Sapa - Trekking to Hilltribe Villages

Our three days trekking in Sapa in Vietnam's northern border with China has been one of the coolest things I have done on this trip yet, and definitely in Vietnam. Siem Reap edges it out by a nose. There are 50 indigenous tribes in Vietnam that are not Vietnamese - they account for about 11% of the population and tend to be in the hilly areas in the North and mid-West. We opted for the 4 night, 3 day option that included a homestay at a village. We took the night sleeper train the first night and arrived at 5am - then hopped on a minibus which drove through the dawn the remaining 35 km to Sapa, an old French outpost town. After breakfast, we gathered in the hotel lobby for our guide and saw this group of Hmong women and girls outside. How darned friendly, we thought.

The second you walk out the door, a convoy (I kept hearing the 70's song in my head) of these women and girls attach themselves to your group, at a ratio of about 3 native to each Westerner. We stopped right before we hit the muddy descending trail to buy bamboo hiking sticks... oh boy were they needed. John was inundated with kids trying to sell him a stick for 5000 dong, or about 30 cents. John bought a stick, his mom did not and later when we realized how slippery and muddy it was, and when he would offer his stick to his mom, our guide kept offering to slap him.

It had been really cold in the mountains - we heard that 800 water buffalo had died and reports of older folks and kids were heard , too. In fact, we saw buffalo in wooden huts since they were trying to keep them somewhat protected. It had warmed a bit when we got there - very misty and foggy but I was warm as long as I was moving. Here is one of our first glances of the valley with a river below and terraces of rice.

This picture can't begin to do justice to how muddy and slick these trails were. I would never look at them on my own and say Yeah! But I had little ladies to help me. The first part of the trail I was pretty independent, especially since I had a stick. However, the Wall from Hell changed that and I occasionally grabbed the hands of two older ladies that had glommed on to me.

Here is one of our escorts with a few water buffalo. She was a tough cookie - wouldn't let you take a picture later in the day without buying something.

We stopped for lunch after a couple of hours of sliding down the valley. There was a crowd of ladies outside the lunch place - its obvious that they can't come in so they hover outside.... in wait, like spiders.... and if you glance at them, its all over but the crying.... ( "you buy from me! Cheap cheap!". Note the pig wandering among the group - these black pigs were everywhere.

Our guide was a Black Hmong 17 year old girl named Tsai - and she was AWESOME! So assured for 17 - her English was pretty good and self taught,and she was tough! Here she is on the left, with the two women that held my hands the first day. After lunch, when the ladies are leaving you since the trail is easier, you are expected to buy from them if they truly helped you (this is a debate since some escorts that didn't ever touch you ask for something too). I bought a cool blue embroidered (called Brocade here) purse from the lady on the right. I think I overpaid even with some bargaining. We were warned that they prices were realllllllly high on the trail since they think they got you emotionally - so just bought the minimum after bargaining and bought more at the market in Sapa. George always gets the pretty girls.

Tsai took us through her village and to her own house - that was very special of her. Here is a shot of her little sister (center) with a baby, not a sibling, probably a neighbor, sitting in front of the family hearth. These houses tended to heat with fire and cook with fire but also had electricity - for the DVD player and TV - how sad!

Here is Tsai and about half the village kids watching TV in her house.

Despite the TV, some girls kept busy making hemp string that will be used for weaving the gorgeous Hmong textiles for sale to tourists.

Here is Tsai in front of her primary school - she is a beautiful girl. She is wearing the national uniform of Hmong guides - her native black clothes with leggings, and umbrella and Wellington boots. We all wore Wellies, actually, and a good thing since several times I went up to my knee in mud - but you can feel every stone! Tsai said that most girls stopped school after primary and only boys went on to high school - rats! We didn't see many boys , they were probably in Sapa at school.

We stayed the night in a Red Dzao village - this is a different tribe from the Hmong and has a different language. The house was two stories with a dorm upstatirs for us with mats and blankets about 4 inches thick. The first floor was concrete and had a TV . The kitchen, shown below, was a bamboo room attached to the house - probably to keep fire risk to a minimum. All food was cooked over this "two burner" bamboo fire with the little black cat about 2 inches from the fire - she was fearless - and loud! She parked herself in front of one of the girls cutting up meat and meowed incessantly till she got something. That dog , Crabby Dog, was ... crabby.Poor guy was old and moved slow (except for a brief frantic play time with another dog that night). He growled all the time if you got near him. I got up at 2am to pee and had to walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom - and in the pitch dark that damned dog started growling at me!

