July 19th, 2017
Day 2 Sapa
All is right with the world. After an awesome night’s sleep. (I found an actual English Channel on the tv with a movie) on a very comfortable mattress-We so very rarely get to say this, I slept until 6:30 am. I Got up and was down at breakfast by 7am, drinking Vietnamese coffee and catching up on Facebook. It’s like it’s my vacation time finally. The breakfast here is a pretty impressive buffet with fruit, cereal, juice, lots of Asian foods but a decent western selection too. They make eggs to order and have bacon and ham. They also make “pancakes” which were more like flavourful crepes, with either banana or pineapple. Troy went pineapple, I went banana. Very tasty!!!! Sat on comfortable chairs until 9:15 when I thought I should go get ready to face the world/aka go for a walk and find a massage place. Believe it or not, the sun was doing its best to peek out and we thought we should grab the moment. Based on the weather patterns yesterday, we had no idea how long it would last, if at all.
Comfortable shoes on and rain poncho in my day pack, we set off to explore the town. The gal at the front desk looked at us a little like we were crazy-“you are just going to walk around?” “You don’t want to book a tour?” I assured her we were fine. I did ask her what happens if you book a trekking tour and it pours rain! She said sweetly “you still go”. Good to know….I’ll consider it for tomorrow 😉
We walked a long way out of town into the hills and saw sone beautiful views of the city from up high as well as fields of roses and lilies. The roses fascinated me. As they grow, Each bloom is wrapped in Paper and tied off with a little tie. We are talking millions of rose bushes. Millions…..seems like a lot of work. I guess I just never thought about how this all happens and why. Maybe the paper protects the rose bud from Insects or keeps it tight in a bud until delivered to the consumer? Not sure. Maybe I will look into that.
We made our way back to civilization and thought we should look for food. We ended up over in the part of town that caters more to tourists. Troy had earmarked a couple of eateries and as luck would have it, we found ourselves right in front of one. So in we went and lo and behold, troy was able to order and receive pho. Beef pho to be precise! Thank goodness!! We ordered salad rolls (aka fresh spring rolls) and they were quite tasty. The rice paper wrapper was a little chewy but the flavour was spot on and we enjoyed them! I ordered a Vietnamese chicken sandwich. Also very good. Overpriced as it turns out, but at 72,000 doing ($3.50 usd) still palatable pricing.
Then with our bellies full, a foot massage seemed like the best plan. So for $8 each we went next door and arranged that! Expensive compared to Thailand but similar prices to Cambodia. We were in the $7-$9 range for a 60 minute massage in Cambodia. It was slightly different than footies had elsewhere, but very good! My least favourite part of a foot massage is putting my shoes on at the end. But alas it has to be done. We carried on with our walk for a ways but I had a bug bite on my foot and my wet sandal was rubbing on it causing me to be a tiny bit uncomfortable. So with one toe peeking out of the strap, we decided to turn back and start the trek back to the hotel. We had been out for the better part of 7 hours, so feeling great about our day.
Somehow I’m still the bug bait between the two of us on this trip. Not sure why I get bitten and by what, because I never actually see anything bite me. I usually get a pretty decent reaction to the notes though….I never leave home without my itch stuff 😉
