Hey Everybody,I am finally trying to post something. I sure hope this works. Jim left on Friday for a three week trip to the States, so I am trying to figure this out myself. I hope I haven't done any permanent damage to my computer with all the things I had to enable, disable and delete!
We spent a few days up in Sapa, which is in the northern most part of Vietnam, boardering China. We hiked down to several villages where two different minority groups live.
The lady standing in front of her house is from a group called Gao. The women wear their traditional clothes all the time. They weave their own cloth and embroidery all the colorful decorations with patterns that are specific to their people group.
This is what much of our hike looked like to the Lao Chai village where Hmong people live. You can see a slippery clay slope in the background and believe me it was very slick and steep. This was a 6 hour hike. About 4 hours down and 2 hours back up.
No one told us about the easy road to the village, so we hiked down, down, down the rice terraces for 4 hours. It was beautiful but Jim tore a muscle in his thigh about half way down the mountain which made the trip a lot harder for him. After that, the nice Hmong ladies who were guiding us also held our hands so we wouldn't fall down all the slippery slopes. We were really embarrassed because one of the ladies was about 7 months pregnant! : )
This picture is from the town of Sapa. It sure ain't Wal-Mart! But this is the market where a lot of people in the surrounding villages buy their food and other "stuff". The hats are mostly for tourists.
You can see the beautiful valley back behind the guys and the little wisps of clouds floating by. Actually there is a wall of clouds just to the left of Jim and before I could hand the camera to Luke the clouds blew in and gave us a completely white backdrop in the next picture.
I guess I will stop for now. I have tried to post several more pictures but I keep accidentally deleting them while I'm writing. Please be patient if this turns out looking like a mess. : )
We will try to post pictures and keep you up to date on what's happening with us. This blog was a great idea! Thanks to everyone who helped to get it started!
We love you,
April for all the Owen Family
6 comments:
Hey April,
It is great to have some contact with you. The boys are really growing. I have only seen them in person a couple of times.
This blogging was really a great idea. I look forward to seeing more pics from you and your family.
Check out my blog if you have time. There is a link to it on Jackie's. I have some really old pics of all of us on there. Stay in touch.
April,
Great pictures and thank you for sharing some of your family trip. How did you decide where you were going? Was this just for pleasure or was any of this for work? How did the boys do? How long where you there traveling? Sorry for all the questions. One seems to lead to another.
Love Ya,
Rm
This is weird. When I looked at your pictures a couple of minutes ago, there weren't any comments yet. When I "published" my comment, Lynn's showed up. Look at the times...one minute apart. :)
Rm
Hey Rose Mary and Lynn,
Yes, the boys really are growing. We had heard a lot about Sapa from friends and thought the boys were finally big enough to do some real hiking. We were there for three full day with an overnight train ride each direction. The boys did great! They like to get off the main trail and explore. Dan's tummy didn't like the train ride there. He vomited at 3:30am on his bed, one suitcase, and himself. Clean-up was a chore. But he loved everything else. More later. April
Yay! So glad you joined us. The trip looked fun (i.e. challenging). Where in the US is Jim? (sounds like a game, huh?)
Thanks for sharing.
Hey, I'll join everyone else in saying that I am THRILLED that you are able to add photos and comment. It's great hearing from you and seeing what you guys are up to. I love having this central location where we can all share. The hiking trip looks AMAZING! Your photos are like a page out of National Geographic! As Rm mentioned, thanks for sharing it with us and I can't wait to see/hear more! :) The boys could share their lego & movie creations here too. I loved the last ones!
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