Day three, we drove about 15km east of town to start an overnight hiking trek.

Drizzly cold misty, perfect day for a hike.

I love me some water buffalo.

This was Minh, our Hmong trek guide.

She spoke Hmong and English, but not much Vietnamese.

The higher hills were not yet planted with the spring rice crop, so the water buffalo could be let alone to wander wherever.

Once the crop is in, they will be more tightly controlled.

You can see that the earth is fairly clay-red, not the best soil.

One more reason to be sceptical that the ethnic tribes actually wanted to settle here.

The plow has a well-forged blade, but otherwise it's alarmingly old-school.

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Lo, the fog, it descendeth.

Many waterfalls exist only during the rains.

Here is some solid evidence that the quaint exotic costume is not just for tourist show.

Notice the girl with the huge brown circle on her forehead.

They had a headache remedy that involved heat suctioning a hollowed water buffalo horn onto the forhead of the patient, which is excruciatingly painful. 

While the horn is stuck to her forehead, the patient looks like a rhinoceros.  The forehead-burn mark lasts for weeks. But the girls assure me, it cures the headache.

The view from our homestay in Sin Chai.

As the sun went down, we took a walk through Sin Chai.

Many streams were polluted with clay silt.  This one was clean, meaning no road building was going on up valley.

This dog adopted us and esorted us through town.

She would not condescend to be petted. 

Vietnamese dogs in general do not understand humans trying to pet them.

Notice I am wearing house slippers, as our boots were scrubbed and drying out back at the homestay.

Surfer kid

Next morning.

After an uphill trek, we waited in this shed for the jeep to come and bring us back to Sapa town.

If this old lady caught us looking, she immediately went back into hard-sell mode, pulling out her wares and showing us, again, for half an hours. 

I took this picture sneakwise.

Waiting for the jeep.

And back to Sapa we went.