This is Cat Cat, the village in the valley looking down from Sa Pa town, where the H'mong minority people leveled mountain slopes by hand to make space for cultivated rice-fields and lots for housing.
************
At my query about the name CAT CAT, local people told me that it has been spelled out the original term that the Frenchs used, "CASCADE", when they first arrived here in 1922 and discovered a cascade nearby.
Sa Pa ? or Chapa as originally named ? is a hill station lies in a nice valley (elevation 1600m), nicknamed The Roof of Vietnam. It is 390 km from Hanoi and near the border with China. It is the most famous hill station in North Vietnam with many old hotels built by the French. It is very foggy in Sa Pa early in the morning, especially between November and February and during this time it is cold (down to zero degree Celsius). Every 20 years or so people in Sa Pa can see snowfall (about 15 cm thick, the last one happened in January 2000). This is the land of H'mong and Dzao people, the largest and most typical groups in the region. Most of them are poor and the old women are well known for their way of selling souvenirs. The best event in Sa Pa is weekend Love Market on Saturday night (after 21.00 pm).The Black H'mong lives highest in the mountains, and are renowned for their musicality, songs and word-play. The women wear tunic-style dresses of hemp fabric, dyeing with natural indigo to a deep purple-black. They wear strips of indigo cloth as leggings, and stunning silver bangles around their necks and arms.
very nicely framed scenery here and the colours are very good. i wasnt aware that the terraces were in vietnam as well. looks like i'll be busy taking photos all over southwest china and vietnam one day soon.
Regarding "investment", I went the opposite way. I used my EOS3 as primary body, with more than 60 rolls from China through Vietnam last summer. After returning home, I forced myself to learn digital, and packed the EOS3, listing the 28-135mm IS lens in ebay. Instead, I am going to return to the location (Sa Pa) next month with EOS 10D (10D because the 20D is out of my reach).
I hope to have something better to post by middle of March 2005. So far, I believe shooting digital with camera above 6.3 megapixels + RAW format + Capture-One post-processing can be better than film. I hope the next trip will confirm this...
Amazing scene and beautiful landscape. I hjave just invested into an eos 3 even though I have an eos 20D and eos 1N. This is one beautiful landscape and thank you for sharing :)
Ok. What I meant in my comment was that the top portion of the pic appears slightly soft(or out of focus)... this can be corrected by focusing at the hyperfocal length instead of close or center(as auto focus usually does) and setting a high f-stop such as 16 or 22... Once you do that you will have a long exposure. Because of that you need a tripod to avoid camera shake (I suggest a light tripod such as the velbon maxi 343E.. that i use which feels as it doesnt exist). All of the above will bring the WHOLE picture into perfect focus.
Darie: Thanks for your critique that I read several times, trying to figure out what I must learn to improve.
You were correct on "manual focusing" and I believe I must force myself to do so, when possible.
Regarding the use of tripod, I brought along the Bogen Manfrotto 3205 plus its head 3030. But after the first leg of my trip in Beijing, I don't have enough energy left to carry it during the 16-kilometer-trek through mountain and valleys. So I left it at hotel room. Halfway of the trip, when many of my co-trekkers collapsed, I was glad I didn't bring it while the 40-pound backpack still on my shoulder.
We are trying to arrange a second trip to Sa Pa next late February 2005 (when minority people will celebrate the first full-moon of the lunar calendar year), via Kunming, China and ride the train down. This will promise more path to walk. But I will see if a smaller tripod can follow our steps.
Darie: Thanks for your critique about "Learn how to properly use DOF once". Actually, while making the 16-kilimoter trek uphill and down-valley, I had to follow the whole group of 20 young travelers with their camcorders or point-and-shot cameras; I was the oldest one, and my backpack was about 20 kilograms. Trying not to be at the tail-end of the line was too much for me already. That's why I set my camera in Tv, and the result is the loss of DOF.
Please refer to Mr. Matt Mitchel?s comments about the trek:
Once again I wish I saw the houses at the top clearly. Learn how to properly use DOF once and you will be done. That requires manual focusing but it is worth it. Might require a tripod too .
0 
