Enroute to Cambodia

On the way to Cambodia, I planned some days in the north of Vietnam. Flying into Hanoi, then to the mountains for a couple days and finally, no surprise for me, two days on Halong Bay in a Chinese Junk.

I'm in Sapa after taking the night train from Hanoi. It was a sleepler compartment, shared between 4 people. Lucky me, my ticket assignment was for a lower berth. Toilet was down the hall. My companions were a German software guy from near Munich, a Dutch tax lawyer from Amsterdam and his girlfriend, a banker in human resources living in Rostoff, Poland. Dutch guy and Polish gal have a distance relationship. It was nice that the 4 of us all could speak English together and we had interesting conversation before settling down to sleep for the duration of the 9-hour trip.

LOVELY YOUNG HMONG GIRL
SELLS NATIVE CRAFTS TO TREKKERS

Today, my guide and I trekked down to the Hmong minority tribe village. The guide is a young man, pretty good English and very bright. I have him again tomorrow. He was born in a mountain minority village, where most of the children have only a dim future in store. But he had a benefactor from Canada who "adopted" him, sending money and paying for his university education. He has done well, and his success proves the benefit of this kind of aid. He is making his Canadian folks proud.