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!"