This is Grandma to the family - I am scrunching down to be at her height. Sure, she looks cute and all, but the next morning when my bamboo stick went missing, guess who had it!

We had another group staying at the house and both our guide and their guide (name unknown but also a firecracker!) helped cook dinner - here she is towards the end of dinner prep. All of those dishes were cooked over the fire and were damned good! We started with fried sticky rice in paddies - yum. And then they made french fries in a huge wok and when they were served, we realized that they were garlic fries. Double yum !! There was a guy from San Francisco there and we were joking it was like Gordon Biersch fries at AT&T park! For breakfast, crepes. Amazing. Though everything I brought smelled like smoke for days.

After dinner, the family put on a Vietnamese Karaoke soap opera... it was on ongoing story about a guy getting dumped by his wife for a rich guy - lots of sobbing, from him. With Karaoke lyrics on the bottom so you could join in. Here we are sitting around a brazier trying to stay warm - our guides were transfixed by the video - and Aileen got sucked in . We were joking that we needed to pick her up a DVD to take home... or was it a joke? The home stay was great! Hung out with our guides alot, and the family a bit. In fact, the San Fran guy introduced them to Uno and got the mom hooked - she ended up betting her husband over who had to cook crepes in the morning over Uno hands - and she lost.The next morning we were greeted by the usual crowd of women waiting for the howlies to start sliding around - this meant more treachorous mud trails! Many of them trekked with babies tied to their back - and were helping us! Two girls tagging along for the walk with the valley in the background. The girl on the left had dark round bruises on her forehead - we saw that alot - and it turns out they are permanent scars from a traditional headache cure involving the heated end of a newly killed buffalo horn. Said to see that they were permanent scars.

Trying to capture how slick it was - here is the group crossing a river. You got used to sloshing through water - it was the slick red steep mud that was the problem - thank god for little Hmong ladies.

We got a great big convoy!!

Here are my Day 2 ladies - don't look happy , do they? I teased the lady on the right about not smiling and her friend said she was self conscious about not having upper teeth. And she was tough when it came time for buying... had to hold firm on the price for a pair of earrings from each lady. I asked a Red Dzao lady at lunch how much for a cool cloth necklace with metal decorations - I swear she said $50. I bought one for 50,000 Dong ,or $3, in the market. The amount of in your face price gouging and selling is a bit obnoxious and alot sad... but I guess one of the few routes to money for women that aren't allowed an education past grade school. I just wish I could hire them into high tech sales teams !

Thought this Black Hmong girl was beautiful.

The lunch crowd on Day 2 - that little lady in the middle was shy about pictures - she is a Red Dzao.

That baby was a cutie!

You read that there will be a waterfall around lunch time - and there was this stunner with our lunch place at the bottom. However, I was more interested in taking a picture of the trail that we slid down to get there - on the right side - with a few people on it to give you perspective.

Different group of stalkers after lunch. This lady on the left followed me pretty closely... her name began with "N" and she was also 44 years old. Separated at birth??? Her daughter is behind her with a baby strapped to her back - she looked about 14. Girls start to marry at 13 .

Back in Sapa for a night and day before catching our sleeper train back to Hanoi. I loved this sign... you have to understand that heat is an option, not a given, in Sapa. For example, we were promised a free fireplace in our hotel rooms - well, fireplace translated to a portable electric heater and you better believe we wanted it - there was no heat in the room until the night when these funky pipes under the bed got warm water circulating. It was funny to watch the people all bundled up to eat in our hotel restaurant - including seeing their breath inside. We huddled over our soup - but it was sooooo worth the cold. At the home stay I actually had to strip off some layers in the night... like from 6 to 4!

Did some short day hikes the last day and saw these ladies walking by.

