Xin Chai @ Sapa

Cat Cat is a village right down the hill from Sapa which is a bit fake and pretty much inundated with tourists, however, if you continue on the same road another couple kilometers you arrive at a much more interesting place called Xin Chai. In between a couple of rainy days, I had one day of sun, so I took advantage of the opportunity and had a taxi drop me off here for some exploration.

Xin Chai

Hmong dude playing music

It was incredibly desolate when I arrived so I took some time to explore the structures around the place. What I found reminded me of the style with which a child might build a fort, with little streams running through the center, bamboo sticks holding up the roof and all kinds of random animals walking around freely inside.

On the south side of the village, there are some rice terraces leading down to a river, while visiting down here to try and get some shade, I encountered a flock of goats feeding on the terrace grass. I thought it would be fun to snap some photos of them, however, this turned out to be much more difficult than I imagined. These goats were very on edge and nervous about me, more so than any goats I'd encountered before across India, Myanmar and the Philippines combined. To make things more difficult they were communicating, there was always one goat off in the distance higher on the terrace who would warn the lower ones whenever I moved, then they would yip and yap back and forth and make a group decision on the most strategic way to avoid me.

Goats running from me

School must have been in session when I arrived in the morning because when I made my way back up the hill into the village I encountered a flurry of activity. On my way back to the town center where I would wait for my cab driver, I couldn't make it five feet without bumping into a new group of kids excited about the foreigner exploring their village.

The view with the sun a bit lower