Sapa tour
Our bus arrived in the late evening, many local youngsters were waiting in the bus station with the flyer offering their homestays and tours. I took one but was bound to the hostel. When I arrived and showed my booking, the receptionist only took his head in his hands and told me that there is no room, no bed for me. Outside it was raining so I only asked him to give me a place for my mat. But he did not agree with this idea so he called his friend, who has a friend with a brother who has a wife…and he found a place in another hotel. He took me there on a motorbike, gave me his phone number to call him in the morning, ready to come back for breakfast. Instead of sharing a room in a dormitory, I got a private room (which was maybe the staff accommodation) with a private bathroom. I could not be luckier.
So in the morning after ample sleep, I was taken back to the hostel for breakfast. I still did not know anything about the trekking in Sapa, I still did not have a guide and homestay. But I knew the right things would come to me soon. Having breakfast and talking with a french guy, I saw a girl coming to the hostel from outside to ask our receptionist about some tickets. She was asked to wait a bit so she sat down to our table and we started talking. And that is how I found the best guide and homestay for me. This girl is Canadian and together with an Australian girl already had a guide. They all looked friendly and positive energy was everywhere around, so I asked the Vietnamese girl if I could join her small group. She agreed and I was sure, this is the right one.
We started hiking up with our backpacks, the weather was cloudy, foggy, sometimes a bit rainy, but we were enjoying every single step. The Vietnamese girl was my age, around 30, having 4 kids. She’s never studied. When she was a kid, her parents needed her for work on the field, so she didn't go to school, she never learned how to read and write. When tourism started arising in this area, she saw the opportunity to have a nice job and give better opportunities for her kids. So she started learning English, first only with tourists in the town, following them and listening to how they speak, what they say. She also took some lessons in the church and now she can guide tourists in the beautiful mountains around her village, she can explain how life is there, say many things about the vegetation and animals living there. I was amazed and motivated to do something with my life. I found out that the limits are only in our mind, we can do anything, there are no excuses why it is impossible. She had to work harder but now she has been living the life she wanted.
Never say that something is impossible.