We had the option of taking a moto back up the hill and I took it! I had hurt my ankle slip-sliding down the trails the day before and thought I would give it a break. I was nervous at first - here we are starting and I am reaching out to grab my camera from John. Within a few seconds I felt comfortable enough to take pictures as we drove. I've taken a few rides in Hanoi since then which frankly feels more dangerous - other bikes or cars or buses could hit you since traffic is free form. But it was fun. Took a ride to the Temple of Literature today and the driver tried to get me to pay more as we drove there - no way! The driver on the way back was much nicer - and both had helmets for me, so it felt pretty safe. I would take a moto on places like Siem Reap if I had to do it again - you are very much part of the scene rather than removed in a car that way.
Red Zdao ladies sewing textiles in the market in Sapa.

Dresses for sale near the river that feeds a French-era power plant.

Cute kids in Sapa - but a second after I snapped this pic they were on me like locusts!!!

We took a van down the hill to the train at the end of our third day - and wondered why they were picking us up 3 hours before the train. Well, part of that time is spent stopping so that the driver can shop for fresh water buffalo meat on the side of the road. One guy hung a piece of meat on his moto to drive with.... ick!

One last shot. We went into a restaurant called Baguettes et Chocolate - another training cafe to get kids off the street - more charity from us - such givers! I had to have a shot of John - notice anything weird, besides John's face????? Hollister..... Southern California??? Not! I love mistakes like this - I can imagine that some Vietnamese entrepreneur deciding to make these sweatshirts thinking, "Sure, Hollister is in Northern California but Southern sounds so much cooler!"

Northern Vietnam- Now This is What I'm Talking About

Using Hanoi as your base is the way to travel north Vietnam. There are tour offices everywhere - you never need to plan ahead - just show up and shop around for the right package and price. We did several trips out of Hanoi - one being Halong Bay. About 3 hours East of Hanoi, Halong Bay is a collection of 3,000 limestone islands in a fairly dense area off of the coast. We boarded a junk and cruised the bay before stopping for exploring a cave and kayaking - and you then sleep on the boat. This area is another Phang Nga Bay in Thailand, which is where James Bond Island is (Man with the Golden Gun was shot there) which had similar geography - but the scale of this was much larger. And so there were boats.... probably 200 of them. Above is the mooring where we got out to climb up into a large cave - over a km walk through the cave. Below - the scene on the top of the boat - there were lots of "oh my gods" spoken. The legend is that a dragon (big in Vietnamese myth) ran from Hanoi to the sea - and as he ran, his tail carved valleys in the land, leaving mountains. The sea filled in these valleys, and thus Halong Bay was born. I believe as much as Intelligent Design, just more charming.

Aileen and I on the top deck enjoying the first sun in Halong Bay in a month! She is not wearing her J-Lo sunglasses (bought in HCMC for $4) but I am wearing mine - and they broke shortly afterwards... a little tear was in my eye.

Went kayaking through some caves and caught the sunset on the way back to our boat.

Overall, Halong Bay was lovely and a nice gentle break from our trekking in Sapa the days before. We had one full day before Aileen had to leave - so we chose to go to the Perfume Pagoda. We knew it was the most sacred Buddhist site in Vietnam, and included a hike 3.5km up to a cave to the pagoda, after an hour row down a river lined with mountains that looked suspiciously like Halong Bay, but on a river. Since the three of us have Buddhist bents, and since we knew that it was the time of year that Vietnamese Buddhists travel there to make offerings and pray for the New Year, we thought that it would be a peaceful and spiritual thing to do.

OH MY GOD WE WERE SO WRONG!!! We should have known when our hotel staff tried several times to get us to go another day, not on the weekend (not an option since Aileen was leaving the next day). The two hour van ride there was okay .... until our driver clipped a dog. My heart just stopped. He ran away with one leg up so I desparately hope it wasn't broken. Our driver was introduced as someone with 20 years of safe driving - but he would drive sooooo fast down these narrow roads with kids and dogs and elderly folks.. and tourists ... wandering around.

The river trip was amazing... we had a girl rowing our boat. Many people in other boats were carrying food and golden flowers and would wave and say "HELLO" to us...... our guide explained that many of the folks were from the country and would never have seen a westerner. We were the exotics at that point - so Aileen did her best royal (remember...Queen of Cambodia) wave. Later people were petting her... well more like touching her arms either because she is pale or pink from the sun. There were TONS of boats on the river heading to the cave.

