Lai Chau City

Lai Chau was a pretty typical Vietnamese city: one long strech of multi-storied buildings along the main road, a market, a bus stand, and smaller dirt roads branching out to low slung neighborhoods surrounded by, and surrounding, fields of rice and corn. Nothing special, but one look beyond the city limits and I was certain I could stay here for days, maybe weeks. According to the tattered Lonely Planet I'm hauling around, Lai Chau "is set in a verdant valley of conical peaks that resemble diminutive volcanoes. The countryside around the city is sublime." A slight understatement, to say the least. The green peaks in the near distance reminded me of a toned down, spread out Guilin, China. It turned out to be one of the friendliest, most easy going towns I've been to as well. I easily found a place to stay on the main drag - a large French colonial-style building with columns and balconies ($9 per night, tv included) and spent the remainder of the afternoon visiting the market, catching up on news via the internet (bad idea - I had almost forgotten the political and financial bullshit going on at home), and trolling for good food at the local food stalls.

While Lai Chau really did deserve a longer stay, the weather forecast I tracked down persuaded me to continue on to Sapa the next day. Apparently, I only have a couple morning's worth of decent weather left before more storminess arrives (typhoons a brewing out in the Gulf of Tonkin) and I'll need it to get over Tram Ton pass - at 1900 meters, the highest mountain pass in Vietnam. After yet another bowl of rice and vegetables for dinner - served by a cranky, gap toothed mamasan - I called it an early evening. Knocked out a few more pages of my 10 lb. "History of Vietnam" and crashed. Onward to Sapa and the good life......for a couple of days, at least.