hence the name "the rainy season..."

so..we're in nha trang, the beautiful beach town just a few km from the famous "china beach." it hasn't stopped raining for 36 straight hours. (here i will quote another visitor to vietnam, mr. forrest gump: "we been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain that even seemed to come straight up from underneath.") so...even though the rain has changed our original plan for two lazy beach days, it hasn't dampened our spirits. we're off to Dalat tomorrow (in the Central Highlands), and hopefully we'll leave the soggy stuff here on the coast.

the past few days have been a busy mix of planes, trains and automobiles. After Halong , we jumped on an overnight train to Sapa, a small city tucked away in the northwest mountain region and we got the chance to visit villages of small indigenous groups such as the Black H'mong, the Dao, and the Flower H'mong. Our guide, Xuan, was a former elementary school teacher whose father fought with the North Vietnamese against the Americans. We had some interesting conversations over the long treks out to the mountain villages (followed by four Black H'mong girls who provided us endless entertainment). Here are some quick shots from one of the villages, near the Cat-Cat waterfalls. The last picture is of a woman making homemade incense sticks for sale.

The villages have been forced (for better and for worse) to adapt to the relatively new tourism that has been thrust upon them. The effect of the "outside world" manifests itself in funny ways. Case in point: The girls that we met live about 10km from Sapa (usually traveled by foot), and about 10 hours from any major metropolitan city. They receive no formal instruction in English, and most girls stop going to school and marry by the age of 14. So, I was slightly surprised when one of the girls (age 7) asked for my email address to keep in touch. I was even more surprised when, as I was writing it for her, she remarked: "Oh, you have Gmail? I'm on Gmail too!"