I can't even describe how brutal it was to step off the peaceful boat into this riot of people. I am guessing there were 10,000 people there. Our guide disagreed but I swear I brushed against a good 1,000 myself. Here is the view from our lunch table - which was interesting. We had passed many types of carcasses hanging outside the restaurants - because this is the ONE time of year that people from all over Vietnam come to the pagoda, the restaurants offer stuff for the country folk, like deer, and dog, and cat. We even saw a cage of cats and one of porcupines. It was enough to put me off my food so rice and fish for me. We decided to take the cable cars up and walk down to save time. Uh huh.

This is as close to the Black Hole of Calcutta that I hope I ever get. We stood in this queue for 75 minutes before we got on the cable car. It was okay (eesh) when we were in the parts with metal dividing the crowd. But there were parts where you were simply in a mosh pit of people - and you had to push and be pushed. Here is a shot inside the building - the stairs were sign of heaven - until we got to the second floor. Many Vietnemese were grinning their heads off - it was all big fun, the pushing. I stood there and thought to myself, "Do I really want to go to to China where this will be more common?".

Here is Aileen in the cable car.... she LOVED the view as you can see! The funny thing... all that waiting meant it would have been faster to walk up.

After another 30 minutes or so, after morphing into a simple head being transported by a thousand legged body (that is what it felt like), we got into the cave! Here is the first room - tons of people milling about, many carrying their offerings on plates (like chickens) and boxes and flowers. We went further into the cave and found the main alter - all light up with incense in the air. People wouldn't leave all offerings - some they would take back to their home shrines, I suppose - so they hauled stuff 3.5km up the hill through crowds and then back down.

We got separated in the cave (I was shocked we stayed together as long as we did - at one point I was gripping John's T-shirt) so we walked down the hill separately. Now, the experience had already been disgusting and amazing at the same time, and the walk down added a new element. The whole 3.5km walk down, a mix of stairs and boulders, was lined with stalls and restaurants, selling sugar cane juice and crawling army men and videos of prepubescent Vietnamese boys singing pop songs. So, I thought, how does this play with the precepts of Buddhism. Classic Buddhism teaches that this life is temporary and one of many on the way to the ultimate truth. It also teaches that you should not be possessive of things or people since they are temporary. So this blatant and LOUD display of commercialism was depressing.... but in a way, the perfect way to illustrate how I see Vietnam. Here are some stalls on the way down.

Mystery meat - there are chickens, cats and dogs here.

Some friendly guys on a neighboring boat.

So, this day that we hoped would be a peaceful spiritual trek instead turned into one of the more bizarre and visceral days of my life - its up there with the "crawling through bat guana and over bamboo bridges in the Burmese sea gypsy bird nests cave experience". The ride back was through the same village that we had come before - and was a fascinating peek up close at what struck me about Vietnam. Sometimes on trips like this I realize that I have grown used to things around me and I don't notice them anymore - but they all add to the texture of the country. So here are a few random thoughts on my almost 3 weeks in Vietnam.

Most of the people live near HCMC, Hanoi or the coast. However even 20 miles away from a large city like Hanoi, you see how close the people are to their agrarian and spiritual roots. There were rice paddy fields within 10 km of Hanoi - being worked by hand at 6pm as the sun was setting. In the communist times, people starved. When the economy was opened up to allow private ownership (capitalism) and foreign investment in 1990, within 3 years Vietnam was exporting rice. However, there are still big gaps between poor and rich.

In the rice fields, there are frequently shrines like shown below - we think that they are holding the ashes of the ancestors of the people still farming that land. Its peaceful.

Life is still pretty cheap, I suspect. Drivers all around the country drive fast and aggressively. The national anthem of Vietnam should be car, van and moto horns since the standard way to drive is on the wrong side of the road as you pass others, or on someones butt (usually a moto) as a warning to move over. The experience of hitting that dog made me guess that they are going fast to save money - the faster they get these tourists back to their hotels, the more trips we can do with the van. So the fact that we didn't see any accidents with humans doesn't convince me that they frequently are hurt by speeding vehicles. I do know the Vietnam recently imposed a helmet law for motorcycles as a way to save medical costs - so there must be a bunch of accidents happening.

