Sunday is the day of the big market in Bac Ha where all the hill tribes do their trading. It was easily the biggest market we've been to. The sights,smells and sounds were unbelievable. Everywhere a sea of colour with the Montagnards (hill tribes) all in their different dresses. There was a livestock section selling buffalo which can go for as much as US$800, pigs, big dogs for eating,, little dogs for something else, chickens, ponies you name it, it could be bought. There was even tofu being made.
There was a large catering section selling goodness only knows what. Normally that would have been the place we would head for lunch however, once we heard horse hotpot was an option we decided perhaps not! Our lunch was a vegetarian affair and caused a stir as Adrian wasn't able to sit on the little stool, he had to put one on top of the other and then got the very elderly vendor to help him up. The guy knows no shame. We had great fun bartering for our shopping and entering into the spirit of it, and came away happy that we got good deals.
From Bac Ha we went to Ban Ho which is a village of the flower Hmong tribe. We went to the house of a family and were shown around - which is an overstatement, two rooms, one a kitchen, the other a living room with beds curtained off. Here the family were making corn wine which we were able to taste. It was like any countries fire water, but the Polish people on our trip really enjoyed and finished it off. We had a walk around the fields that they were cultivating and saw some ploughing being done, this looked very skillful but perhaps a little barbaric as they were holding onto the buffalo's tail.
From here we went to Lao Cai and to see the Chinese border which we didn't bother with we just bought peanut brittle and had a sugar hit instead.
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