HMONG FRIENDS (groan)

Flower Hmong selling (and drinking by the looks of it) rice wine at Bac Ha market

Here's a good drinking game, can you chop through a piece of fat in one blow

The army of black Hmong in Sapa

Flower Hmong in Bac Ha

Ell with Red Dzao 'Lurmay' ( ie No2 child), proudly showing off latest purchase

Goodbye Vietnam. What a great country to travel - sublime landscapes, comfortable transport and mostly terriffic food. In finishing in the North west of the country, we feel we have saved the best to last - the colourful local markets and hill tribes proving a real highlight.

We have visited Can Cau, Bac Ha & Sapa markets, where textiles, livestock and produce are bartered, and we have taken a couple of day treks through different ethnic villages. Bac Ha market was a full day affair, with increasingly addled males betting on who could chop up large pieces of fast in one hit, needless to say it became more animated throughout the afternoon as the stakes became higher, and their shirts were covered in fat.

The Vietnamese women have fallen for Western in a big way - they seem to love no hair and a dimple and I am pretty sure I heard one of them telling Ell today that they thought she was punching above her weight.

Sapa has proved to be a comfortable base from which to plan these various trips - its ludicrously touristy - popular with short term holiday-makers and younger gap travellers clutching their 'South East Asia on a Shoestring' or as we have re-titled it 'South East Asia on a G-String' due to their persistent under dressing.