I arrived in to Sapa in fog and it stayed wrapped around and sneaking in to my clothes for the duration of the time I was there. But on a couple of occasions I managed to get below the all encompassing damp cloud. Bac Ha Market was in full swing when I arrived and it was an amazing display of colour. Though the H'mong don't seem to wear much in handmade traditional clothing anymore it's still spectacular and a great place to watch people interacting.

Whilst I was sitting in a cafe in Sapa a H'mong girl told me about the festival in the village of Lai Chau, down in the valley from Sapa. It was a kind of like a "Love Market" where the young H'mong girls turned up in their finery and the boys did their best to impress them. All the time with scowling mothers on the sidelines.

Then on my final day in the hills the sun came out but not after being in the same place a few days before where the fog was thickest. I was looking for the village of Sau Chua but what I was hoping to find was a cluster of dwellings but in the fog you couldn't see off the road. But a couple of days later I had the chance to visit only to find there is no village as such just houses along the side of the road. After the claustrophobia of being hemmed in it was wonderful to see off in to the distance again and the countryside.

Feb 2017