Its noisy - damned noisy. Constant honking, constant music playing loudly. Not alot of privacy. Speaking of privacy - people seem to live on the sidewalk , I suspect since their homes or apartments are tiny. You will be walking by a hotel in the evening or early morning - and there will be people sleeping all over the lobby of the hotel - and there will usually be a few motorcyles pulled up into the lobby for safety.

Vietnam has seemingly only had an open economy since 1990.However, these folks are some of the most brutal capitalists that I have even seen - so I suspect that throughout the socialist economic times, there were huge gray markets going on. Vietnam is far more touristy than I had imagined - and the people are in-your-face-aggressive about buying their wares or taking a moto or rickshaw ride. You just have to say No and move on. I have only seen the tourist economy in action - but I suspect other industries would be as spirited and competitive.

Food is an interesting topic. I know that I have tended to be in touristy spots - but there are a ton of restaurants, including informal cafes with miniature plastic chairs thrown out for locals to eat at. Also - not alot of stores to by groceries... people seem to buy fresh meat and veg and fruit daily to cook with . Like Romania, in fact. Makes all those stores full of processed food in the US seem... overkill. Here is a typical sidewalk cafe in Hanoi.

Hanoi is a very interesting city. We didn't read it anywhere but figured out that there are neighborhoods, or sometimes just a block, dedicated to a specific good. For example, below is a cobbler in the shoe area on the Northeast side of the lake. After a while , you could navigate by type of store - We're in the candy area! Here are the types of goods that we have seen so far - makes for a long day if you have a variety of things to buy.

* Candy

* Shoes

* Underwear Alley

* Eyeglasses

* Towels

* Kids clothes

* Furniture

* Backpacks/luggage

* Jewelry

* And the weirdest - gravestones. And they display samples. I was walking by this one today and did a double take - its both funny and perhaps prophetic - but I think they stuck a young Brittany Spears on one tombstone. We saw two funerals in Hanoi.One was a van parked in the street with the coffin in it and the family members crying at the back of it. The second was more like a wake for an elderly woman just down the street from our hotel. They had flowers and incense music (reminded me of a New Orleans Jazz funeral) and a picture of her on the sidewalk, and there were people sitting nearby dressed in filmy white robes...

Hoan Kiem Lake is the center of the Old Quarter - we strolled it our first day and saw old men like this enjoying their weekend by the lake. In the distance is the famous Tortoise Tower in the middle of the lake, frequently used on advertising for Hanoi.

We walked through a food market and I was fascinated by these fish. They had been live minutes before, but even with their heads cut off they continued to gasp for several minutes. Probably all muscle memory but fascinating.

One of our last nights in Hanoi we ate on the street (so we got to sit on those groovy mini plastic seats). We grilled beef and vegetables on a hotplate ourselves and ate it with hot chili sauce and baguette. YUMMMM. Here are John and I and our Tiger beers.

So - Aileen left last night for Scotland, and John is off to HCMC today. I will really miss her - she's a great travel mate with a great sense of adventure and humor. And she's gonna be a queen so you gotta like that. We ran pretty hard for the last month - so before I fly to Laos on Wednesday, I am staying in Hanoi for a few low key days of catching up my blog. I moved to a hotel with CNN specifically to vedge with. Total bonus - I found the Academy Awards on several Vietnamese stations - so you know when they say Billions are watching, its true. They didn't mention , however, that a nasally Vietnamese interpreter would be repeating what everyone says! Here is Flat George offering Real George encouragement just as they were announcing the Best Actor winner. His smile turned upside down when Daniel Day Lewis won instead.

Walked around and saw some cool French architecture in Hanoi.

If I were to coach someone who wanted to experience Vietnam, I would nudge them towards the north of Vietnam. There are amazing natural wonders, big and small cities and some history.
I will be going to the Hanoi Hilton tomorrow before heading to Laos the next day but wanted to get this blog out when I had fast internet (rare here).