The people in Sapa were lovely! The villages are incredibly poor and the houses were in bad shape, but everyone was so genuinely happy. The kids were so well cared for and were just so happy to be out playing in the mud and fields all day. As we walked, the guides told us a bit about life in their village. I found it really interesting that they don't consider themselves Vietnamese, despite their lands being in Vietnam. Their only self professed allegiance is to their tribe, which each have their own language. Our 2nd homestay was in a different tribe to the 1st (where our guide was from) so they spoke different languages and could only communicate in Vietnamese.

The low point of the whole experience was being woken up from sleep on the first night by someone else's vomit dripping onto my face, but that's another story for another time...