farming style or mountain; I dare you try google “Vietnam” and finds the image like how I defined it. Good luck!

Anyways, we were brought to our Airbnb house, which have a beautiful view of the mountains, also it’s homestay. The house is a cabin style, there are artifacts hanging on the wall and it looks very old. Everything in the cabin is full of old stuff. We were welcomed by a young couple by giving us a some delicious homemade beef stew. Many of us absolutely emptied the bowl, it is something I would eat for next 5 years - everyday. 

After breakfast, we went hiking for 9 miles with owner of the Airbnb, who guided us through the path. The view of hiking was so beautiful by terrace farming style, big mountain, and many cultural traditions people and homes. There were several sellers from “H’mong” tribe and they offered us to buy their homemade sewing stuff. I bought a scarf, and suddenly over seven children tried to sell me their sewing bracelet by shoving it in my face with stuff. Their hands with bracelet was full of my face, it was funny unbelievably how they were so desperate to sell me a bracelet. It also happened to other few tourists. I decided to buy a pink bracelet for my sister. Most of them went to other tourist to trying to sell so badly, there was one girl left and she was very stubborn, following me with her stuff in her hand, and showing her sad expression face to trying convince me to buy her stuff. Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t convinced enough to buy. She gave up after I sprinted with my friend to get away from her because she chased me for good five minutes. During that, I had some thoughts: is the behavior of children considered as child labor?

After hiking for 9 miles, we reached our destination and there was a bus waiting for us. The bus took us to a restaurant, “Sailing Sapa” and it had a beautiful view of mountains and terrace farming style again. I know I said “beautiful” repeatedly, in the Sapa it’s just so beautiful enough that you could recognize it in default wallpaper of Apple.

The food that we ate at “Sailing Sapa” was REALLY delicious!! We tasted best mango smoothies in our life, ever. The meal was very good, it tastes like meat was produced in less than hour. Food was so good enough to make us order many more foods. I give this restaurant 10/10. 

We hopped in the van to go check out a beautiful waterfall. It was long hike through steep stairs by trekking down, up, down, and up for 30 minutes before reaching the destination. It was great for my mind to relax through hiking. After the hike, we returned to home to rest, catch up on our journals, and finishing vlogs and blogs. Some of us stopped by mini-mart to buy snacks. I bought ramen, beef jerky, and ice cream. All of them are brands from Asia and tastes pretty great with best price. 

I guess that’s all for today.

Good night folks!

Alen