Northern Tour 2014 01

I centered the planning for my 2014 trip around a Moment Lives tour; due to insufficient bookings the tour I wanted to go on was cancelled but there remained the possibility of doing a different one- which after a bit of toing and froing eventually became possible. Moment Lives, is a side gig owned and operated by the Tour Director from the trip I’d been on in 2013, specialising in organising small group tours for photographers in North Việt Nam that go to places most visitors are unable to get to.

Day 1 was the pick up and meet and greet before boarding the overnight train from Ha Noi to Lao Cai. At the station it was great to find they had raised the platform to same height as the train doors, since I made the trip the previous year  (2013); even better was the almost frozen beer (mind the fountain on opening) I was able to get once the train was underway. We arrived in Lao Cai around 7:00 the next morning and made our way to Sa Pa for breakfast, stopping on the way to take some shots. After breakfast the tour proper commenced  when we turned off the main road and headed into the hills.

Almost immediately we started climbing up into the mountains and watched the the valley disappear into insignificance. Through sheer luck, we came across a Red Dao group celebrating the completion of a tribal member’s new house. We spent a while photographing before continuing onto Lao Chải Village where we got out of the van and started walking through (about 10 km!!!- or at least that’s what it seemed) and crossing several fast flowing unbridged streams. I got a couple of good shots but on the whole wasn't very happy with my photos mainly because of smoke haze, which dogged us throughout the tour. After stopping several times during the afternoon we finally arrived in Mường Hum, our homestay.